Debates and Vaccinations 20110913

View 692 Tuesday, September 13, 2011

· The Debates

· The Vaccination Issue

· Ponzi scheme

Blitzer 2, Bachman 0

We need to examine the whole question of compulsory vaccination, but it’s not really an issue in a Presidential election.

What is important is that Michelle Bachman fell for Wolf Blitzer’s offer to assist her in political suicide, not only taking the bait hook, line, and sinker, but then coming back for more. Up to that point my impression of the debate was that Newt, as usual, was the most impressive on the issues but not as a candidate, while Cain and Bachman moved out of the field and up into the group of front runners. Cain stayed there. Bachman did herself considerable harm,

The harm is not her indignation about compulsory vaccination against a sexually transmitted disease. It’s her taking the bait from Blitzer, whose sole task up there was to try to get Republican candidates to slaughter each other and turn attention away from President Obama and the Democrats. If the issue is personal freedom and limited government, is there anyone left in the US who has doubts about which party is more trustworthy on the issue? The Republicans had their experiment with big government as the solution and were so thoroughly burned that they are apologetic about supporting government programs we had for generations. It won’t be Republicans who institute a national program of compulsory vaccination against cervical cancer, and it won’t be Republicans who decide that if girls must be vaccinated, then boys – who after all can get HPV – must be vaccinated as well. President Perry would be no more likely to implement a federal HPV vaccination program than President Bachman or President Cain or anyone else on that platform.

Surely Bachman knows that? But she let herself be goaded into an all-out attack on Perry without any attempt at discussion of the real issue of compulsory vaccination and state’s rights. She made it purely personal. She pounded on it again and again. And when Perry conceded the issue and in effect admitted a mistake, she wouldn’t let that go: she screamed and leaped, accusing him of trying to implement the policy because Merck gave him a $5.000 campaign contribution. Perry didn’t handle that one very well, but it’s pretty hard to think of what to say when someone accuses you of a felony. I thought he was pretty restrained.

Now why is any of this important? Neither President Bachman nor President Perry will ever face the question if elected. What this did show is the candidates’ abilities to be manipulated by a hostile press. Perry came off without great harm. I do not think Bachman did.

Primary debates ought to be about issues. There are no substantial issue differences between the Republican candidates. That leaves leadership and implementation. The purpose of the debates is to allow the candidates to show leadership. Of those on that stage, Cain and Gingrich have stood out as understanding the problems and focusing on solutions, not on belittling their supposed fellow party members. Those who value political office more than principle got us into this mess in the first place. I don’t have a great deal of confidence in candidates who do not seem to understand that.

The Vaccination Issue

Public health issues involving compulsory measures divide conservatives and libertarians. They have for a long time. Do you have the right to go out in public after you know you have TB? Does the government have the right to compel vaccination against smallpox? What about diphtheria? Do you have the right to keep a bucket of stagnant water in your back yard? What about a fruit tree that you keep “organic” and which is infested with Mediterranean fruit flies? Does the state have the right to spray your organic fruit tree?

These are not trivial questions. They aren’t going to be settled here. The Constitutional solution to this is the same as for abortion and many other such issues: leave it to the states. That’s the general answer for those who believe that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The vaccination issue has a long history. I do know that in Tennessee in the 1930’s every school child had to get vaccinated, boys generally on the left arm, girls often elsewhere in places we weren’t supposed to see. Whether that was a federal or a state program I don’t know. I vaguely recall there were a few kids whose parents had a religious objection to vaccination, but I didn’t know any of them and it was never thought of as a big deal. Everyone I knew had also been vaccinated for diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus, but I think that was privately done; and of course you always got a tetanus shot if you got a puncture wound. Then when we went into the Army there was a new smallpox vaccination and a whole battery of shots including a particularly painful one we called Japanese Beetle (Japanese Type B Encephalitis).

Over time things changed, and more and more vaccinations became mandatory. Just after my kids got past the age of vaccination – all done as I recall by our pediatrician who so approved of what I was writing that he was taking care of them for free – the list of mandatory vaccinations became so long that the whole process was being questioned. How many? All at once? At what age? All questions of importance.

While I was growing up there was no vaccination for polio, and every polio season was a season of mild fear. When Salk developed his vaccine I rushed to get it. One of the members of my fencing club in Seattle waited a year. The last time I saw him he was in an iron lung.

To repeat: These are not trivial questions. They aren’t going to be settled here. The Constitutional solution to this is the same as for many other such issues: leave it to the states. That’s the general answer for those who believe that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The argument for compulsory vaccination against polio and smallpox is one of public health. It’s less compelling regarding sexually transmitted diseases – depending of course on your beliefs regarding adolescent self control, guilt, and morality. Is it compassionate to require vaccination against HPV? Try this for a reasonable discussion: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/HPV_Vaccine_Controversy.php

Now what happens if we discover a vaccination for AIDS? Should that be compulsory as a condition of attending school? For everyone?

What I tell you three times is true: these are not trivial questions, and we are not going to settle them here. Good people can differ.

From Chesley Bonestell’s Imagination?

Jerry,

It seems that the Cassini spacecraft continues to channel Chesley Bonnestell!

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

Release & Picture:

A Quintet of Moons

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14573

Ponzi schemes

A while back, libertarian Peter Schiff had one of the trustees of the Social Security program on his radio show. He asked him to describe the difference between the system and a Ponzi scheme. He couldn’t do it — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITMEZImvNio&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL6610F55F8E810620

It’s an amusing listen.

Ed Armstrong

I think we have established that Social Security as configured at present meets all the criteria of a Ponzi scheme. The question now is how it can be fixed. Assuming that requiring compulsory savings is a good idea – and there is a lot to be said for that – the morality of transferring money from those who work to those who don’t work needs discussion. Supporting those who paid into a fund all their lives and now expect to be paid back is easy; supporting those who have been supported on disability all their lives and now expect to be paid after they reach the age at which they would have retired had they ever worked in the first place, by taxing those just joining the work force is perhaps another matter.

If Social Security were a real investment at compound interest it might be a different discussion, but the morality of taxing those who work to support those who don’t certainly needs at least discussion.