Canada just lost its measles-free status. So here’s the question…
If an unvaccinated child spreads measles to someone else’s kid, why shouldn’t the parents be liable in small-claims court?
I’m not talking about criminal charges, just basic responsibility. If your choice creates the risk you should have to prove you weren’t the reason someone else’s child got sick.
Is that unreasonable?
The most disturbing thing about reality is that we have morons opting their children and neighbors into preventable diseases because of absurd lies they read on Facebook.
Nah. It’s not concerning that otherwise intelligent people can’t figure out how to deal with their own lives without resorting to controlling others.
Anyone have tips on how to not get stabbed without forcing other people to stop stabbing?
No. You can reasonably take an action against someone that is the same degree of involvement they attempt to do to you. By someone stabbing you, or attempting to, they consent to the same degree of violence against them, by having taken direct action against you.
This is not the same as, for example, someone fleeing from attackers, and knocking on your door, thus potentially drawing the attention of the attackers to you. Of course, you’re free to deny the attackers or the victim entry.
So I can legally/morally stab someone who tried to stab me? How is that at all helpful? I don’t want to stab anyone.
How would this translate to the measles situation? If someone gives me measles, then I’m allowed to give them back measles? But they already have measles. That’s how they were able to transmit it. And I’ll still have gotten the disease. I want to maintain my health and not get infected in the first place.
Then don’t stab anyone, and prepare for what situations you run into where you know it’s possible to be stabbed, but won’t stab in return.
Yes. You can get measles from someone, and can give it to them. The fundamental bad actor is the disease itself, and we address that by getting immunity to it, one way or the other.
Get a vaccine. Nobody should every be able to take that right from you.
And what might those preparations look like? How does one prepare for that, as well as for the possibility of getting shot, or being run over by a car while on the sidewalk, or getting mugged/pickpocketted, or getting your credit card information stolen, or having your home being broken into and ransacked, or someone picking up your infant and running away with them, or having your drink/food spiked, etc.
A vaccine is never 100% effective. If it were, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place. 3% of people receiving the measles vaccine don’t get immunity, and there’s those who can’t get the vaccine because they’re too young, or are immunocompromised in some way. What option would they have for dealing with their own lives without controlling others?
All preparations for disaster look like a cost-benefit analysis and reasonable actions taken to mitigate those disasters. Sometimes, that means relying on collective tools - laws, incentives, etc., which can be easier sometimes, if it works. Other times, it’s internal planning, or physical training, or avoidance of problematic situations.
Another big aspect of preparation that people can do is genuinely coming to terms with the existence of whatever particular problem they’re facing. “Radical acceptance”, so to speak, though one needs to know the difference between accepting and submitting. When you can’t accept something, you end up blindsided by it, shocked and appalled that it can happen to you, or that humans can’t just talk it through, or whatever. When you can, you generally see it coming a ways away, and can address it before it becomes an issue for you, instead of thinking “I shouldn’t have to deal with this,” or “but humanity is better than that, and we can just talk it through.”
But, that kind of preparation takes a lot of world-view shifting, and skill-building in processing fears, and for people who don’t really have evidence of the benefit, it’s hard to pay the cost in time and effort on personal growth in that area. C’est la vie.
Indeed. However, there must be a line for what a collective can or cannot reasonably impose on an individual. And, whether you like it or not, the physical body is a real boundary, and granting a collective governing body power over what you put into or take out of your own body is a larger issue than vaccination, and people will utilize that power against you, not just for you.
This is true enough that as soon as the Democrats started pushing for mandatory vaccinations during covid, I knew and stated that the cost would be abortion. …and that’s exactly what was lost, in many states.
Any power you give the government, will be used all of the ways it can be used, depending on the party in power and the moral fads that the culture goes through - and as you can see with trump and the underlying expressions going on there, these fads aren’t always going to be in your favor.
Although there are some areas that are morally more stable, any area that doesn’t have fairly universal support will go through this dynamic of flipping what side gets to utilize that power, and in what way it is used.
Case in point:
The Republicans centralized power in the presidency with the USA Patriot act. The Democrats, in power when it expired, renewed it, rather than letting it drop, or (even better) making an act to prevent that centralization of power. Obama utilized that power to great effect, including to fulfill the reason for it’s temporary existence. …and then he renewed it, when it was no longer needed, and after it had expired, because of lack of ability to consider that maybe power isn’t always a good thing, and sometimes you need to let go for things to work right.
…and the dems can’t keep hold of that power. …and now that power is Trump’s and the reps in general, until their fire burns out.
As a side note: The irony is that maybe Trump, if he thinks the dems will win, might nerf presidential powers out of spite - which would be great, if it sticks.
We’re you not just arguing against having laws to disallow stabbing? If not, then I’m not clear on what you mean by “controlling others”.
Couldn’t this also apply to abuse of power? Accepting that there’s the possibility of bad outcomes, and that’s the cost of certain benefits, like protecting everyone from some easily preventable causes of death. It sounds like maybe what you’re arguing for isn’t that exerting control over others in and way is universally bad, but rather that bodily autonomy needs to be protected above all. But if that’s the case, I don’t understand why you think it’s only acceptable to protect it by not actively doing something that violates bodily autonomy, and why it’s not okay to actively protect bodily autonomy (e.g. preventing others from inserting undesirable sharp objects into your body, whether that be a knife or an injection or anything else).
I agree that centralization is power is problematic, but this is a whole other problem independent of bodily autonomy. Unless you’re saying that controlling others is only bad when it’s done by a central power? But you’re also making arguments against mandatory vaccination in general, so I’m still unclear on what your stance is.
Are you an anti-vaxxer?
I’m absolutely for the rights of people to either have or refuse vaccines. Of course, in your mind, that probably just equates to being an anti-vaxxer. I get vaccines when it makes sense to me to do so, which doesn’t include all vaccines.
Yeah, honestly you are an anti-vaxxer if your personal feelings (or crackpot theories) negatively affect your perception of vaccine science even slightly. What you’re expressing here is an idea that has killed countless people and it will only get worse. Everyone should thank you for bringing back measles though, because your valiant freedom fighting “helped” us in that way.
Crackpot theories… …like… … how evolution works? …or how regressive evolution works?
Diseases have killed countless people, and we have multiple vectors (and should have multiple vectors) for addressing them.
We have technology, as in vaccines. This is a good thing.
We have social behaviors including social pressure (which is, unfortunately, often compulsive and not well-aimed by the people that exercise it, but such is life).
We have individual immunity, and the direct biological pressure for health and general genetic robustness, which is also a good thing, even though it kills some of us.
the cool thing is, we’re now at a point where there are lots of anti-vaxxers who are totally willing to throw their lives away for the benefit of the species. …and, their surviving genetic lines and the rest of the species, as their children interbreed with the rest of humanity, will be better off for it. That’s true, whether you like it or not. It’s also true that forcing vaccination rather than simply providing and incentivizing vaccination is a terribly, terribly flawed strategy which causes far more issues than it fixes.
I understand that you’re making social-pressure arguments, and that they are valid in the context you’re in. But they aren’t the end-all be-all, and they’re not fundamentally scientific (or even logical) just because you’re trying to support science by using them.
I also know this whole conversation brings up tons of uncomfortable topics, for which I’ll probably get yelled at. I just don’t care, because being more forceful about an argument, or getting the last word, really has no bearing on the truth of that word.
To partake in society you have to accept societal contracts. One such contract is to not be a dick to others. If you don’t vaccinate yourself against certain things, you are liable for spreading the disease. And thus you are being a dick. And thus you break the contract.
If you excuse yourself from society going forward though, I see no problem with your stance.
I reject societal contracts that do not support individual and body sovereignty. Of course, you can do with that as you will, because… …well… …sovereignty. Just know that if you take body sovereignty from people in one area, you empower the government to make decisions about your body, as well.
…and as we all have seen, the benevolence of the government is largely dependent on what party is in power, and what societal dynamics are in play. it’s… …unreliable, at best.
I literally called it, the day Democrats started pushing forced vaccinations, that the Republicans would go for reversal of abortion law. …and they fucking did, and they fucking succeeded in many ways, and that is direct consequence of permitting the government to violate body sovereignty, even when the voiced arguments do not pertain to it.
So, you can have your contiguous society, with forced social contracts rather than ones people actually are willing to agree to. …and you’ll also have the consequences, whether or not you can cognize how bad that will be right now.