Ohio lawmakers want to abolish vaccine requirements:
[...] Lawmakers are working on legislation to call off the lottery immediately. They're also trying to head off any plans for "vaccine passports." And last month, they introduced a sweeping antivaccination bill that would essentially demolish public health and vaccination requirements in the state—and not just requirements for COVID-19 vaccines, requirements for any vaccine.
[...] State Rep. Beth Liston (D-Dublin) blasted the bill, telling The Columbus Dispatch, "Not only would it prevent schools, businesses and communities from putting safety measures in pace related to COVID, it will impact the health of our children... This bill applies to all vaccines—polio, measles, meningitis, etc. If it becomes law we will see worsening measles outbreaks, meningitis in the dorms, and children once again suffering from polio."
[...] "At its core, this proposal would destroy our current public health framework that prevents outbreaks of potentially lethal diseases, threatens the stability of our economy as it recovers from a devastating pandemic and jeopardizes the way we live, learn, work and celebrate life," the letter said.
[...] "HB 248 would put all Ohioans at risk while increasing the cost of health care for families, individuals and businesses," spokesperson Dan Williamson said. "This proposal applies to all immunizations, including childhood vaccines. If passed, this legislation could reverse decades of immunity from life-threatening, but vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, mumps, hepatitis, meningitis and tuberculosis."
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday May 28 2021, @06:25PM (7 children)
And the best reason *to* get the vaccine, is that we're in the middle of a frickin' pandemic, and 593k people have already died from it in the U.S., and maybe we don't want that number to keep going up.
Our politics are partisan enough already with the knee-jerk "well the other party wants to do X, so fuck 'em, I'm against X", without bringing literal death into the picture.
If not getting vaccinated only hurt yourself, it would be another matter--Darwin Award. But it's about protecting the rest of the population...a notion many conservatives apparently can't fathom. "If it doesn't help me, why should I do it? Fuck 'em."
This is why we can't have nice things in the U.S., because the sociopaths would rather deny themselves healthcare etc. etc. than let The Unworthies get it. Cutting off your nose to spite your face.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by slinches on Friday May 28 2021, @07:37PM (1 child)
Why are you so quick to throw away the right to self-determination when a vaccine is involved? What happened to the sanctity of a person's bodily autonomy?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Saturday May 29 2021, @07:53AM
Widespread plague was the singular exception to my general beliefs on freedom in the U.S. even before Covid was a thing, and that hasn't changed since.
The human brain just doesn't seem to be wired to deal with low probability of drastic consequences (i.e. death), and that goes double for when it's somebody else's.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @08:27PM (2 children)
The epidemic is over in the US. Look at the numbers. You will now reluctantly have to return to a normal, pre-apocalyptic world. Sorry.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Saturday May 29 2021, @07:56AM (1 child)
I still have yet to hear a reason why *not* to get the vaccine other than the knee-jerk "because the other party wants me to."
Talk about throwing a tantrum. Pot, meet kettle?
They've said all along that the numbers were going to go down over the summer months. With dropping restrictions, just wait and see what happens in the fall.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @03:28PM
Why shouldn't we prevent fat people from buying sugary foods resulting in a dramatic social cost in their healthcare and other negative outcomes? Not only would we be helping society, but we'd even be helping them as well - making them far more likely to live a long and healthy life. In America, heart disease, largely driven by obese lifestyles, killed more people last year than COVID did.
Why shouldn't we ban alcohol? It's involved in huge chunks of all fatal crashes, countless criminal acts, to say nothing of also similarly causing tremendous long-term health consequences on the individual user that society often suffers for.
Why shouldn't we ban music that says mean things? It has a strong association with numerous forms of criminal and gang activity, can result in severe and negative influences on young and impressionable individuals, and really does nothing but propagate misogynistic, violent, "values."
Why shouldn't we sterilize individuals with severe and genetic mental enfeeblement that renders them unable to meaningfully operate in society, and will undoubtedly do the same to their offspring? This can not only lead to criminal behavior affecting outsiders, but these individuals would hardly even register the implication or meaning of sterilization.
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I could offer specific reasons I believe the vaccines are a poor risk:reward offering for certain groups of individuals (and vice versa for others), but they're irrelevant. The fundamental point is liberty. COVID, like the countless flu-like illnesses to precede it, will be obsolete within a few years. The dystopia we create trying to change three years to two, however, will likely stay with us indefinitely. Let us not go down that path. Passports, as a requirement to travel, were generally not a thing until WW1. They were a "temporary war measure" that became permanent and created a far more authoritarian and insular world. The emergence of "vaccine passports" is not something people 80 years from now are going to look back as the beginning as some new era of freedom and liberty...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @08:54PM (1 child)
VLM is an actual racist Nazi. Anti-vaxxing is the least of his stupidity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @12:32AM
Yup, I thought he had toned down the racism a bit at least but he dropped a jewish-bomb recently. Oh well, can't stop bigots from spewing hate, just call em out and move on!