You can make that same absolutist argument against, say, the use of police. After all, if we let the government hire people with guns to shoot and kill citizens, where will this slippery slope lead us to?

I am quite capable of telling the difference between tyranny, and basic public safety, and I think you are too. Vaccination in 2019 is about as clear-cut a line as I can think of.

There's nothing about vaccine-deniers that meets the "clear and present danger" doctrine as established by our courts, especially not enough to nullify the very first sentence in our bill of rights. At least that's my opinion, which maybe makes me an "absolutist" in your terms.

Besides, government censorship is not some esoteric political theory, indeed it's the natural inclination of those in power, and there's a long history of states using it to the detriment of their citizens -- but maybe they just haven't tried "real" censorship?

The bill of rights was written long before germ theory, and the courts have so far proven incapable of understanding the problem of probabilistic risks with the standard of "clear and present danger".

And just because something is legal, doesn't make it right.

For your second point: there's a long history of states using police to the detriment of their citizens (And, in my opinion, they continue to do so, even to this day), so we should abolish the institution tomorrow. How's that for an esoteric theory? For some reason, though, the courts aren't super keen on that line of reasoning...

I think that people who invent and promulgate exceptions to freedom of speech are contributing to a very dangerous problem and should be forcefully stopped by the police. I've tried arguing, but they remain unconvinced - leaving force as the only option.

> There's nothing about vaccine-deniers that meets the "clear and present danger" doctrine as established by our courts, especially not enough to nullify the very first sentence in our bill of rights. At least that's my opinion, which maybe makes me an "absolutist" in your terms.

Yes, lack of herd immunity causing an outbreak certainly does meet the "clear and present danger".

You don't get to build whatever you want precisely because it might harm somebody else--we have building codes.

You don't get to skip vaccination precisely because an outbreak WILL harm somebody else.

Vaccinations were used as the basis of the tuakeegee syphilis experiments. They were also used as part of a cia spying operation in Pakistan.

You really think this sort of thing is apolitical, that the government can be trusted here?

Actually, government censorship was not one of the means I was thinking of. Too crude. I was merely thinking of kicking them off platforms, (justified) demonization of the movement, 'us'-'them' polarization to make even person wanting to fit in know what not to do, and other legal means.

All of this is still crude - just less crude then outright censhorship - because the deep roots of the movement are too difficult to root out. Ultimately, this movement is suited to the West in our age. First, we demonize Big Everything (sometimes even with reason). Second, most of the people who reject vaccines ultimately prefer a dead child (even someone else's) over an autistic child. This is also pushed hard in our culture. Third, we have this worship of natural everything, even though nature is full of poisons.

Deplatforming will only work in the short term. Eventually you deplatfom large enough populations that they either create their own platforms or someone sees a business opportunity in providing one for them. Except now on the platforms designed to cater just to them, your voice will be censored just as you gleefully censored their voice. Unless you want to go full authoritarian the trend of deplatforming anything you disapprove of will eventually lead to worse outcomes.

I do not even dream of 'deplatforming anything [I] disapprove of'. But your reply made me think again why I consider going to all these lengths with regards to anti-vax.

Well, it seems like child abuse to me, and it's not even containable - the effects are not limited to their family, but can effect mine as well* . Second, I don't see a way for political resolution here. On political matters there are votes and if my side loses, that's the way it is. Here, the very fact such a movement exists (even if the vast majority is against it and votes against it) puts some immunocompromised people at risk.

* There are religious sects that agree to basically live apart of society - so it wouldn't matter that much to us what they do - but I don't think that's a possible resolution to this issue, not for most anti-vaxxers.

> Second, I don't see a way for political resolution here

Typically, the resolution is some form of mandating that kids get vaccinated.

That could happen too, at least in some states (in others it may be illegal).

However, given that these parents believe that puts their child and themselves at risk, they'd go far to stop it, up to faking vaccinations - at which point any outbreak would "prove" the vaccines are ineffective. So I don't think there's a way of avoiding a confrontation with the movement itself.

That's only true if they continue growing reliably after being deplatformed. There's no reason why that should necessarily be true.

I feel like there a tendency to believe that, since censorship is bad, censorship must also be completely ineffective, and we tell stories like "deplatforming is useless" to reinforce that. But I don't think that's a realistic approach. Censorship can and does work, in the right circumstances. Chinese millennials may know that something happened at Tiananmen Square in 1989, but they're fuzzy on the details and inclined to downplay it and keep quiet about it. That's censorship working as intended. Assuming your enemies are incompetent doesn't accomplish anything but a false sense of security.