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Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
And what other vaccinations are required? My state may vary from yours, but I know of no fed govt mandates for vaccines. It's optional. At the school board level, and perhaps the state or municipal level, yes, vaccines are mandated. If you don't get your kid vaccinated, the child can't attend or play sports.
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There is a real minority of people who oppose vaccines generally, but they have not had a conservative valence, at least not until quite recently. A few years ago, lefty vaccine skeptics were in the news, and a number of prominent conservatives who have recently discovered principled opposition to vaccination said exactly the opposite a few years ago when some crunchy lefties were concerned about vaccines.
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Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
And what other vaccinations are required? My state may vary from yours, but I know of no fed govt mandates for vaccines. It's optional. At the school board level, and perhaps the state or municipal level, yes, vaccines are mandated. If you don't get your kid vaccinated, the child can't attend or play sports.
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I love your conceit that conservatives don't mind vaccine requirements, they're just all stoked up about federalism and the idea that the national government is taking a power that ought to be reserved to the states. And you say I'm tone deaf? Get real.
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Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
And I love your use of the term "oppositional." As if people objecting to a mandate are all petulant little children. None may actually hew to the principle that people may choose for themselves (or be better incentivized at the municipal or state or school level).
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A vaccine requirement reflects that you don't let people choose some things for themselves, like whether to get vaccinated, when their choices impose costs (deathly illness) on others. That's the principle. Almost no conservative is committed to the sort of extreme libertarianism that says that individual rights always trump the common good in the case of illness. As I was saying, most conservatives have never felt that way, and have recently discovered their "principles" because of the political moment. I'm old enough to remember when conservatives thought that people who might have been exposed to Ebola did not have civil rights and should be locked up to prevent exposure, which shows a strong commitment to contrary principles. Obama was the President then, and they were committed to saying he wasn't exercising enough federal power to protect everyone, not that those decisions should be made by local government or that people who might carry Ebola should just decide for themselves. Can you see why HPV is similar? It's not about the vaccination there.
In other words, "petulant little children" fits the bill much closer than your effort to put lipstick on a pig.
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The inescapable corollary to comments like yours is that you, who assume you know what's best, are in a position to tell these people what to do.
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No, that's not a corollary, logically, but it does tap into the aggrieved conservative mindset and the fact that the conservative "principles" are more about some sort of resentment about what the rest of the country might be thinking about them than any kind of abstract commitment to libertarian ideals.
In a pandemic, I'm not the best person to tell these people what to do. Public health professionals are, because they have training and expertise in this area. Similarly, when I board a passenger jet plane, I do not insist that every person on board has the independent right to determine safety protocols, but that does not mean that I think I'm the person to tell them what to do. I put on my seatbelt and listen to the crew's instructions, even if I think I think some of them are stupid.
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I know what's best. But I don't think I should have the right to tell people what to do.
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Yes, yes you do. If someone runs a red light and hits you, because they think they have the right to decide for themselves whether or not traffic laws apply to them, you will absolutely think they are a selfish idiot and an asshole, and should not be allowed to act that way without consequences.
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But dipshits make comments like yours and turn it into an argument of "real Murica" versus "coastal elites."
And then any chance at compromise is lost.
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What's the chance of compromise with people who are, fundamentally, oppositional? How does that work?
You trotted out Mike DeWine as a paragon of sensible leadership, in contrast to Democrats like Gavin Newsome. A Republican like DeWine gets to do shit without as many conservatives reacting oppositionally. I live in California. There are no moderate Republicans left -- the wing nuts have run them out of the party. Whatever Gavin Newsome does will be opposed by the conservatives here, and then thoughtful people like you will tut tut that Newsome's choices have made compromise impossible. Compromise is fundamentally impossible by people who form their "principles" by acting oppositional, and that is who most conservatives are now, on any issue that becomes politicized.
eta: BTW, I understand your wistful desire for some sort of compromise, that everybody just find a way to get along. That would be awesome. The problem is the significant minority of the population that forms their political views oppositionally, not those of us who point it out. The throughline of conservatism is greivance and trolling libs.
