101–110 of 145 posts
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Is the consumption of horse meat forbidden by law or are they using the regulatory power of the USDA to prevent the commercial slaughter of horses?
You're attempting to draw too fine a line here. It's not legal to sell meat for human consumption without USDA regulation.
For example, I could make my own wine and beer at home, for my own personal use but I can't sell it without accepting government oversight.
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> The default should not be for the state to force someone to... I agree. > The state should justify why they're doing it And they do: herd immunity, which is supported by convincing scientific evidence. I didn't say liberty should be violated by default. We are no longer in a default position -- the argument has already been made and it is apparent that vaccination is justified as a social good. As a member of a soc…
You have no right to be protected from getting sick... One's personal liberties should generally extend just shy of infringing on an other's rights.. That should be the default. That said I'm not an anti-vaxxer, but I'm medically unable to take most of them now as they would dramatically increase the chance of a deadly side effect. Once in my life was enough (and the 6-figure hospital bill after insurance cap), and a…
Conversely, you have no right to infect other people (this is a unconsented harm inflicted on others, the most basic thing that is a violation of rights.) To the extent that doing so is neither intentional, reckless, nor negligent, you also shouldn't be held responsible to prevent doing so -- the question with mandatory vaccination largely boils down to whether failing to use particular vaccinations without a special medical reason is such a failing of a duty of care.
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It could still be a civil suit - if someone actually got sick because you weren't vaccinated, they could sue you for damages. Also, once you give the government the authority to require people to be injected, they will probably start expanding it in various directions. That's really not a power I want to give to them.
If someone got sick because you weren't vaccinated, does that not imply that they were also not vaccinated? Or are there cases where e.g. you can only get vaccinated as an adult, and you're suggesting a civil suit if you infect a child?
Vaccines are not 100% effective, and, in any case, even if they aren't, they may have a real medical reason for not vaccinating: a large part of the reason for efforts to achieve universal vaccination among those who don't have a special medical condition making vaccination unavoidable is herd immunity; the effect that reducing the rates of infection reduces the risks from vaccine failure in those who do vaccinate, and reduces the risk of exposure in those who legitimately cannot vaccinate.
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Vaccination is not an onerous requirement and there is very good reason to believe it is beneficial to public health when widely administered . If you want to reject it on principle alone, you'll have to address why your liberty in principle is more important than my health concern in practice.
The problem I have with thee sorts of debates is that fundamentals are very hard to argue against in principle. But in effect, practical "compromises" can often serve both goals better than a single purists solution. I happen to believe in both liberty and public health. In practice, vaccinations against infectious diseases need to hit certain percentages, not 100% of the population. With free vaccination, post natal…
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> can anyone argue that the anti-vaxxers don't have a point when they're on about exactly this sort of profit-driven evil from Big Pharma Yes; they do not have a point as regards vaccines. Because vaccines are so essential to public health, they're very closely regulated and monitored by the FDA. Samples from each and every lot of each and every vaccine are passed to CBER and tested (for efficacy, sterility, etc) at…
There's also the non-profit-driven evil you need to worry about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment
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I'd argue that the whole purpose of a state is to shift game theoretic weights of decisions of individuals in a way that benefits the overall population. So we don't fall into certain instances of the "tragedy of the commons" [1]. Vaccination is a good example. As an individual there is a really small risk in not vaccination if everybody else do otherwise (the disease can't spread). If there is no regulation then the…
I can't/shouldn't take the flu vaccine... it will drastically the risk (around 5% without flu shot) that I'll have Guillain-Barre again. I'm almost done paying the hospital bills from 5 years ago, when it happened... insanely expensive treatment, even if you have insurance that caps at half a million.
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Given that the whole purpose of a state is to compel people to do things I'd argue that the purpose of the state is to prevent people from doing certain things. To illustrate, most of our laws are "Thou shall not..." versus "Thou must..." to punish "bad" behavior instead of compel "good" behavior. I'm wondering what basis you have for drawing the line there. Personal autonomy. Your body, your choice. Or why a simple…
Compelling to do good things and compelling to prevent bad things are a duality. They're equivalent in their effects, and you can easily transform one to the other. Punishing people for doing wrong is compelling them to receive a punishment deemed good. "Thou must go to jail." "Personal autonomy. Your body, your choice." That's a nice slogan, but it isn't actually realized anywhere. It's always your choice when there…
That's true legally, and in theory, but if someone tries to medicate me without my permission I'll leave the country. I can't trust the government with my health given its track record on drugs, the tuskegee experiment, the whole nasty eugenics business, the miserable mess that is psychiatric drugs, and doctor assisted suicide laws, and visitation/commitment rights. It's extremely clear the government does not have my health in its sights but is rather driven by a paternalistic morality supporting existing social and industrial entities. Even paternalistic forces must earn respect before the subordinate cooperates.
NOTE: I was on Risperdal (risperidone) for two years. It made me lactate painfully (I'm male) and I couldn't work well. My thoughts were scattered. I never should have been prescribed it; the positive effects of the drugs I was taking was mostly from the SSRI stabilizing my emotions. Even that is hard to justify given the subtle nature of the perceptual change, its low effect on my actual depression, and the large physical side effects.
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The problem I have with thee sorts of debates is that fundamentals are very hard to argue against in principle. But in effect, practical "compromises" can often serve both goals better than a single purists solution. I happen to believe in both liberty and public health. In practice, vaccinations against infectious diseases need to hit certain percentages, not 100% of the population. With free vaccination, post natal…
As you suggest, one can be strongly pro-vaccination and just as strongly against the ability of the government to send a SWAT team to the door to vaccinate you forcibly. Personally, the law California passed seems a reasonable compromise to me. Once it's phased in, it makes it possible for parents to still opt-out their children but it 1.) makes it very much a non-casual decision, given that they'll probably have to…
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The problem I have with thee sorts of debates is that fundamentals are very hard to argue against in principle. But in effect, practical "compromises" can often serve both goals better than a single purists solution. I happen to believe in both liberty and public health. In practice, vaccinations against infectious diseases need to hit certain percentages, not 100% of the population. With free vaccination, post natal…
As you suggest, one can be strongly pro-vaccination and just as strongly against the ability of the government to send a SWAT team to the door to vaccinate you forcibly. Personally, the law California passed seems a reasonable compromise to me. Once it's phased in, it makes it possible for parents to still opt-out their children but it 1.) makes it very much a non-casual decision, given that they'll probably have to…
Yeah, but no significant group is arguing for that; its a strawman.
> Personally, the law California passed seems a reasonable compromise to me.
Its not really much of a compromise -- its pretty much the far extreme of what mandatory vaccination proponents actually seek.
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> Personal autonomy. Your body, your choice. Except that it's not your body. If you don't get vaccinated, and you get sick, then you infect everyone else. You don't have the right to choose to infect other people. Vaccination needs to be mandatory, and if the state has to send agents to burst into people's homes, tie people down, and forcibly administer the vaccinations, then I'm all for it.
Except that it's not your body. Of course it is. Do you feel the pain when I get stuck by a needle? If you don't get vaccinated, and you get sick, then you infect everyone else. This is a possibility. Life is risk. You don't have the right to choose to infect other people. That is true. They also have the right to decide for themselves if they want to be vaccinated. As I said, I was vaccinated and I had my children v…