This is simply terrifying. Actions should be penalized, not speech.
> If you're spreading anti-vax propaganda, you're complicit in killing kids.
People like you are what I fear the most. Using children to justify tyranny and oppression. Maybe you have good intentions but that's what the road to hell is paved with.
You do realize that your way of thinking opens up gay rights activists to prosecution for spreading HIV? What about vegan activists? Babies and even pets have been starved to death because some people followed vegan advice. Should all vegan activists be punished?
What about PR firms who create soda ads? Should we round up all of them and punish them? What about journalists? If a journalist writes a story that leads to war ( legal or illegal ) that results in the death of children, should they be prosecuted?
Should librarians be prosecuted because libraries carry offensive material that people might read to cause harm?
Also, you do realize that your system depends entirely on who is in charge rather than principles? What if anti-vaxxers are in charge. Your system allows them to mark all pro-vaxxers as criminals spreading propaganda. Do you really want to live in that kind of world?
Speaking is an action.
> You do realize that your way of thinking opens up gay rights activists to prosecution for spreading HIV?
Are gay rights activists stating incorrect facts that risk the public health, including of heterosexual people?
> What about vegan activists? Babies and even pets have been starved to death because some people followed vegan advice. Should all vegan activists be punished?
No, of course not. Unless they claim that a given diet is harmless or beneficial to babies/pets even though it's known to be harmful.
> What about PR firms who create soda ads? Should we round up all of them and punish them?
Not necessarily, unless their ads contain lies or are intentionally misleading.
> If a journalist writes a story that leads to war ( legal or illegal ) that results in the death of children, should they be prosecuted?
Did they lie?
> Should librarians be prosecuted because libraries carry offensive material that people might read to cause harm?
That obviously depends on the material in question.
> Also, you do realize that your system depends entirely on who is in charge rather than principles?
No, it depends on things like a working democracy, rule of law, and freedom of science.
You are the one who's making me afraid.
And yes, scientists say that kids die without vaccines, some people disagree, so you would actually punish them for disagreeing with scientists since otherwise you wouldn't be sure these people killed kids.
That is absolutely nuts if you believe that.
If A says to B, "don't vaccinate your kids", B complies, and then B's child dies of a disease it could have been vaccinated against, you would not say A had any culpability?
Anybody spreading anti-vaccination propaganda has been convinced of it themselves.
Can they then argue that a pro-vaccine person killed their kid? Can they sue their doctor?
If we allow this line of reasoning, where does it stop? If I tell people they should let their kids play in the dirt, can they sue me if their kid gets sick from a dirt born disease?
Everything has risk, and we can't make a law saying that anytime a risk event occurs you can sue someone who said to do the thing.
I don't disagree with being upset with antivaxxers and thinking they are causing real harm to our society.
However, I think the harm is outweighed by the benefit of allowing people to make whatever arguments they want in public (much like I think the risk of dying from a vaccine is worth it because of the reduced risk of dying from the disease the vaccine is preventing). The alternative is having to set some sort of 'risk threshold', where you aren't allowed to argue for something that increases risk more than x%..... but that gets really complicated, because most of the times you are advocating to increase risk IN RETURN FOR SOMETHING ELSE.
For example, driving a car is EXTREMELY risky (and kills way more people than die from not taking a vaccine). However, most people feel the benefit of auto transport is worth the risk. However, that is very subjective, and it would be difficult to logically and objectively argue against someone who says that risk is not worth it, and we should outlaw cars.... and anyone who advocates driving is responsible for every automobile death.
So... what are other options here? Cause it is definitely bad for the public if people stop vaccinating their kids. That’s not a risk, it’s a certainty. It is also fairly clear that a significant enough percentage of people will listen to anti-vaxxers no matter what, and they will move mountains to avoid vaccines.
So what do we do? What we are currently doing, really. We try to educate people about vaccines, we pass laws saying unvaccinated kids can't go to public schools without a medical reason (which yes, that loophole will be exploited, but it is an improvement), and we work to reduce the risk as much as we can. We are never going to 'solve' the problem of people making risky decisions that hurt society as a whole, so we just do our best to mitigate where we can, and accept the rest of the risk as just part of being a human in society.
> If you're spreading pro-vax propaganda, you're complicit in giving kids autism ... and any restrictions or punishment should reflect that.
Now I don't agree with the latter in the slightest. However, depending on who is in power and what political and social will exists at a particular time you can have two very different outcomes. This is the danger in opening up such a can of worms.
I agree that such matters should be approached in the utmost of delicacy. But the science is resoundingly clear on the efficacy and safety of vaccines. Taking an evidence-based approach to when people are spreading known-and-shown false information to the known-and-shown harm of many would be prudent (like, for example, when 60 people die and 4000 are infected in a measles outbreak, ongoing this week). Just saying "oh well gosh people are going to bothsides this issue to death" is complacent support of harmful propaganda. As the adage goes, your right to swing your fist ends at my face.
Are you sure this applies to every vaccine used today? And for all vaccines that will be used in the future? I wouldn't be surprised if there has been vaccines which did more harm than good, and making it illegal to question them seems like a recipe for disaster.
What an absurd presumption. Erect a slippery slope and challenge me to defend it all the way to the bottom? No thank.
These things need intensive scientific studies to be proven safe. I assume that most will fail before they reach human trial. And policies surrounding vaccines should be done on a case by case basis.
Now, it's harder to make those calls for indirect effects, and I definitely believe we should be more careful about it. You're totally correct about the danger. But that doesn't mean we don't have the discussions, as long as we're aware of the risks.
> When we're considering regulation, it's important to consider the activity we're regulating in context. Here's one extreme: it's legal to light a match. It's not legal to light a match and toss it into a gas pump.
As you allude to intent matters here. Let's assume they went to the gas pump specifically to light a match and throw it into the gas pump. That is very specific and obvious intent and culpability is clear.
Now assume this person was merely lighting a cigarette in front of the pump and an ember falls off and causes a fire. Well the intent was not to set the place ablaze, but they were still either negligent or reckless in their actions, so while they are still culpable, intent is lacking here.
As a third hypothetical let's say they had a matchbook in their pocket and one match is dislodged and rubs between the striker strip and the person's cell phone, thus creating a fire while they're in front of the pump. Their intent was never to light a fire, so what is their culpability here?
Limiting ourselves to matters of scientific inquiry as related to free speech for the moment, how would the idea of culpability and intent as mentioned above factor into this? Someone espousing anti-vax opinions clearly does not have the intent of killing kids, their intent as I understand it is to prevent children from becoming autistic regardless of whether science agrees with them or not. Perhaps they could be considered negligent given current scientific understanding, but how do you even begin to consider culpability?
What if this is an area where science does not have an answer yet, but there's enormous public pressure to outlaw speaking about X or punish those who do. How does intent and culpability factor into this? Is it just "the law says x, you intended to violate it and are going to be held accountable" without any sort of deeper explanation as to why your rights were restricted? What happens if the science settles in the opposite direction as the laws and speech was curtailed wrongly in this specific framework? Similarly what happens if the laws are based on the science of the time, but the science itself discovers it erred in some way thus flipping it from being in agreement with to disagreement with the law?
Lastly how does this extend to matters where science may not provide a useful answer?
I just listened to the oral arguments given for Voisine v. United States and it's very analogous to this line of thinking. I'd highly recommend listening to it and reading the opinion.
Even with moral, I'd argue that the consequences have to be reasonable. It's not reasonable to take advice about vaccinations from anybody except a medical professional. I eat junk food and I tell people it's delicious. If some of them hear me say it's delicious, eat some, get fat, and die, I don't feel morally responsible - take advice about your diet from professionals, not from me.
Also if you're spreading pro-abortion propaganda. And pro-war propaganda. And anti-war propaganda. /s
Obviously ridiculous. Repeat after me: speech is not violence! Only people actually doing violence are violent. Want to criminalize not vaccinating kids? Be my guest, but I'll now and forever support people to campaign against it, and that shouldn't be illegal.
You can't compel me to say so. And it's not so. Speech is a nuanced legal issue, and there are multiple well-justified limitations on that freedom. Libel is not protected speech. Incitement to violence is not protected speech. Fraud is not protected speech. You can do tangible harm with speech, ergo some utterances can and are seen as violence.
That's not extreme. It's a perfect example of how when it comes to non-polarized issues we rationally criminalize bad actions (lighting a gas station on fire) instead of conduct that could, if used maliciously, result in bad things (lighting a match in general).
We shouldn't regulate speech, but you should own the consequences of your actions -- speech included. If you're spreading anti-vax propaganda, you're complicit in killing kids. It's certainly not as bad as pulling the trigger; you're one component of a much greater whole, and any restrictions or punishment should reflect that.