Am 11.08.2013 14:30, schrieb Warp:
> clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
>> It should /not/ be administered to people who are unwilling to accept
>> that procedure; first of all I doubt that /any/ vaccination is without
>> risk - if only because in the course of production of the vaccine
>> something might go wrong, causing people to be infected with polio
>> rather than vaccinated against it. How many polio victims are you
>> willing to risk in order to protect others?
>
> And once again we come back to the question: Do you think the smallpox
> vaccination program (which was sometimes administered via borderline
> force), which has saved millions of lives, was a bad thing?

If it used borderline force, then it was a borderline thing.

> If the same western culture zeitgeist had been in place in the 60's and
> 70's as today, smallpox would very probably still exist, killing countless
> innocent people who wouldn't have to die from that disease.

That may or may not be the case. The smallpox vaccination programme 
might have been just (or at least almost) as successful without 
resorting to borderline force.

> If you could go back in time, and had the power, would you have stopped
> those semi-forced vaccinations from taking place, risking smallpox not
> being completely eradicated, with the subsequent deaths up to this day?

Yes, I might have done that. I might have taken that risk; note that a 
risk is something that may or may not happen.

> I'm not going to fall into namecalling anymore, but I am going to say
> with absolute sincerity that I would not do that even if I could. I see
> the lives of all those people as more important than our western moral
> sensibilities. If you really want to call it "totalitarianism" then you
> can go ahead. It won't change my mind.

You are free to hold this stance; I have no serious problem with that, 
especially since you are not the one to make the call. But please leave 
others the freedom to be of different opinion - at least those people wo 
aren't the ones to make the call either.

> People here are comparing forced vaccination programs to totalitarianism
> and eugenics. However, a better comparison would be mandatory elementary
> education.

No. Education doesn't normally put your health at any risk.

> Most western countries have mandatory elementary education. The opinion
> of the "victims" isn't asked. Parents who would refuse to allow their
> children to go to school will be met with ever-increasing sanctions, up
> to their children being taken into custody by force.

Yes, this might be debatable. But note that it is pretty clear that 
/every/ uneducated child /will/ suffer severe consequences, so it can be 
argued that the government needs to step in for the /individual/ child, 
to protect its right to a good education from being restricted by their 
parents. (And yes, I would argue that if the parents cater for the 
child's education by private means, it should /not/ be forced to attend 
a governmental school.)

In the case of vaccination, you can only invoke this very same argument 
when we're talking about vaccination of children - and even then it is 
/not/ clear whether you're averting factual and otherwise inevitable 
severe consequences for /this/ particular child you intend to vaccinate. 
As a matter of fact, the whole forced vaccination scheme is based on the 
idea of forcing something on /this/ person to prevent /others/ from 
severe consequences - which you /might/ actually be able to avert using 
different means.

The best comparison /is/ eugenics: There, as well, the idea is to impose 
some medical procedures on (most likely unwilling) people to improve the 
health of future generations - with the only major difference that it's 
not about genetic material transmitted within a generation (by a virus), 
but genetic material transmitted from one generation to the next.

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