…I offer this counter.
Secular social engineering — that is, replacing God with the State, then making the State your God — is really no different in kind from the cries of “theocracy” that often ring out even among certain conservatives, save that overt expressions of those religions that believe in a higher metaphysical power than man (or his aggregation) have been carefully and methodologically removed from public discourse, while overt expressions of those religions that grant man power over man have been celebrated and raised to a level of moral authority that is entirely at odds with our Declaration and Constitution.
This is the essence of the Progressive gambit.
But then, at least liberal fascism doesn’t have those silly little Jesus fishes. Because honestly, how tacky, am I right?
Number 6: Where am I?
Number 2: In the Village.
Number 6: What do you want?
Number 2: We want information.
Number 6: Whose side are you on?
Number 2: That would be telling. We want information… information… information.
Number 6: You won’t get it.
Number 2: By hook or by crook, we will.
Number 6: Who are you?
Number 2: The new Number 2.
Number 6: Who is Number 1?
Number 2: You are Number 6.
Number 6: I am not a number, I am a free man!
Number 2: BWAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahaha…
— The Prisoner, 1967
Oh for the days when “social engineering” meant trying to get your friend with the harelip a blowjob from the fat girl that worked late night at Arby’s.
I think I just lost my cookies.
Odd as it is to say, whether Obama intends to be a dictator or not (see JG’s previous post) is actually a second order problem. The first order problem is how and why this society elected to treat its replacement religion as none at all. Everything that’s wrong with Obama’s for-your-own-good naked emperor parade can be traced to your and my peers not having the principles or convictions to call things what they are.
And Barry’s naked, but America is blind to it, preferring it that way. It’s easier. It’s just remarkable the barrels ink spilled trying just to catch up to the lie racing around the world, our shoes barely laced. But that is The Lie’s nature.
Somewhere in pages past I think I once pasted a lengthy Wikipedia definition of religion and substituted “progressivism” for “religion” or thereabouts.
They read identically.
Santorum is too extreme
How, exactly, is Santorum extreme?
just is
Maybe extreme doesn’t mean what I think it means. To me, “Santorum is too extreme” would mean that a large number of Santorum’s views are only shared by something like 5%-10% of the population.
That’s not the case. Most of his extreme godbotheryness is shared by 30%-60% of the population.
Are we to elect a new citizenry?
that would be impractical
and where on earth are you getting those numbers
Well, that’s certainly an incisive criticism.
Godbotheryness aside, Santorum hearts unions. He voted against the Right to Work Act back in the olden days before Bob Casey, Jr. beat him like a rented mule.
and where on earth are you getting those numbers
Prolly the same place you’re getting “he’s too extreme” examples.
Santorum’s extremism is relative to ‘feets rather limpid definition of staunch.
If I thought Santorum was
staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch staunch
I probably wouldn’t be comfortable with him myself.
It’s strange the California education law thinger doesn’t discuss teaching kindergarteners the microbiology of the symbiotic or parasitic flora and fauna present on skin and the internal tracts of various sorts. I mean, I was brought up in admiration of Aaron Copland’s superior musical skill, for instance, or Benjamin Britten’s for that matter, but never actually regarding what microbes they exchanged with their nominal sexual partners, nor whether they each had a regard for supplemental lubricants for the purposes of sex-acts or whatnot. I mean, what is it California is teaching admiration for kinda gets muddled in the telling, seems to me.
Pulled ’em out of my ass. But, I figured there’d be a low of about 30% on some aspects of abortion and a high of around 60% on other aspects of abortion and random gay issues.
For instance, gay marriage failed the referendum in Cali. Think what you want about it but the opponents didn’t fall on some extreme section of the spectrum, they were the majority.
Pennsylvania hearts unions leigh.
Well, in his defense, at least unions are made up of actual citizens.
Really. Have a heart.
I know, Ernst. I lived there for almost ten long and miserable years. Rustbelt Republicans are bad news.
what I see is that employed people are much less likely to have a problem with the gay marriage than the unemployed… anyone what reports income is across the board less likely to oppose the gay marriage
interesting
Santorum has pledged to mirror Reagan. Romney has pledged to stick a finger in the wind — and to trash conservatives. Perry has pledged to…uh…oops.
This is a distraction. You should stick to talking about the spendings.
Perry has pledged to make government as inconsequential in our lives as possible. I like that better.
What I see is that employed people are much less likely to cling to their guns and bibles
…bitterly
interesting.
Compare minority and white employment rates and then compare those groups’ views on gay marriage.
That is to say, I doubt you’ll find a causative relationship between employment and social views. You’ll probably find a correlation between ethnic groups and social views.
By decreeing vaccinations and demanding that citizens tax dollars go to fund the education of non-citizens.
Because, stop being heartless.
Rustbelt republicans are trouble. Bible Belt republicans are icky. Wall street Republicans are too blue blooded. Main Street Republicans are too uncool.
By the time the sunbelt Republicans are in a position to deliver you, it’ll be too late
…because the sunbelt will be Aztlan.
Maybe not.
Nonsense. Everyone knows the smarter you are, the less likely you are to question dramatic changes in cultural practices that are forcibly normalized by judges correcting the backward and bigoted wishes of an electorate.
In fact, that unquestioning acceptance of radical change is what marks you as not only smart, but the best kind of conservative: ones that aren’t really all that much so.
For those of you listening to Rush (or not): I think I just heard him right Santorum’s next anti-Romney add.
It’ll be the only one he needs.
is not
I’m seeing the relation ship fade but not disappear… it fades the most for blacks, who show very little difference in opinion whether employed or not, but white people and hispanics both show a fairly significant difference in opinion.
I’m not sure what the takeaway is though exactly.
Those majority numbers cited in the post you linked to JHo aren’t as smart as the minority numbers.
Not only that, but the minority numbers are by definition more exclusive. Which is the way of hipness, you see.
All people should be vaccinated for the safety of us all. It is called “herd immunity”. If you, the agregate, choose to forgoe vaccinations of you and yours, you are putting me and mine at risk. It is the law if you are to attend public schools, unless you have managed to ram through a godbothery exception that interferes with your worship of Yahweh to be vaccinated against costly and potentially deadly diseases.
The illegal aliens who are eligable for in state tuition must meet a large number of criteria in order qualify. Additionally, they make up less than one percent, <1%, of college students in the state of Texas. They are not going to school for free.
write not right.
esus Christ I’m losing it!
What is this Official New Morality you speak of, boss, and how do I get its newsletter?
You should probably have a cup of coffee and a sandwich, Ernst. It’s low blood sugar.
Does the herd really need to be immunized against cervical cancer?
I hear you saying that federalized State educational institutions and their culture trump my right to be independent of them, leigh.
The majority is very extreme. The center is the 3-5% that’s all about the butseks. And the preteen sex crowd.
I thought it was distractedly typing too fast myself.
Probably there’s an Amendment making same all constitutional and such, leigh, so no worries.
Which, Medicare and Social Security. And the DHHS and its one trillion dollar budget.
Yes. Sexually transmitted diseases can be caught from toilet seats, right.
— notably not on the list of criteria? Being a citizen.
But don’t worry. It’s only a few people, so the principle can be bracketed, if it gets us the Hispanic vote.
Staunch.
Anti-Burkean, that’s what that is. Possibly indicative of strong French revolutionary tendencies.
It can’t hurt. I have had cervical canceer. It hurts. A lot.
Boys should also be vaccinated against the HP virus since they are the carriers after being exposed to it. The idea of vaccinating these young people before they are sexually active, is to stop the virus from getting a foothold. Not unlike all of the vaccinations we give our soldiers who are to be shipped off to foreign lands, losing one’s virginity is uncharted territory.
It’s in my interest that welfare babies be welfare babies as opposed to either not existing or being all Christiany and private sector.
I have had my state’s nanny State jammed up my ass, leigh. It hurts. A lot.
I haven’t. And I’m willing to take my chances.
Interestingly, pro-lifers are icky and godbothery. But when it comes to deciding whether or not you want to be pumped with a vaccine, well, your body belongs to the herd all of a sudden.
Or as I like to call it, the collective.
Just what? Unpack that, please Jho.
That’s the case everywhere it’s been on a ballot, isn’t it?
Word. Break your back and your heart, it will. For Teh Children™!
You first, leigh: unpack statist-flavored pragmatism and where it, by dependable, unconflicted principle, yields to original structural constitutionality, and with it, my rights, liberties, and properties.
Jeff, when I was a little girl the Salk vaccine for polio was brand new. Polio is virtually unknown today because of Dr. Salk’s vaccine and the willingness of people who watched their babies and other loved ones whither or sicken and die to vaccinate themselves against the disease.
Iron lungs are museum pieces today. Little kids in leg braces with crutches weren’t when I was small.
Who said that? It wasn’t me. Not all pro-lifers are religious. Not all godbotherers are icky.
If I remember correctly, the last time Gardisil came up Stephanie was pretty dismissive of mandating the vaccine because it’s ineffectiveness at preventing cancer meant requiring it wasn’t warranted. Maybe I have my objector and objections mixed up, but the point is that the herd can’t be protected from HPV the same way it can and should be protected from other diseases, so your herd immunity argument isn’t likely to prevail.
I’m not sure, Pablo. Has it ever passed a referendum? It seems to me that it’s all been by judicial decree but I could have forgotten some state or another.
Only if you and yours are fucking them though, right? Which, that’s kinda risky itself.
Jho, there is a lovely little town in Oregon called Ashland. The citizens there have declined by a ration of 3:1 to opt out of vaccinating their children. I hope someone is doing a longetudinal study of the population for a compare and contrast with other cities and towns to challenge the efficacy of vaccination.
No, Pablo. I am talking about all communicable diseases. Measles, Mumps, Rubella, et al.
Well, when they invent a vaccination against stupid, you guys will all be singing a different tune out the other side of your sleeve.
You haven’t answered my question but to assert more weak pragmatism, leigh. If I can call it that.
The question stands. And if you insist, I can give you more pragmatic chapter and verse on deaths on the ground by malignant statism than you can stomach.
The larger process issue with Gardasil was Perry’s use of the executive order.
None of which has anything to do with a cervical cancer vaccine and forced vaccinations.
Yes Ernst. That was Stephanie who also had cervical cancer. My alluding to herd immunity is getting muddled here. I was talking about required vaccinations for attending public schools, not Gardasil which is moot now since that mandate was unmandated before it was ever implemented.
I know a lot of young girls who have had the HPV vaccine and only one suffered a side effect. That was a nasty headache on the day of the second injection which may or may not be coincidental and not caused by the vaccine itself.
California is very concerned about the herds health. They’ve also made it illegal to use a tanning bed for anyone under 18, even with parental consent(the parental consent part is what the law changed).
Luckily it’s still OK for a 12 year old to get an abortion without parental
consentknowledge.It’s all for our own good, quit being haters..
Those two things are all you need to be successful. But you need both of them.
Asked and answered below, Jeff.
gardasil killed the radio star
The point leigh was about how Those Other* Republicans/Conservatives are the ones causing Trouble* for Republicans like Us* and how we all wish they would go away.
Until they do.
*whatever it is we mean by Other, Trouble and Us
In which case the “herd” argument doesn’t address my concerns with Perry, in which case, one has to wonder why you’ve introduced the red herring of polio vaccines.
Well, then. Case closed!
Next time I’ll limit myself to: saying “Rustbelt Republicans are bad news” is as stupid thing to say.
God forbid they buy cough syrup though.
What was?
You know, you’re so all over the place with your arguments here it is sometimes hard to take you seriously.
Additionally, they make up less than one percent, 1%, of college students in the state of Texas. They are not going to school for free.
And every single one of them is taking a slot that would have otherwise been occupied by a US citizen. You are aware that far more students apply to colleges than are accepted, aren’t you?
This is the same bogus and disingenuous justification that Jerry Brown and the pro-illegal alien legislature here in CA tried to give for the AB131 “Dream Act” that gives illegal immigrant college students access to taxpayer-funded student loans. As if there is some big pile of money just sitting around that no one was using and would go to waste otherwise.
Every dollar spent on a student loan for an illegal alien is one less dollar available for a US citizen. Just as every college seat filled by an illegal immigrant is one less seat available for an American citizen.
Third request, leigh.
Look, I don’t mean to be a dick but if you can’t see the connection between all forms of statist mandates, you could be trumpeting the wrong tune. Just as I used to ask for a copy of the leftist’s manifesto and eventually gave up — his underlying, defending principle — I ask you to define where what you seem to be advocating drifts safely well away from the State just making you do anything, claiming it’s for your own good as that State sees it.
From this we can determine if a particular action unavoidably carried out by the State occurs with bennies — your claim — and without a dime’s worth of intended unintended consequence IYKWIM. But first horses and carts, if you please.
Pablo, our citzens are woefully ignorant about science, as sdferr touched upon above. Every year in my little town, more and more people try and usually succeed in having their children attend school without being vaccinated against childhood disease.
I’m afraid it is going to take an epidemic of Scarlet Fever or Rubella before people wake up. A few hundred deaf babies and a couple of Helen Kellers will get some attention.
My alluding to herd immunity is getting muddled here. I was talking about required vaccinations for attending public schools, not Gardasil[.]
That was you’re first mistake.
I am sorry, Jeff. You said “mandating vaccines…” in your original remarks to me. I wasn’t thinking only of Gardasil which, apparently, was your intent. My mistake as I took that to be “vaccines” in the aggregate, not the specific.
Why yes, yes they are, leigh.
But didn’t we go off on your little bender when you insisted government education was paramount and rights flowed from it? As in:
So, get on board the State Express, snag your bennies, and stop being a hicktard fundy xtianist-xtitutionalist. Or thereabouts?
Rick Perry hates Obama. I could be mistaken, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard him couch one of his statements with “Obama’s a nice guy, but………”
Obama is not a nice guy. He’s a dickbag. Even Mark Halperin knows it. So once again, I’m looking for the candidate who’s going to say “All these people keep saying you’re personally popular Barry. Were you class president in Hawaii? No? So, you weren’t personally popular then? When did you develop your method of becoming personally popular? You know, calling women “sweetie” when they ask you a tough question. Telling Old Man McCain that the campaign’s over, while you’re campaigning. Saying “Because I won, that’s why”. Saying that doctors like to cut kids feet off for higher margins. Saying the white police of Cambridge acted stupidly.
“You know what I think Barry? I think people are scared to say you’re not very likable. But I’m not, because I know what’s in my heart and I’m not afraid of people whose only argument is identity politics. You suck. You golf way too much and it’s time for you to go.”
If Santorum goes that way, I’ll gladly support him. Perry too. Maybe even Gingrich. But I know Romney won’t because he already uses the “nice guy” intro.
California is very concerned about the herds health. They’ve also made it illegal to use a tanning bed for anyone under 18, even with parental consent(the parental consent part is what the law changed).
They have also taken minor members of the herd who are under 8 years of age and under 4′ 9″ in height and forced them back into child booster seats in cars. For their own good. Because everyone knows that the State cares far more about our children than us parents. If we really cared, we would have kept our kids in booster seats until they were old enough to drive themselves all on our own.
Seems some are also woefully ignorant about liberty, too. Which science evidently trumps.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to put leeches on my temples. To suck the bad humours out. Doctor’s orders.
I agree in general, JHo. I will respectfully disagree in the specific matter of vaccinating schoolchildren.
And you do so emotionally and arbitrarily, leigh.
Leeches as treatment are making a comeback. Humours have nothing to do with it, however.
Vaccinating children is a difficult question, leigh, precisely because it is the unvaccinated children who will most suffer any outbreak of, say, rubella — and it is their parents’ decision that precipitates that suffering.
At the same time, though, the question at stake here is, who is ultimately responsible for parental choices as they affect children, the parents or the state? It’s a tricky issue in this case — as it is in the case of, say, Christian scientists — but it’s an important discussion to have.
And much depends on how real you feel is the likelihood of the slippery slope. In my experience, it’s always slippery, and it’s always steep where government and power and control are involved.
How so? I don’t think we have discussed vaccinations on here or at least, I have not.
You know who won’t have to worry about it? People who’ve been vaccinated. Choices have consequences. That doesn’t make them best left to the government.
Here’s the things about the Polio vaccine:
Dr. Salk’s first vaccine was a live virus vaccine. That a certain portion of those vaccinated were going to contract polio from the fucking vaccine was baked into the initial immunization effort. Knowing that, parents nonetheless lined up for blocks and begged to get their children in to the initial vaccination tests. That’s how scared people were of polio.
HPV doesn’t rise to that level. Hell, I’m not certain it rises to the level of measles mumps and rubella.
Also leigh, if you seriously think that it’s in the public interest for the state to protect you and yours from sexually transmitted HPV, I’d love to know your take on quarantining the HIV positive.
Not the point. The point is that science at one time dictated treatment based on the idea of humours, and used leeches in that context, not to save digits or help circulation or as a Demi Moore beauty tip.
The reference to “herd immunity” actually points directly at the problem. Man is not a herd animal — but herd animals got that way through evolutionary pressure.
So, if one wants man to become a herd animal, what better way than to eliminate the species’ ability to survive disease by subjecting him to the kind of health care once reserved to livestock?
Indeed, Jeff, re the slippery slope.
It is also rather a rock and a hard spot question. We all pay for public schools to educate our children. The schools are charged in loco parentis (I think that’s right) with the care of our children while they are there. Is it wrong or right for the schools to refuse the taxpayer’s children who are not vaccinated? School children come in contact not only with their classmates and teachers, but also share desk space and eating spaces with others. Unvaccinated children are not only at risk themselves, but put others at risk as they weaken the herd immunity. (It is an unfortunate term, but that is what it is called in medicine.)
I really like that point, but I’d phrase the question slightly differently from McGehee’s:
If we can resolve, or at least alleviate this one kind of problem by treating Man like a herd animal, what other kinds of problems can we resolve or alleviate?
That seems to me to be Progressivism/Socialism/Statism in a nutshell.
Ernst, I think that when HIV was originally being studied as “the gay plague”, that yes, those affected should have been quarantined. David Horowitz has a long piece on AIDS activism and the “normalization” of AIDS through political pressures of the gay lobby in San Francisco and New York.
If it were any other group of people other than gay young men who were sickening and dying at tremendous rates, say you or me instead, you can bet we would have been quarantined.
Herd Immunity is a medical term. It is not a commie/pinko/statist speak word. Ask your doctor about it next time you go for a check-up.
The point is that science at one time dictated treatment based on the idea of humours, and used leeches in that context, not to save digits or help circulation or as a Demi Moore beauty tip.
I was trying to be humourous. I failed.
Science isn’t static and it is willing to admit its mistakes…except when we are talking about the EPA.
I’m familiar with Horwitz on aids, and you’ve missed McGehee’s point.
Your specific knowledge is getting in the way of his general knowledge.
I just saw Demi in Bunraku she is still a very pretty lady
Well, I guess I should just sit over here and take notes.
In loco Parentis doesn’t mean what it used to mean. It used to mean that the schools acted as the parents’ representatives on behalf of their interests. Now, to the extent it has any meaning, it means that the schools act as the parents’ replacements on behalf of the state’s interests.
The Schools = State. And this sails right on past you.
The correct question — already alluded to twice above — is: Is government limited and proper when we make allowances for it to violate constitutional structure in order to avail ourselves of its perceived benefits?
And the answer is obvious, all the more when the sea of unintended consequences comes crashing down on us, which they are and which you know.
Exactly, as if it still needed stating which apparently it does.
That’s not accurate, JHo. The sailing right past me part.
Schools are a necessary evil. How they are funded is up for debate. I am for getting the federal government out of it. This will not be easy or even likely in the near future since many people seem to think that the DoE has always been with us. Personally, I have sent my children to both public and parochial schools with mixed results from both. They both landed full scholarships to college so somewhere along the line something clicked. Littlest one has three more years of high school to attend, but has college all paid for.
I can’t get cervical cancer. I can’t give cervical cancer. Don’t force me to get a vaccine for a disease I can’t get. Don’t tell me that you have a vaccine for cancer when it’s not a vaccine for cancer, it’s a vaccine for genital warts. I can get genital warts. I can also get the flu. No one’s forcing me to get a flu vaccine. Do genital warts kill more people per year than the flu? In 2007 the CDC says 4,021 women died of cervical cancer. CDC estimates that from the 1976-1977 season to the 2006-2007 flu season, flu-associated deaths ranged from a low of about 3,000 to a high of about 49,000 people per year. Also in 2007, 29,093 men died of prostate cancer, but Perry doesn’t have a buddy who works for the prostate cancer vaccine company so no one cares.
Ill informed and condescending is no way to go through life.
Then why all the conditionals and generalities?
Predicating assumed constitutional losses on the preexistence and prominence of socialist programs has the issue precisely backwards! Do not ask me if I agree that cervical cancer should be halted. Ask me how to do so without involving the state and any of its miserable failed programs and institutions.
Assertion: Government schooling is child abuse, the result of which is a corrupted, dependent society.
Do you find that a difficult statement to swallow? How about we restart the experiment in American freedom and self-sufficiency by giving it merely equal billing with any spoken or unspoken argument that benefits are only projected and hoped to best derive themselves from government, that being the contemporary status quo.
Which is the more audacious view, leigh?
We’re so far from a balanced perspective in this miserable little failshit country that we deserve the tyranny being constructed around us. Imagine: Questioning libertarian results by how they mold themselves to a prior abuse by government of our rightful, protected, and lawful original principles. Spit.
Who was that for? I’ll let the PW commenters decide.
Unvaccinated children are not only at risk themselves, but put others at risk as they weaken the herd immunity.
You seem to think that a breakdown in herd immunity puts the entire herd at risk. This is wrong.
Herd immunity is the concept that as long as almost every member of the group is immunized, there will be so few potential hosts remaining that any introduction of the infectious disease will find nowhere to gain purchase. Thus, the disease never shows up — dying, as it were, on the vine.
When herd immunity breaks down, it means that there is now fertile ground upon which for the infectious agent to take hold. This means that the disease actually shows up, and may cause alarm. But that doesn’t change the fact that those members who were immunized are still immune. Because they were immunized. The only population at risk in this scenario is the population that chose against immunization. I fail to see how it’s such a bad thing when the free riders discover that there really is a cost.
To the extent that the State has an interest in seeing its population immunized, I could probably accept programs they implement to educate citizens on the importance of immunizations, and I could understand (though I probably wouldn’t support) programs to make low-cost immunizations available. But there is a sharp, bright line between that and compulsory immunization. I can survive being preached at, but I simply will not tolerate being forced to undergo a medical procedure against my will.
It’s moot, in this case, because I really do understand the importance of vaccinations and the baseless bullshit of Jenny “Doctor Playmate of the Year” McCarthy and her autism hyperventilation. But if my family are to be vaccinated, it’s because we choose to be.
Which is it? General or specific? You say general, Ernst says Specific.
Which way is up?
That’s correct, Squid. I think both Pablo and I made the point earlier on, but we were both a bit more snotty about it. So thanks for taking the time to articulate it more clearly.
I’m just tired of having to fight hundreds of battles every day. Some days I get to feeling like I’ve wasted a good decade of my life here.
Then it blows over after a spell.
OK cranky, I’ll admit that I don’t know exactly how many people died from the flu every year, but that’s only because my eyes were blurred by tears and it was too hard to read. Why do you hate people who get the flu?
Teen Screen and similar programs get exhumed and trotted out all the time for fresh attempts at making your kid’s psych “health” a condition of government schooling. Naturally government determines what constitutes such health and as these things inevitably go, you can bet it involves thought and speech.
(This partly explains my resistance to leigh’s apparent view that government schools condition behavior instead of the constitution severely questioning the statist juggernaut that envelopes and supports government schools. Consider that a state judge once looked me in the eye and somberly advised me that her decision in closed, juryless court trumped the Constitution. Her premise? Her one-woman court would decide best interest on a whim every day it was in session.)
In other words, one day soon you won’t decide anything at all because the costs-to-society crowd and its enforcement arms will have done so for you. See: Barry, appointments.
Flu victims have rights too, you know. I love almost all flu victims. Unless they’re also Nazis, I don’t care much for Nazis. But if you put a flu victim who isn’t a Nazi in front of me right now, I’d probably have sex with them. That’s right. I’ll have sex with a flu victim.
Even… and I mean this… even if they haven’t had their HPV shot yet.
Ok, here’s a collection of things that I think I know about HPV vaccines:
1) They don’t provide any protection at all against but one or two strains of HPV. IOW: this vaccine (Gardasil) does not protect you from HPV infection in general. Wikipedia says it works against 70% of HPV infections.
2) Gardasil doesn’t work once you’ve been infected.
3) HPV doesn’t spread by any other vector other than sexual intercourse or extremely intimate touching.
4) HPV doesn’t kill you within a couple of days or even weeks of contracting it.
5) Hot HPV epidemics don’t exist, therefore the government does not have any kind of imminent mass loss of life issue to concern itself with.
So, given that there’s no particular hurry; that there aren’t huge amounts of people who are in danger of dying: why do you think, leigh, that this is an issue that must be ruled on and acted on quickly?
If there were an AIDS vaccine that came out tomorrow, would you prefer to a) wait until it had been in use voluntarily for a while before making it mandatory, or b) make it mandatory tomorrow? Or c) make it mandatory never; just let people decide for themselves and their children whether to vaccinate?
For what it’s worth, my feelings about education have evolved to parallel my feelings about immunization. I can support the State encouraging education for youth, and I could even support the State underwriting it. But I can’t support the State monopolizing the service, nor compelling it. I’d love to see every state constitution that requires the state to provide education rewritten to require the state to offer or encourage education.
Hand out the vouchers, and leave it to me to find the best math teachers and history teachers for my kids. I’m certain that all the teachers that I’m constantly told are committed to the children and the betterment of our future will offer their services at a reasonable rate. And if more than N% of the students can’t pass their finals at the end of the year, we can all demand a refund of our vouchers, and the lackwit teacher can find a new line of work.
it’s good to get vaccinated against stuff for so you don’t get sick Mr. Slart
Hot HPV epidemics don’t exist
Uh Oh slart. Four Words. Pamela. Anderson. circa. 1998.
Not you, LMC. Nothing you said was condescending or ill-informed.
I’ll forgive you. If you remember to use the ass gaskets provided in almost every truck stop to keep the herps away. For the children.
I consider myself fairly well-informed, so I try to make up for it with extra condescension.
My father is old enough (85) to have suffered through many childhood maladies, any of which could easily have killed him. None of them left him permanently the worse for wear, and none of his siblings died at an early age. That was very rare back then.
I think immunization is a good thing and should be encouraged. If I had children I would immunize them, as I was immunized. I don’t think it’s the state’s place to force immunization, though, just as it isn’t the state’s place to force children to attend only schools the government approves of, or indeed to attend school at all.
When you take the responsibility for making decisions away from people, you turn them into infants. We have entirely too many infants masquerading as adults as it is, no need to encourage their further creation.
Here‘s what a real epidemic looks like:
Four hundred thousand. Every. Fucking. Year.
There are other, similar kinds of circumstances where I am perfectly comfortable having the government step in and take measures. Cholera prevention.
Niggling question: in order to identify cervical cancers early, to better avoid death by cancer, would you authorize the government to require all women (even forcibly) to undergo periodic Pap smears? If not, do you think that position is at odds with being in favor of forcible vaccination?
Anybody else find it funny that at the end of the day, what we’re debating here is which Rick is the bigger statist, Perry or Santorum? And with Mitt Romney hanging out there to boot!
Fixed.
If that’s not what you’re arguing, I don’t understand why you said anything. Other than to ladle some of your usual nonsense on an otherwise serious discussion.
Either Perry or Santorum would get my vote, as they probably have a little statist in them, but statism is not their guiding principle.
i just think it’s important to remember that people worked really hard to make those vaccines for so you don’t get sick and you don’t want to appear to be unappreciative
I’m not unappreciative, the autism just makes it hard to relate to people. Thanks vaccine gods!
Flu vaccinations may run into a problem.
That is pretty impressive. My great-grandmother had eight children and only raised three of them. One died as and infant, three died in the 1918 influenza epidemic and one in a car accident at 15. My mother, her grand-daughter, was a sickly child and is a sickly adult, but still hanging in there at 78. My dad is 80, has never been hospitalized and will probably live to be 100.
The influenza virus mutates all of the time. That’s one of the reasons you need a ‘flu shot every year. There are usually more than one flu strain going around at the same time.
A few of things.
Gardisil doesn’t protect against all the viruses that cause cervical cancer. If women stop getting tested because they believe that they are protected then getting the vaccine doesn’t make things better overall.
Boys can carry the viruses and pass them on so they would have to be vaccinated too for there to be a “herd” effect.
If the parent decides for whatever reason to not get “their” child vaccinated against a disease and the child does get the disease and is injured who exactly goes to court to seek compensation for the injury inflicted? In the libertarian position taken that the State may not force a parent to vaccinate “their” child then what responsibilities are to be present along with that freedom? And if the responsibilities are shirked then what penalties are there and how are they to be sought by the injured party? “Their” above is put into quotes because the word has implications of ownership.
How about going with the notion that life has risks, and preserving liberty means life is riskier? No torts needed.
If someone makes a bad decision, well, that’s life.
If someone makes a bad decision, well, that’s life.
And that’s why we have politicians —to spread the risk and save us from our own bad decisions.
If only we had a way, some set of guiding principles or maybe a set of fundamental laws, say, to save ourselves from the bad decisions of politicians. HMMM
Cranky, there’s the responsibility present along with freedom.
You just don’t care as much as a progg, that what makes you weird about the whole freedom thing.
‘s
Also leigh, if you seriously think that it’s in the public interest for the state to protect you and yours from sexually transmitted HPV, I’d love to know your take on quarantining the HIV positive.
Not directed at me, but it’s always been my position that if people were taking HIV as seriously as a life-threatening disease as, say, the Spanish Flu outbreak (that killed an estimated forty million people between 1917-1919), there would be a focus on quarantining the infected, rather than normalizing their lives.
But politics.
Keep in mind that I agree with cranky @133, but as a scientist also interested in epidemiology, I tend to take a stance on actively infectious individuals involved in an epidemic as being potential risks to others’ right to life. Taking actions in violation of quarantine even with a disease that’s minimally infectious and slow to kill is still irresponsible, dangerous, and potentially murderous.
How many people could have been spared if they just closed the fucking bath houses?
But identity politics, Pellegri.
“the Spanish Flu outbreak (that killed an estimated forty million people between 1917-1919)”
That’s a world wide number, right?
I soon as the word “but” appears, we know there is disagreement, Pellegri. I disagree with your assessment, unless the disease in question has no vaccine. At that point we will be playing a line-drawing game based on who should be deprived of liberty. I’m not saying what choice I would make at that point, but if I were not infected I would probably be right there putting the lepers on an island.
Liberty has a price, and that price is quite often death. That must be understood by all, or there will be no liberty remaining after we’ve all drawn our lines where we think they should be.
Just now saw this:
[sigh]
In my case, the bit of specific knowledge was the piece of technical jargon “herd immunity.” McGehee used your profession’s jargon allegorically, and instead of considering his point, you decided he was talking about immunizations the way Birchers used to talk about fluoride in the water supply.
I think it would behoove you leigh to be less ready to argue and more ready to discuss.
“McGehee used your profession’s jargon allegorically”
Psychologists aren’t qualified to prescribe medications.
“be less ready to argue and more ready to discuss.”
Oops =)
Psychology’s not a profession?
Okay then.
I want everyone (and Pellegri) to understand that I am making no claim of not being in favor of some policies that encroach on someone else’s liberty. I cannot think of any now, but there has to be something. There always is.
My point is, as Jeff has said before, how we get there matters. If I or anyone else is in favor of some policy that violates someone’s liberty, I think the first thing we need to do is acknowledge that fact. Once we are honest with ourselves, we can then decide if the encroachment to liberty is the minimal required to achieve the desired end, and even then, weigh whether the loss of liberty inherent in the new policy is fair payment for the desired end.
Too often policies are put in place for “The Children™” or some other abstract reason, and then passed into law with little thought to the consequences to liberty. That cannot continue if we are to have any remaining liberty (and we have damned little of that).
So, my true disagreement with Pellegri’s statement is that I didn’t see the acknowledgement that liberty will be damaged by her policy. If she already knew that or assumed it was a given, then I was in error. I did not mean to give offense.
“Psychology’s not a profession?”
Sure it’s a profession. Just not the medical doctor profession. You gotta take a shitload more hard science classes to be in that profession.
No, it’s not an MD. I am a certified laboratory technician, though. It helps when discussing meds with the docs.
The sickest i have ever been was when i got Ford’s Swine Flu vaccine.
Haven’t had a flu shot since. Though i do keep current on my tetanus shots.
The only population at risk in this scenario is the population that chose against immunization.
Sometimes you cannot choose to immunize. Some vaccines cannot be given until a child reaches a certain age. Others might be precluded by pre-existing conditions, such as a bad immune system.
So there are children who are at risk NOT because of its parents’ choices but because of other parents’ choices.
That is definitely a problem.
It would be less of a problem if school-age children these days were not — I’m sorry but no other word applies — livestock.
Yes. There is also the problem of other people in the child(ren)’s life/lives. Grandma could have a weakened immune system, for instance.
I can’t tell you how much it bothers me that hospitals allow anyone and everyone to have practically full access to the place, especially the maternity wards. When my eldest son was born, I had a roommate also had a toddler who came to see her new brother. The toddler proceeded to touch everything in the room and coughed the whole time. Argh.
@LBascom: Yes, it is a world-wide number.
And I’m inherently inclined to be skeptical of those numbers because of the weird way reporting is done on “AIDS-related” deaths–since a death due to tuberculosis with a positive test for HIV on the medical record can be logged as an “AIDS-related death,” regardless of the actual degree that the individual’s immunocompromised (or not–they could have been an elite controller or long-term nonprogressor) state played in their TB. The same goes for any of thirty other disease that are “AIDS-defining” provided you’ve got a positive HIV test–and as this article points out, if we’re assuming that the actual infection rate of HIV is very low, a 99% accurate test is actually fairly prone to false positives.
tl;dr there’s a lot wrong with the assumptions that go into the treatment and reporting and whatnot in HIV/AIDS science right now and it concerns me.
BT, I’ve never had a flu shot, and don’t ever plan to either.
I think hand sanitizer will be the death of us all. Kill 97% of all germs, and the other 3% will evolve. Meanwhile, human immune systems devolve. Follow that bit of Darwinism to it’s conclusion…
Pellegri, I can see that.
It’s kinda the same with the flu though, right? People with reduced defenses(the very young and very old for instance) are the ones that die from it.
LBascom,
I agree wholeheartedly. Every woman I work with is a sanitizer junkie who can’t go 15 minutes without a smear of their paranoid safety goo. And they’re still sick fairly often. Me, I was raised outside in some very rural areas (the kind where you have a cistern instead of running water), I never get a flu shot, and never use sanitizer. As a result, I get sick about once per year and usually recover in 12 hours. Heck, sometimes I like to find a cesspool of filth and just root around for a few minutes a day to keep my immune system limber.
“People with reduced defenses(the very young and very old for instance) are the ones that die from it.”
Breaking this general rule was what was exceptional about the 1918 epidemic: it killed healthy people in the prime of their lives, often in a matter of mere hours, as well as the young and old. It was a mean-assed killy little bitch of a virus.
Cervical cancer hurts like hell? WTF?
Cervical cancer when it is a killer is almost exclusively a SILENT killer because there are no symptoms t’il it’s too late but the fact that it is a very slow moving cancer is the reason that the death rate is so low and annual screenings are mostly done.
Which is why the vaccine is such utter bullshit. Unless you plan to move to the cheaper BUTFOR treatment option of not having annual screenings for Cervicsl cancer and instead rely on the vaccine as a wonder tonic which it isn’t. See the beast cancer drug that was just recently denied or the new “guideline” on annual mammograms over whatxagecto see where the newly penned death panels tend to take this treatment. It ain’t in the direction of the 100% effective annual screening but toward the 70% vaccine.
Nice way to cull the herd.
Sorry bout any typos I’m at Universal Orlando penning this on my IPhone.
And thanks to those who remembered and iterated my points from back when this was fleshed out. It’s nice to know someone was paying attention.
Oh and as to the bacon’s comment:
I concur and I can’t believe I just wrote that.
I advise though that if you are truly taking advantage of all of the most beneficial assists to prevent flu that you continue to eat your boogers in private. we at PW do have some standards.
My period of highest immunity to infectious diseases coincided with the period of downing Irish Car Bombs on a regular basis.
I say that should be mandatory.
The treatment was quite painful. I had a two month old baby at the time and it was worrisome.
@LBascom, yes and no. See sdferr’s response on that one; the 1918 flu (and the recent resurgence of H1N1, which is the same gene assortment as the 1918 flu) was so devastating because not only did it prune off the very young and the very old–those with the weakest immune systems–it also hit those in the prime of their lives because it triggered a cytokine storm response in very healthy immune systems. That’s what allowed it to kill perfectly healthy people in a matter of hours in what was essentially referred to as a process like “a burn in the lungs” as the immune system self-destructed.
So the death curve was, plotted by age, a W shape.
The majority of modern flu strains are higher-risk for the very young and the very old, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a chance of another H1N1, or other, strain coming along that can cause the same kind of death toll.
It would be less of a problem if school-age children these days were not — I’m sorry but no other word applies — livestock.
My apologies to McGehee for suspecting he was exaggerating somewhat.
The treatment is not very bad. The treatment for class IV is done with a numbing injection and you can go back to work the same day. I had to also have chemo for 6 weeks and I will say it makes you sick but I’ll be damned if barfing is classified as hurts like hell. I have worse migraines
You said cc hurts like hell. Not the treatment hurts like hell. Words… Meaning. This blog.
Cluebat?
Stop it. It hurt. So you’re Ironwoman and I’m a big baby. The cancer hurt and the LEEP hurt and the cauterizing hurt and the chemo hurt, too. The biopsies hurt, too.
And, I had it twice. Once years before the baby and then again.
That H5N1 from a couple of years ago was no treat either. Co-worker of my wife’s lost their only child, a healthy, athletic middle schooler.
6 hours from “that nasty cold is getting worse, to we need to get to the doctor” to “there’s not enough time to fly him to St. Paul’s Children’s Hospital.”
That time we did get the flu shot because 2 of our 3 were too young for it.
The Korean one in the ’60’s liked to kill me. Worst sick I ever had.
We all get flu shots after hubs spent a week in the hospital with it a few years ago.
Jeff, you’re the language guy. My dictionary’s definition of decree doesn’t mention anything about an opt out provision… which TX had.
Why should you have to justify to the government why you won’t do something? Seems kinda in the spirit of a presumed guilty must prove your innocence type procedural cart/ horse problem.
Opt out requires a defense of self that smacks right up against that horse and plants a big one on his mouth. With tongue.
Well, maybe decree was too strong a word. But the machinations one has to go through to comply with government demands for those who refuse their largess are generally set up to make it a pain in the ass to opt out. As I said before, I’d have been much more comfortable with an opt in, and without an executive order.
Also, it wasn’t a deal breaker for me — and neither was the illegal immigrant stuff. I liked his tax plan and his growth plan and I like him on federalism. I’d have no problem voting for Perry if he got the nomination.
I think I’ve said that here. Or maybe just on Twitter. I can’t remember.
Not only a pain in the ass but a nice paper trail for the FCS to follow should it be decided that not giving your kid a vaccination for certain reasons is now considered tantamount to child abuse and you might just need someone to monitor your parenting less you suddenly have additional qualms about other medical thingies that someone with a proven track record of looking out for the kiddies might decide your kid is in need of too. Like say Ritalin or Xanax or some such to help control the little booger cause Johnny can’t sit still and needs him some pacification by force if necessary and over your objections.
Apparently Ann Coulter is on those concerned about Santorum’s godbothery social engineering:
Somehow I don’t think Rick Santorum would be as big a devotee of debauchery as Teddy was, even if he didn’t believe in God.
Furthermore, isn’t it that the problem with Democrats is they’re Godless?
False idols. Ann’s is that silver cock in her mouth. She really wants to swallow but her gag reflex keeps getting in the way.
She’s probably next to follow Huffington down the dark path.
The opt out language was for the purposes of insurances. Should the now moot vaccine become a covered procedure you would be automatically covered and could opt out of getting it. You could not opt in. Or so I had it explained to me.
Santorum tax plan.
Somehow I don’t think he’d be as big a devotee of Obamacare as Ted would be if he’d lived long enough to see it passed in him memory. Time travel issues with that sentence but…
Correct Leigh but the insurance should not be engineered to force you into govt compliance for choosing your treatment option. That structure is part and parcel of the undermining of liberty under the veneer of or cover of an evil corporation working hand in velvet glove with the govt to further an agenda that marches ever left. That the velvet glove is around your throat is not to be noticed.
How did that “m” move to the “s” place on the keyboard?
I don’t think Ann’s sold out. I think she thinks defeating Barak Obama is the only thing that matters and Romney is the surest path to victory. I happen to think that we’re four years downstream from that bridge.
And I might add that the hand and how many arms are directing it is not to be noticed either.
Now I’m off to bed for I have an appt with a broomstick in the morning and a muggle has to be careful. Wouldn’t want to be taken for a witch instead of a class A republican er bitch A muggle has got some standards. ;)
Anyone who would date that asshat on HBO has got to be suspect for movement. Ya lays down with fleas…
Stephanie, that is what Rush is always saying, too, and I agree. We should all pay strictly fee-for-services and cut out the insurances all together. Of course, oldsters and deadbeats would howl at the moon if they had to spend their dough on something besides bingo and dope.
i’m still a little concerned if you must know
http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/being-there-the-obama-sequel/?singlepage=true
I am fucking sick of the whole mess. Its a fucking scam. The process has gotten so corrupt nobody worth a fuck can survive.
i blame the media Mr. Moe
National Soros Radio after katrina taught you everything you needed to know about America’s entrance unto purgatory
Talking about social engineering, maybe someone can call Hillary on this boondoggle that helps take good seasonal jobs from American college kids? You know, before the powers that be decide that Obama needs a cougar to run with.
If you substitute ‘mandatory public service’ for ‘vaccinations’ it makes a better scan.
To my way of thinking anyway.
Who knows where that can lead.
I never exaggerate only “somewhat.”