I'm libertarian in some respects, too, but I'm not principle-oriented, really. I actually call myself a "libertarian socialist," but my views are extremely idiosyncratic.

Re vaccinations, they're actually only required if your child is going to go to public school. I'd be in favor of requiring them even more broadly if there's good evidence that not requiring them actually does increase the prevalence of certain diseases. I'm not sure if there's good evidence of that at the moment with respect to most of the diseases in question.

Re guns, my stance on that recently is simply this: gun violence is out of control in the U.S. We don't know exactly why it's out of control--likely the causes of it are quite complex, and surely they have to do with cultural factors. I think that the aim should be to curb gun violence, and I'm willing to try anything conceivable to curb gun violence--anything from banning guns outright to requiring that everyone be armed and trained. Basically, whatever would work to curb gun violence is what I'm in favor of. My only motivation there is to greatly reduce gun violence. I really couldn't care less about any philosophical issues surrounding it.

The original intent of the second amendment was that a well armed citizenry can prevent or, at least, deter any attempt at imposing tyranny. Cannons were among the weapons that were originally covered by the constitution, but I can't buy a nuclear tipped cruise missile to defend myself against tyranny. The billionaire mayor of NYC arrested 26 reporters in one day and only received a slap on the wrist, the bankers that collapsed the economy did so using outright fraud and never saw a day in jail. Money is the new tyranny and one the snipers shooting cops they blew up with a bomb disposal robot. The Pentagon has been investing heavily in robots, drones, and swarm technology, while the NSA is routinely reading the emails of a third of our population. Your gun rights simply don't serve the purpose the constitution was written for anymore. In fact, your constitutional rights have been suspended indefinitely and the military has been given the legal authority to round people up like cattle, while if you or I did the things either Trump or Hillary did we'd be in jail.

When there is no justice in or out of court and people are rioting in the streets and sniping cops from rooftops debating gun laws and whether vaccinations impose on our individual liberties is insipid to say the least. So much for libertarianism. They talk the talk and never walk the walk. Liberty for sale to the highest bidder.

Yeah, the idea of people arming themselves to oppose a tyrannical government is quite ridiculous at present. That would only possibly work if we were talking about some tiny banana republic.

Yeah, the idea of people arming themselves to oppose a tyrannical government is quite ridiculous at present. That would only possibly work if we were talking about some tiny banana republic. — Terrapin Station

The Pentagon alone spends as much in a single year as most countries make. I've met dozens of generals and admirals, CIA spooks, and you name it. Once I met Stormin' Norman Swartzkopf in the Crystal City underground, an entire city dedicated just to selling things to the Pentagon with their underground walkways preventing spying eyes from watching what it going on. Americans sold their country to the highest bidder long ago explaining why in ten years I have yet to find a single person who knows the simple distinction between a lynch mob and a democracy and why we have a military equal to the next six or seven largest in the world combined for "defense" purposes, while people riot in the streets.

Yeah, the idea of people arming themselves to oppose a tyrannical government is quite ridiculous at present. That would only possibly work if we were talking about some tiny banana republic. — Terrapin Station

It is a well-known fact that tiny banana Republicans are the ones who compensate by buying the biggest guns.

It is a well-known fact that tiny banana Republicans are the ones who compensate by buying the biggest guns. — Brainglitch

Which is often their own undoing. Divide and conquer is simply not a viable long term internal strategy making any country ripe for invasion or other outside influence. The Russians now attempting to influence a US election is a clear indication they know we are no longer the "united" states.

I'm not sure if there's good evidence of that at the moment with respect to most of the diseases in question. — Terrapin Station

How much do you need? The anti-vaccinationist have provided us with more than enough with record measles outbreaks over the past few years, for example, confirming the prediction that if vaccination rates drop below 95% in a community it's well on the way to being as dangerous as no vaccinations at all. As someone who was nearly killed by measles at the age of 5 (long before the vaccination was available) and whose health is still affected in part by it, it is beyond my ken why anyone would even begin to question the need for universal vaccination.

confirming the prediction that if vaccination rates drop below 95% in a community it's well on the way to being as dangerous as no vaccinations at all. — Barry Etheridge

For one, if there were 94% vaccinated, say, wouldn't they not be affected?

Well, just how united we ever were, from the earliest settlements on, is debateable.

Could you ask that question in a sentence that I might be able to comprehend? X-)

what right does the government have to force you to get vaccinations — darthbarracuda

Sometimes the government has to protect people who are too stupid or pig headed to protect themselves.

'd be in favor of requiring them even more broadly if there's good evidence that not requiring them actually does increase the prevalence of certain diseases. — Terrapin Station

The measles vaccine is a good example of effectiveness: Look at the graph showing a plunging incidence of measles after the measles virus vaccine was introduced. The rubeola virus, a paramyxovirus, causes serious disease. Sure, anyone who has had measles is immune, but that is immunity gained the hard way. Measles can be fatal. 5% of children with measles develop pneumonia and/or encephalitis. Either can lead to death. Anyone suffering from the measles virus is infectious for quite a few days, and the virus is readily transmitted (especially among children).

The effect of vaccines on most illnesses (for which it is used) is similar to measles. They work.

The influenza vaccine is not always effective. Because influenza is a rapidly changing disease, and because it takes months to manufacture vaccine, a mis-match sometimes develops between the time the likely strains of next year's epidemic are identified and the time the vaccine is injected. A mis-matched vaccine doesn't harm anyone directly; it just doesn't do a lot of good.

The other cause of ineffectiveness for the influenza vaccine is age. People older than 65 (give or take a little) no longer respond as vigorously to the influenza vaccine as they would have when they were younger. Their immune systems just aren't quite as capable as they used to be. (BUT... even if the influenza vaccine is 60% effective rather than 90% effective for the elderly, that's a lot better than no protection at all.

The government has a vital stake in protecting the health of the citizenry. It fulfills a responsibility to promote public health by providing disease-prevention services such as:
sewage disposal,
clean water
garbage removal
rat and mosquito control
quality health care facilities
vaccination against preventable diseases
disease tracking and intervention (like it does for syphilis, tuberculosis, AIDS, etc.)
etc.

Don't want to get vaccinated? Fine. Here is what you may get:

The WHO lists 25 diseases for which vaccines are available:[2]

Anthrax
Measles
Rubella
Cholera
Meningococcal disease
Influenza
Diphtheria
Mumps
Tetanus
Hepatitis A
Pertussis
Tuberculosis
Hepatitis B
Pneumoccocal disease
Typhoid fever
Hepatitis E
Poliomyelitis
Tick-borne encephalitis
Haemophilus influenzae type b
Rabies
Varicella and herpes zoster (shingles)
Human papilloma-virus
Rotavirus gastroenteritis
Yellow fever
Japanese encephalitis

Well, just how united we ever were, from the earliest settlements on, is debateable. — Brainglitch

All too true, but its becoming harder to even keep up the pretense. A man who fled the former Soviet Union was asked by reporters his first impressions of the US and his response was, "We knew we were being lied to!" Conan O'Brien does a regular routine where he has his staff record fifty talking heads all spouting the same B.S. verbatim off a teleprompter and his audiences just laugh and laugh.

Could you ask that question in a sentence that I might be able to comprehend? — Barry Etheridge

I just happened to look at this thread again--I didn't realize you responded to me earlier.

You said, "If vaccination rates drop below 95% in a community it's well on the way to being as dangerous as no vaccinations at all."

Presumably, if there are no vaccinations at all, everyone is at risk of whatever the disease in question is. But if 94% of a population is vaccinated, isn't that 94% protected against the disease? So that would be quite different than everyone being at risk, no?

You said, "If vaccination rates drop below 95% in a community it's well on the way to being as dangerous as no vaccinations at all." — Terrapin Station

"Herd immunity" would certainly apply at 94%. By and large, the "herd" is protected. If the 6% get sick, that could be a significant--even dangerous--loss, but that would depend on who got sick. Unless the 6% unvaccinated all live together, they aren't likely to all become infected.

<50% vaccination rates don't produce much herd immunity. It's important that "vectors" of disease get vaccinated. For instance, if you have only enough measles vaccine for 30% of the population, give it to the most socially active children (they being the ones most likely to mix and spread the virus). Isolated children living with immune parents aren't likely to get infected -- until they come in contact with an infectious child. If 90% of socially active children are immunized against measles, for instance, there would be a good chance that no large epidemic would occur.

Its critical to get health care workers vaccinated against a readily contagious disease that will bring people into hospitals. They might compose only 5% of the population, but health care workers make a great vector for transmitting influenza.

Towards the end of the campaign, small pox was not eliminated by vaccinating everybody in a country. If somebody got sick with small pox, all the people that might have come into contact with the infected person during the previous 2 weeks or so were vaccinated. This prevented the virus from spreading beyond that person. At this point, most people were never vaccinated against smallpox. As the cases became more and more isolated, there was less and less reason to vaccinate large numbers of people. Eventually there was one last case, then no more -- for over 35 years, now. I'm 70; the last time I was vaccinated against small pox was 1964.

The same strategy is being used on polio, except that polio is shed by the gut, which means fecal contamination can transmit the virus. So, when a case occurs, everyone in a village, county, or city needs to be vaccinated, whether they had contact with the person or not. Polio has been eliminated from the western hemisphere, most of Asia (excepting Pakistan, and maybe a few other small areas), Europe, and much of Africa.

Ah, I see. The trouble is that no vaccine is 100% effective in 100% of the vaccinated population, whether this is due to mutation in the disease itself, or problems with individual's immune systems. The higher the percentage of vaccinated people the less likely it is that if the disease is introduced into the community it will be transmitted to those who remain vulnerable (if patient zero is in contact with person A who is in contact with B who is in contact with C and C is at risk, he is protected by A and B's immunity if both are vaccinated, less so if only B is vaccinated, and not at all if neither are vaccinated). At around 95% vaccination rate (obviously that's not exact to the 10th decimal place) there are so many possible trains of transmission that this buffering effect is reduced to virtually zero.

Polio has been eliminated — Bitter Crank

Unfortunately its only slightly less dangerous cousin AFM now seems to be on the rise in the US.

"New" diseases are a problem. Whether AFM is totally new, or newly recognized, don't know. The CDC page I looked at listed well known viruses as the cause.

Epidemiologists have predicted (correctly or not, don't know) that we will see more new diseases over time, as a result of increased human/wild animal contact in rain forests, and so on. Ebola is an example of a new disease emerging from human/animal contact. In addition old diseases are getting moved around more -- like West Nile Virus's jump to North America, or Zika virus's appearance in South America.

The other thing is that as old diseases fade into the background (mostly not disappearing) diseases which might have been similar to epidemic diseases (like polio) might become identifiable. Cancer, for instance, is more common now because more people live long enough to develop it. Prostate cancer, for instance, probably wasn't a common problem until many men started living long enough to develop serious symptoms and metastases.

"Herd immunity" would certainly apply at 94%. By and large, the "herd" is protected. If the 6% get sick, that could be a significant--even dangerous--loss, but that would depend on who got sick . . . — Bitter Crank

Wouldnt it be more dangerous if 100% of folks had no immunity?

Of course it would be more dangerous if no one had immunity. Had I suggested otherwise?

Yes, by saying, ""If vaccination rates drop below 95% in a community it's well on the way to being as dangerous as no vaccinations at all."

Er .. that was me! Not him!

And there is clearly a qualification there in 'on the way to'. I'm not at all suggesting that you instantly go to zero protection if indeed there even exists such a thing. Even at the height of the Great Plague in London, for example, the infection rate never got above 25% so natural immunity could be said, accounting for those who just got lucky, to be similar to maybe a 60% vaccination rate.

Sorry, I get you two mixed up sometimes, just because of the two-word names starting with "B."