On 8/9/2013 8:26 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 09 Aug 2013 19:31:09 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> On 8/8/2013 1:38 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Thu, 08 Aug 2013 22:05:56 +0200, andrel wrote:
>>>
>>>> Uhmm, you did get the sarcasm, did you?
>>>
>>> It seems not - sorry, it's been a rough couple of days for me. :/
>>>
>>> Jim
>>>
>> Yeah, missed it too, but, in my case, because this is *actually* one of
>> the bullshit arguments I hear from a lot of people (interestingly, quite
>> a few of which are libertarians).
>
> That's the sign of a good poe, though.
>
> Jim
>
Actually, one of the sites one which that concept was coined now bans 
its use. The reason being that bad, stupid, pointlessly mad, arguments 
are so common, from certain sorts of people, there, that its impossible 
to tell when someone is, in fact, joking, and when they are serious, and 
therefor address the serious ones. It is a victim, in effect, of its own 
success, since, you can't combat stupid, by labeling every single such 
thing that gets posted as, 'There is no way this guy is serious." lol

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On 8/10/2013 12:02 PM, Warp wrote:
> "He doesn't accept the theory of evolution, therefore he's an idiot"
> is *not* an ad hominem.
>
> "He is in jail for tax fraud, and thus you shouldn't be listening to
> what he has to say about the theory of evolution" *is* an ad hominem.
> (He might be wrong about evolution, but he being in jail for tax fraud
> is completely irrelevant to the issue.)
>
Hmm... Does that mean, "He is an engineer, so listening to him about 
evolution is pointless.", ad hominem then? Because, from my experience, 
sometimes these things are more like maxims. lol

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On 8/10/2013 3:00 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> If you agree that those millions of lives were worth the worldwide
> smallpox vaccination program, then you have not business in criticizing
> the worldwide polio vaccination program, or else you are just a hypocrite.
>
> If you don't agree that the millions of lives were worth the vaccination
> program, then I don't even want to write the words that come to mind to
> describe what you are, because it's nauseating to even think."
>
> (Yes, the implication is there - "if you don't agree with what I'm
> saying, then I don't even want to write the words that come to mind to
> describe what you are" - you set up a strawman and knock it down by
> implying that those who don't agree with you are sick.)
>
Hmm. I am not going to defend Warp's spiral into poor defense of an 
argument, but, I will toss in my two cents. "Mandatory Public 
Education". Every argument you can make against forced vaccines can be 
made against public education, and often is. But, we can also see the 
immediate consequence of "good" education, and the decline of thinking, 
skills, etc., from "not" having it. And, very nearly the exact same 
argument is made, by those attempting to get rid of, undermine, or 
replace is, "We should be allowed to choose." They even went so far as, 
during the Reagan administration, actually passing laws that "prevented" 
some states from extending that education, as a free service, into 
colleges. All because people who can't tell their ass from their elbows, 
or the East India company in Pirate of the Caribbean, from the same 
entity, in the real history books, don't want to be "dictated to" by 
"totalitarians, bent on making their kids think the wrong way."

Its hardly a surprise that the "method" these people want to employ 
amounts to, one other subjects, including "prayer in schools", is also 
"totalitarian", and aimed at simply replacing the current perceived 
dictators with there own. As bad as it may sound, sometimes, you do need 
the Havelock Vetinari's in charge of some things, even if its just to 
keep the Winders and and Snapcases out (for those that don't get this - 
Vetinari is the dictator of Ank-Morpork, in the disc world series, and 
no longer on the assissin's list, due to everyone deciding that, for the 
first time, the city was actually working. Winder was a total nutcase... 
think.. a dark ages version of Nixon, and Snapcase, while not seeing 
sedition, and murders under every rock, was, otherwise.. worse.)

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Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> On 8/10/2013 12:02 PM, Warp wrote:
> > "He doesn't accept the theory of evolution, therefore he's an idiot"
> > is *not* an ad hominem.
> >
> > "He is in jail for tax fraud, and thus you shouldn't be listening to
> > what he has to say about the theory of evolution" *is* an ad hominem.
> > (He might be wrong about evolution, but he being in jail for tax fraud
> > is completely irrelevant to the issue.)
> >
> Hmm... Does that mean, "He is an engineer, so listening to him about 
> evolution is pointless.", ad hominem then? Because, from my experience, 
> sometimes these things are more like maxims. lol

I suppose that, technically speaking, it is. While there's nothing wrong
in being an engineer, that status is still being used as some kind of
reason to discredit their argument, in a completely non-sequitur manner.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Am 11.08.2013 00:08, schrieb Warp:
> clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
>> I tell you something sick:
>
>> Here in Germany, some decades ago there was a huge campaign pro Iodine:
>> To fight hypothyreosis, people were encouraged to use salt with added
>> Iodine, companies were encouraged to add Iodine to their food products,
>> and farmers were encouraged to add Iodine to the food of their
>> livestock. All for the good of the people, especially (but not limited
>> to) those suffering from undiagnosed hypothyreosis.
>
> Surely you can now point out how the polio vaccine is likewise dangerous,
> and should therefore not be administered worldwide?

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 second, here's the opening of that can of ugly worms I was refering 
to in my previous post: How many people will you be willing to sacrifice 
in the next, possibly more dangerous world-wide vaccination? And how 
about a scheme to eradicate some hereditary disease?

You can answer those questions with mathematical formulae, but those 
formulae are cold and cruel, as they completely ignore the individuals 
they sacrifice.

> Do you see your "thing X is dangerous, therefore thing Y probably is too"
> fallacy here?

No, because that's absolutely not my point. My point is "thing X is 
dangerous, and thing Y flattens an important moral barrier to X, thus Y 
/is/ dangerous".

And yes, it has been /proven/ in practice that the sort of moral that 
calls for polio to be eliminated by a /forced/ programme, if taken too 
far, will deliberately /kill/ for that higher good.

What you're totally ignoring is that diseases can also be effectively 
pushed back by /voluntary/ vaccination programmes. No, of course those 
don't eradicate the virus entirely; but don't tell me that smallpox is 
entirely dead - you will surely still find it in some secret labs.

>> Sacrificing people's freedom to reject some medical procedure, in order
>> to try achieving some greater medical benefit for all, opens up a can of
>> particularly ugly worms we've seen crawling across Europe before.
>
> There's a big difference between your iodine example and things like
> smallpox and polio: These latter things are contagious, and by not
> taking a vaccine, you are potentially spreading the disease to others.
> You are, thus, not responsible only for your own wellbeing, but of other
> people as well.

Obviously an unvaccinated person can only spread the disease to other 
unvaccinated people. An unvaccinated person is thus responsible for 
getting the disease in the first place, but he/she is /not/ responsible 
for other people getting the disease, because it would have been the 
responsibility of those others to get vaccinated in order to protect 
themselves.

> There's another difference: Smallpox and polio can be completely
> eradicated. Once they are gone, they will are gone for good, and nobody
> ever will have to suffer from them or need any further vaccinations for
> them.

While that may sound all good and nice, it totally ignores the moral 
fallout of a forced vaccination scheme, and also totally neglects the 
possibility of a longer-lasting, more expensive but entirely voluntary 
programme, which will come without that fallout.

What would you have prefered to end WW2 in the Pacific - a conventional 
bombardment of Japan that might have led to more immediate casualties on 
both sides, or the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs that ended the war in a 
single flash, but (besides causing unimaginable suffering among those 
people who survived) caused moral fallout that the world is still 
chewing on today?

Your answer to this question might be different from the one I would 
give, but I'm sure you will acknowledge that it is difficult to answer, 
and that each person should be entitled the right to their own answer, 
no matter what facts and numbers are presented.

While you may not see the moral implications of a forced polio 
vaccination scheme, they are there, and they are - I think - of similar 
severity as in the Hiroshima/Nakasaki boms question, so each observer 
(and consequently each person on this forum) should be entitled to their 
own opinion on this matter, without polemic attempts to invalidate their 
opinion, like the following:

> By not removing those diseases from the Earth when we have the means to,
> we are responsible for all the lives that are lost or ruined. Many of
> them will be people who would most certainly have wanted to live and be
> healthy. The blood is in our hands if we allow people to suffer and die
> when we are sitting on the cure because of our moral sensibilities.

I'll ignore this last paragraph of yours, and especially that "blood is 
[on] our hands" part, because I don't think that you have the right to 
invoke this kind of polemics in this discussion.

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On 11-8-2013 0:08, Warp wrote:
> clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
>> I tell you something sick:
>
>> Here in Germany, some decades ago there was a huge campaign pro Iodine:
>> To fight hypothyreosis, people were encouraged to use salt with added
>> Iodine, companies were encouraged to add Iodine to their food products,
>> and farmers were encouraged to add Iodine to the food of their
>> livestock. All for the good of the people, especially (but not limited
>> to) those suffering from undiagnosed hypothyreosis.
>
> Surely you can now point out how the polio vaccine is likewise dangerous,
> and should therefore not be administered worldwide?
>
> Do you see your "thing X is dangerous, therefore thing Y probably is too"
> fallacy here?

Clipka is mainly telling a story. Just to explain his position. Which 
is about forced medication/vaccination. There is no claim anywhere that 
polio vaccines are dangerous or even 'probably' dangerous.

Which means that what you did put in quotes was not in his text, just in 
your mind. Do I need to remind you what it is called if you attack not 
what someone said but your own exaggeration of that?



-- 
Everytime the IT department forbids something that a researcher deems
necessary for her work there will be another hole in the firewall.

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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 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.

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?

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.

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

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.

This would be an even better argument for this kind of state to be
classified as "totalitarian", because it is literally a form of government
where said government imposes its power on its own citizens, disregarding
individual opinions. Yet nobody in their right mind would call this
totalitarianism.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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"Patrick Elliott" <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message 
news:52070dd3@news.povray.org...

This is going in circles.

You say, "Government is evil and a tool for the rich."

I say, "Then we need less government."

You say, "No, we need more government, with more authority, because 
government is evil and a tool for the rich."

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"Patrick Elliott" <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message 
news:52071360$1@news.povray.org...
> Hmm. I am not going to defend Warp's spiral into poor defense of an 
> argument, but, I will toss in my two cents. "Mandatory Public Education".

Not the same thing. /My/ state requires I feed and educate my child, at 
least, once he's born. The education requirements are actually quite modest. 
That the alternatives are not better accepted is society's problem, not the 
state's. It's even conceivable that my national government could require I 
vaccinate my child, though that would, if it were done legally (your lot 
have pushed us nearly into mob rule), require a Constitutional amendment.

This is much different than going to another country and locking up /their/ 
children between 5 and 18-years-old.

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Shay <non### [at] nonecom> wrote:
> This is much different than going to another country and locking up /their/ 
> children between 5 and 18-years-old. 

I would like you to tell if you think the smallpox vaccination program was
a good thing or a bad thing.

I ask this because I am finding a notional dissonance here. I get the
feeling that people here want to keep the cake and eat it too: They think
the smallpox vaccination program was indeed a good thing (because it has
saved countless lives), yet they still oppose the idea of such a vaccination
program (because it requires forcing those who refuse to take the vaccine
eg. because of superstitious beliefs, which is in fact the situation with
the polio vaccination program.)

One could argue that the smallpox vaccination program was good, but could
have been handled better (ie. respecting more people's choice). The problem
with that is that it would have taken much longer to eradicate smallpox
(which could well still exist today if it had been done like that), and
countless people would have subsequently died because of it.

Therefore, as ugly as it sounds, the "handling things better" (from a
western moral perspective) would have caused innocent people to die.

*That* is a notional dissonance, and one that I personally do not accept.
I put people's lives ahead of moral sensibilities. If I had to choose,
I would choose the former over the latter, especially in this case,
where no negative consequences were involved. (If there were any negative
consequences to the smallpox vaccination program, they were minor and
short-lasting.)

I do not accept the notion that a harmless vaccination program should be
deterred in order to appease our moral sensibilities, at the cost of
countless lives.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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