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Re:Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots End... by sophacles on Tuesday October 20, 2009 @12:32PM (#892659)
Please further explain your moral agent statement. I can see mandatory vaccines on the one hand as a moral position (you must save your kid my way) and on the other as a socially responsible position (not vaccinating your kid provides disease vectors to mine.. not all vaccines provide 100% immunity so more vaccines is better protection for all). Im interested in hearing more on both sides of this.
Re:Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots End... by tc on Tuesday October 20, 2009 @12:47PM (#892708)
Sure.

If you were to publish neutral research showing that, were the US were to draft all men 18-35, then the US armed forces would grow by X% and we could fight Y major wars at once while occupying Z square miles of foreign territory, then it would seem mostly senseless to direct anger or criticism at you if your claims were factually sensible.

If on the other hand, though, you were to promote the idea that the draft was needed, that it would produce a socially useful outcome, and that people who oppose your view are being irrational and selfish, then you've entered into a moral debate.

And further, if you own a large defense contracting firm, then your claims and your moral position about the necessity of forcing people to join the military would be subjected to additional, admittedly ad hominem, scrutiny.

Re:Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots End... by sophacles on Tuesday October 20, 2009 @01:00PM (#892741)
OK, first, I am not convinced that socially responsible is strictly a moral position. Disease vector analysis is just an analysis on a directed graph. In this case there is a strong mathematical model, with scientific evidence, that not vaccinating children can harm other children. Because of this I am questioning your analogy, since in the case of the draft there is not a non-opinion social component.

Instead I analogize with drunk driving -- significantly fewere drunk drivers equates to significantly fewer 3rd party injuries and deaths as a result of drunk drivers. Similarly in the vaccination case, there are 3rd parties who stand to suffer from the actions of those who do not receive vaccines.

Edit: I forgot to put my second point, which is:

I agree with your analogy in that those who stand to benefit should be closely scrutinized when advocating a position.

[deleted]
Re:Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots End... by sophacles on Tuesday October 20, 2009 @01:56PM (#892897)
If you could show me that there would a significant increase in people surviving injury or avoiding permanent injury from CPR/First aid certs for all, then I would have no problem with it. Until then, I oppose it.

I suspect you are opposed to drunk driving prohibitions, as lowered reaction times and lowered inhibition do not cause fatal collisions, just fail to prevent them. Or is this some how different? (Disclaimer, this statement can be seen as inflamatory, it is not meant as such, it was just ignored from my previous post, and I see the analogy as related.)