3 ms·

Do you support a law forcing every eligible person to take vaccines or not?

michael_h 12y ago
I might not support that law. BUT, if you're opting out of society, you can't complain that you're not being treated the same as everyone else. If you voluntarily opt out of the normal schedule of vaccines, you can't go to public school or to my kids' pediatrician's office. I wonder if this would even be an issue if we would flip the equation a bit: you don't have to get your kids vaccinated, but then they have to go to a school filled with other unvaccinated kids. This wouldn't solve the overall problem, but it would do some 'fear aikido', redirecting them to see that they are trading a nebulous risk for a very real one.
- WorldWideWayne 12y ago
  Thank you. I'm not an anti-vaxxer but if I didn't want my kid to be vaccinated I think it's reasonable to expect me to home-school them and find a pediatrician who supports my freedom to choose even if it meant moving out of the country.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Do you support a law forcing every eligible person to take vaccines or not? I think that's both a more effective and humane approach to the danger posed by non-vaccination than the also-defensible alternatives of allowing people to make that decision but then legal prohibiting them from most public intercourse, or just punishing anyone who is found to have, as a responsible adult, chosen not to vaccinate themselves or their child to a disease where they knew, or reasonably should have known, an effective vaccine was available, without a valid medical reason, and where the person so unvaccinated then transmitted the disease to a third party, for battery or, in the event that death results, murder of the depraved indifference type (as well as, of course, allow civil damages against those responsible adults for the resulting harms.)
HarryHirsch 12y ago
Those laws existed, and most people found them legitimate. If you read the "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" closely, there's one scene where the protagonists see a group of riders, which the old guy, the leader of the gold miners, identifies as physicians that vaccinate all of Mexico against smallpox, by force, if needed: "Just show them your certificate of vaccination, and they will leave you in peace. But if you haven't got on, they'll catch you and vaccinate you." You don't get the sense the author condemns the practice. It's a strong statement from an anarcho-syndicalist like Traven. At least he was aware of the fact that everyone lives downstream of someone. With today's libertarians you get the strong notion that they imagine each of them living in their own bubble in Low Earth Orbit.

I might not support that law. BUT, if you're opting out of society, you can't complain that you're not being treated the same as everyone else. If you voluntarily opt out of the normal schedule of vaccines, you can't go to public school or to my kids' pediatrician's office. I wonder if this would even be an issue if we would flip the equation a bit: you don't have to get your kids vaccinated, but then they have to go to a school filled with other unvaccinated kids. This wouldn't solve the overall problem, but it would do some 'fear aikido', redirecting them to see that they are trading a nebulous risk for a very real one.

WorldWideWayne 12y ago
Thank you. I'm not an anti-vaxxer but if I didn't want my kid to be vaccinated I think it's reasonable to expect me to home-school them and find a pediatrician who supports my freedom to choose even if it meant moving out of the country.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Do you support a law forcing every eligible person to take vaccines or not? I think that's both a more effective and humane approach to the danger posed by non-vaccination than the also-defensible alternatives of allowing people to make that decision but then legal prohibiting them from most public intercourse, or just punishing anyone who is found to have, as a responsible adult, chosen not to vaccinate themselves or their child to a disease where they knew, or reasonably should have known, an effective vaccine was available, without a valid medical reason, and where the person so unvaccinated then transmitted the disease to a third party, for battery or, in the event that death results, murder of the depraved indifference type (as well as, of course, allow civil damages against those responsible adults for the resulting harms.)

HarryHirsch 12y ago

Those laws existed, and most people found them legitimate. If you read the "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" closely, there's one scene where the protagonists see a group of riders, which the old guy, the leader of the gold miners, identifies as physicians that vaccinate all of Mexico against smallpox, by force, if needed: "Just show them your certificate of vaccination, and they will leave you in peace. But if you haven't got on, they'll catch you and vaccinate you." You don't get the sense the author condemns the practice. It's a strong statement from an anarcho-syndicalist like Traven. At least he was aware of the fact that everyone lives downstream of someone. With today's libertarians you get the strong notion that they imagine each of them living in their own bubble in Low Earth Orbit.