| Things should always be up for debate.... because sometimes we get it WRONG. New science replaces old. Personally? I think it's not up for debate. The exact age and type of vaccine used might be if there are various options and risks to weigh, and as a parent I might want to choose those, but vaccinating our children against incurable diseases they are likely to be exposed to isn't up for debate in my mind. Why, as a society, would we not want to wipe out said disease? Now, I think of my own vaccination history (hypothetically). When I was a kid, they didn't vaccinate us against Hep-B. They didn't. It wasn't part of the program. Then a few decades later when I had a Hep-B scare and read up on it, I said, WTF, how on earth are we not vaccinating our society against one of the most virulent diseases on the planet? (The answer would be cost, and chances of someone from my country contracting it short of travel to other locations or IV drug use) We stopped vaccinating against smallpox before I was born. IF smallpox shows up again, that will change. Handling this a society requires trusting your health organisations - and that's where the problem comes in - people these days don't trust the established authorities. A single unvaccinated child in a vaccinated society is not a risk to the entire society. A small number of unvaccinated children spread around a vaccinated society is not a risk to the entire society.
At a certain number, i imagine, things suddenly go from "safe" to "deadly" with no middle ground.... so this is the type of problem that can probably be dealt with through education rather than force. |
When you say "as a society", you're talking about the collective- the whole society. This is the intrinsic basis of collectivism. Inherent in this phrase, and the ideology that it implies, is the assumption that the needs of society are more important than the needs of the individual. (the opposite view is individualism.)
Later you endorsed the use of education to persuade rather than force to, er, force, and so I am not making a moral criticism of your position.
What I am arguing is that those who are constantly attacking people who question the dangers of vaccines are doing so to futher an agenda of collectivism. I don't really think they care about vaccination at all. They have bought into an ideology that believes the "needs of society" (inevitably represented by a small number of elites, it seems) outweigh the needs of the individual.
For sake of argument, I can grant that a society that forced vaccination would be healthier in terms of these vaccindated diseases than one that did not. I posit that not only is this not a morally superior position (because some number of kids will be killed by the vaccinations, who wouldn't otherwise) even if more kids are saved on balance because there is a very distinct moral difference between taking a risk and being compelled.
If a parent takes a risk and their child dies that is unfortunate. But this is the nature of life. If a parent is compelled to vaccinate the child and that child dies, then compelling them is a moral crime, it is quite literally murder. While some parents in the first case might be found negligent, in the second case it is always murder.
Secondly, and more importantly, if you allow the ideology of collectivism to gain power (and the horses are out of the barn on that one in the USA, both parties are collectivist) then the negative effects of centralized control, inherent in the nature of economics, will wreck massive havoc on society. Example: our current economic crisis caused by the central bank and the clinton era laws forcing lending to people who couldn't afford to repay because otherwise was (racist- a previous witch hunt similar to this one.)
The reason people don't trust the established authorities is because they are not authorities.
Remember, these people were, only a few years ago, trying to sell us on a fabricated swine-flu epidemic. They hyped that to the stratosphere when there really was very little (scientific) risk. Clearly these "health organizations" are operating based on political desire, not on a scientific basis.
This is one of the aspects of centralizing power under collectivism.
Decentralization, that is, individualism where people make their own choices, actually works well, and results in better over all choices being made.
The reason most people vaccinate their children is because they are given the choice and analyzed the science. Forcing those whose kids are high risk to get vaccinated, will also discredit those health organizations and may well end up in much lower ultimate rates of vaccination (depending on how draconian they are.)