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To: sargon
Congratulations, though, for managing to respond to a post without engaging in the juvenile name-calling which has characterized so many of your other responses.

Congratulations on your Award for Clueless Irony For The Entire Internet awarded for your closing paragraph, in a post riddled with emotional name calling [statist, nanny-stater, criminal] to say nothing of the adolescent dig itself. It's is typical of you antivaxxers, who casually sling names at people, then get terribly sanctimonious when I respond in kind.

[I know. I know. You're not an antivaxxer. You're like Mario Cuomo: "I'm personally opposed to abortion, but I think other people should have the right to murder their children."]

The abortion analogy is real and not pure emotionalism. You are claiming the Constitution is a warrant to do EXACTLY what abortionists do. You simply don't want to admit that's where your absolutist concept of "liberty " takes you. Your kids must be "forever out of reach of THE STATE; amen." In that case, you have to accept that it applies to your body a fortiori. Then, you have no excuse for calling abortionists baby killers and murderers. They're just "exercising their liberties."

Your smoking strawman is amusing. As a 25+ year and [now 20+ year former] tobacco addict, I would hope smokers wouldn't smoke in the same room with non-smokers, but the science concerning the risk indicates that the danger is minimal. [Unlike the dangers of childhood diseases.] But since your emotionalism raised this Red Herring, let's get down to a more direct analogy which actually is comparable: do parents have an "absolute" right to smoke marijuana in the same room with their children in venues where marijuana is legal? Or do only "nanny-staters" and "criminals" advocate sensible conduct? What if you REALLY REALLY REALLY believe that marijuana is good for your kids, and to use the favorite tactic of the antivaxxers on this thread "there's a wealth of stuff on the Internet that proves that it is!"

Finally, I notice that you do not answer the question about whether a Muslim can or should be denied the right to perform a clitorectomy on his daughter. Is that OK, but infibulation isn't? At what point do you allow us "nanny staters" to step in? The reason you won't answer that is because -- like your feeble smoking analogy -- once taken to its correct conclusion the "right" to do whatever your prejudices dictate blows up your phony "liberty" arguments in your face.

PS: I don't care if you call me names. I'm not a sissy, and my mother, who got me and my siblings all the vaccinations available in our day, taught me a little ditty about sticks and stones. I advise you and the other Neanderthals to toughen up and learn it.

But I suspect what really bothers you is that you know that you don't have a leg to stand on. The Founders did not agree with your definition of "liberty." I've posted evidence of that elsewhere on this thread. I'd happily live in their "nanny-state" in which, just for example, there was enforced quarantine without recourse to the judicial system, any day.

283 posted on 02/06/2015 8:00:46 PM PST by FredZarguna (O, Reason not the need.)
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To: FredZarguna
There has to be a compelling reason for the State to step in and interfere with parental choice.

Comparing the absence of getting a vaccination (a non-act) to the act of genital mutilation is comparing apples and oranges, IMHO.

Many nanny-staters believe that male circumcision is a barbaric act. I tend to agree, but not to the point where I think myself entitled to make the parents' choice for them using the law.

The same goes for physical discipline of children. I think it's entirely appropriate in the vast majority of cases, although it can obviously be abusive in others. That doesn't mean it should be banned altogether.

Thus, my concept of Liberty is far from absolutist.

As for the smoking analogy, it's undoubtedly a fact that many parents smoke (tobacco or whatever) in the presence of, or near enough to, their children. While this may not be good for the children anymore than feeding them happy meals from McDonald's, it does not rise to the compelling level of what would constitute actionable child abuse.

The same is true, IMHO, for vaccinations, or home-schooling, for that matter. Parents should enjoy significant leeway when making such choices on behalf of their children, even if their choices go against the grain of what society thinks is proper.

As for the name-calling accusation, I am simply calling a spade a spade. Calling you a nanny-stater was based on your apparent position with respect to mandatory vaccinations. That is entirely different than branding someone an idiot or moron simply because they disagree with you on a political issue, or because they fail to give almighty science its due reverence.

Finally, as for the Muslim act of clitorectomy, there are many such things prevalent in various cultures, whether it be putting metal rings around children's necks, or bone plates in their lips, and so on, all of which result in permanent disfigurement of one kind or another. As distasteful as I may find such practices, I'm not at all sure they should be criminalized. Why? Because the state doesn't own people's children, and permitting the state to usurp parental sovereignty is an extremely perilous and slippery slope.

One aspect of true freedom is the realization of the principle that your vision of it will not always coincide with somebody else's, and, therefore, the greatest Liberty should be recognized with respect to parental prerogative, because the alternative solution of putting that power in the state's hands can be even more dangerous, as history has shown.

Freedom should not be based on the "least common denominator" of what everybody agrees on. That's a formula for minimal freedom, and is antithetical to the expansive view of Liberty which should prevail. People's pursuit of happiness, including on behalf of their children, is not subject to your narrow vision, or even society's, but rather their own.

Since declining to vaccinate one's child does not infringe on that child's rights, I don't think the state can legitimately mandate such a thing without a compelling, overwhelming reason. Parental choice should be the default, and if you want 100% of parents to vaccinate their children, try educating them instead of coercing them.

294 posted on 02/07/2015 9:18:40 AM PST by sargon
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