Discussion for article #232761
Oh looky looky! Randy’s doing the “No Matter How Big of a Fool You Make Of Yourself, Never Back Down” act.
It IS an act, right?
I wonder if Rand even bothered to vaccinate the rodent that lives on his scalp?
Is there some big ground swell in opposition to vaccines that I have somehow missed? I get that some people have irrational fears, but didn’t Michele Bachmann get kind of whacked when she explored this particular tangent?
“What happens if you have somebody not want to take the smallpox vaccine and it ruins it for everybody else? I think there are times in which
there can be some rules, but for the most part it ought to be
voluntary.”
Wha? I read that sentence a good three times and I still don’t understand what he’s saying. Yeah, yeah - I know it’s just libertarian pablum.
As Josh points out, the real problem here is that so many Americans today (especially the younger gen.) don’t remember dealing with the very real problems these diseases caused that prompted the vaccinations. If polio were to become a widespread, nationwide issue once again, prepare to see public health make a major comeback. Until then, it’s all some kind of subjective nothingburger the glibertarians think we should ignore.
“…most of them ought to be voluntary,” says the person who was already inoculated against all that stuff.
of course, we stopped routinely vaccinating people for SmallPox in the 1970s after the disease was eradicated worldwide…
good to know the one vaccine Paul requires is no longer in use
This is such a good example of the struggle in the US right now: Do we cooperate and succeed together? or do we bicker like selfish brats and fail?
It has to be said: where this is going in conservative thought bubbles is exactly where you don’t want to even think this is going. I guarantee you there are RWNJs out there right this fucking minute thinking they can attack mandatory vaccination as a means of addressing the problems demographic shifts are causing for the GOP/Teatrolls/conservative movement. They’re very busy trying to Atwater-ize it as we speak.
Because guess who won’t be getting vaccines if the gov’t is not spending money educating people about them, they become totally voluntary and they become prohibitively expensive because demand has shot downwards (but they’re extremely expensive to make). Guess.
PFFT. WhY NOT just GET to the ROOT Of the PROblEM : PROGRessives AND BIG governMENT that WANT TO SHOOT US ALL UP with GOD-GENE KILLIng Thimerosal WHICh TURNS US all INTO SociALLY awkWARd PEOPLE who REPETITIVELY stACk stuff up or put sTUFF IN rows AND DON’t belieVE in JESUS and God aNYMOR!!!1!!!one!1!!!
The Kentucky senator then brought up the failed 2011 push by another potential 2016 rival, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry ®, to require sixth-grade girls be vaccinated with Gardasil, which protects against HPV, as an example of an unnecessary mandate.
“While I think it’s a good idea to take the vaccine, I think that’s a personal decision for individuals to take and when they take it,” he said.
Jesus, please take the wheel! This man is infuriating. You want sixth grade girls to decide whether or not to take a vaccine and when they need to take it? And I’m sorry, but some parents are really, freakin stupid. Well, you know that because you’re a parent. So, you’re a perfect example of why we shouldn’t be leaving these things up to parents, many of whom lack even the most basic understanding of how these things work and why they’re even necessary. The decisions a woman’s stupid and/or moralizing parents made when she was 12 shouldn’t be the reason why at 35 she’s laying in a hospital bed, puking in a bucket, recovering from chemo.
Sung to the old show tune: “Anything you can do I can do better” from “Annie Get your Gun”.
“Anyone you Pander to, I Pander better, I can do Pandering better than you.”.
She totally looks like one of the Wayans brothers in “White Girls”.
Wow…just, wow. I have to admit, I didn’t see this coming, even with the well-established anti-science arm within the Republican Party.
If I were a Democrat, I would describe, in excruciatingly clinical detail, what will happen to YOUR child if they develop measles, or small pox, or any other disease we have essentially eradicated through vaccination. Then lets see how many parents want any part of this “Well, it’s really a choice” platform that seems to be developing.
Andrew Sullivan’s blog recently asked its readers what mankind’s greatest invention is. I would argue that vaccination against illness is, if not the top, one of the leading breakthroughs. And still, many people are following a movement whose most vocal and famous proponent is a former Playboy bunny/fired host of “The View.”
That last statement really is something to think about.
You may be missing the nearly unique power Anti-vaxing has for bonding with Teh Stoopid.
It’s become difficult for True Base Believers in Teh Stoopid to insist that the Jewish part of the Bible is literally true, that evolution is nazi mad science, that employment laws are commie bullcrap, that paper money and the Fed are the key components of the Devil’s counterfeiting scheme.
But with Anti-vaxing all they have to do is throw it out there and let your own deficiencies in understanding the great plagues of human civilization and how vaccines work do their magic.
A crank born of cranks, a crackpot born of crackpots, a quack born of a quack. I give you Time’s “Most Interesting Man in Politics.”
We are so screwed.
This is why Paul and Christie could/should never be President. They choose ignorance over science, and lack any common sense whatsoever. That’s a dangerous combination. I want a President that cares about the public health of all Americans.
I wouldn’t vote for a Thug anyways, but these kind of statements truly disqualify them from public office, not just running for President imo.
I think he’s saying he’d make the smallpox vaccine mandatory, but vaccines for anything below that level of destruction should be voluntary. Though I’m constantly revising my wingnut-to-English phrasebook so don’t hold me to that. But on the point about memory, some sane zillionaire needs to fund a series of PSAs using newsreel footage of how it used to be, stat.