This would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking true.
Oh, this reminds me. I was asked to go to a Chiropractic “doctor” this weekend for a check up. That’s nonsense to begin with, but I went anyway.
She asked about my back hurting, and I mentioned that I threw it out really badly when I got COVID a year or two ago, and was stuck in bed coughing super hard for a week. Her immediate response was “I’ve heard the vaccine can do that.”
… Like, fucking what? How god damn stupid do you have to be to hear “I threw my back out coughing really hard.” and instantly try to insert your anti-science bullshit into the conversation?
Chiropractor. Stupid. Anti-science bullshit.
You repeat yourself.
Oh man it gets worse. Medicine is so fucked now.
My (telehealth) doctor noted my testosterone is a little low and suggested I use another online practitioner for testosterone replacement therapy since they can’t do that from their practice.
She gave me a few places to check out (from her companies list, she didn’t personally vet them).
They all have some anti-science bullshit or “As seen on JRE/Infowars”.
I’m like…yeah, I’m not doing any of that. I’ll try diet, exercise, and proper sleep first. I’m not giving any of them my money, patronage, or information.
Measles, that old-timey disease we didn’t really think about as kids because of vaccinations. Welp, that’s coming back. Thanks to fucking idiots.
It’s coming back thanks to those vaccine mandates that were brought in.
You don’t put people at ease about a new vaccine by saying “you must have it otherwise you can’t participate in society”. That has the opposite effect and makes people even more reluctant and sceptical. It also gives anti-vaxxers more ammo for their nonsense that they can spread online.
All that combined has led to a big increase in vaccine hesitancy and scepticism, and the worst thing is that it’s now harming kids as a result.
There’s always one!
I hate to break to to you, but public health policy does not and should not consider the opinion of lunatics. I legitimately cannot believe this isn’t obvious.
Always one what?
Someone trying to justify allowing soft policy on vaccinations.
I don’t think it’s controversial to be against forced medication.
At least it never used to be.
See this is exactly why people are calling you out. We’ve seen this exact same bullshit so many times where it’s just like “oh we are being reasonable and just asking questions and doing due diligence” but they you always end up with the loaded language of “forced vaccinations” and “product testing.”
Yes, in the middle of a pandemic, where people were dropping dead and entire medical systems were on the verge of collapse, timelines might have been advanced a bit. Your incredibly privileged language manages to leave that part out somehow, and replaced these very justifiable motivations with unfounded malevolence. It’s frankly insulting to those traumatized by not only the pandemic, but these selfish and toxic attitudes.
And the worst part? You were proven wrong. Again. None of your concerns were validated. The vaccines were a miracle which brought us out of an extremely dark time. There was no corporate malevolence, no serious side effects, just good science and better outcomes. But still, for some reason, you will cling to your utterly selfish positions and bullshit concern trolling, and that’s why everyone is pissed off at you. Because you’ve clearly learned nothing, and will obviously force all of this same nonsense on us the next time there is a tragedy.
The person you are talking to isn’t an anti-vaxxer though. They are pointing out that vaccine mandates are questionable at best in terms of ethics. The campaign to push vaccines was also fraught with issues that helped create more antivaxxers.
No. It’s called people aren’t scientists and they are NOT qualified to make decisions regarding public health. Shut the fuck up and do what you are told. If you can’t find peace in knowing that someone is smarter in the field of biology and sociology, get a therapist and talk to them.
Shut the fuck up and do what you are told. If you can’t find peace in knowing that someone is smarter in the field of biology and sociology, get a therapist and talk to them.
People say this and seriously don’t see how this messaging might not be all that encouraging to people.
I want more people to get vaccinated for diseases. This is not how to go about it, as society is now demonstrating.
I’m not trying to encourage anyone. There are rules to society and people are having full on temper tantrums rather than accepting the rules. I’m just sick of fighting over things they are not qualified to assess. It is insulting to everyone that goes to school for a decade to save their life, do the research, come up with a solution and then “dO yOu KnOw WhAt’S rEaLlY iN iT?!”
You seem to be only thinking of the anti-vaxxers and the types of people who won’t get vaccinated whatever happens.
I’m talking about the people who are just apprehensive, for whatever reason that may be. Getting angry with them isn’t going to help anything.
Also, vaccine mandates for COVID were not endorsed by the doctors or scientists due to them being counter-productive to getting more people vaccinated: https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2957/rr-1#:~:text=Evidence does not justify mandatory,to informed choice | The BMJ
Who is the House of Lords? And this is from 3 years ago.
One of the British houses of Parliament
Hey, if people don’t want to get their kids vaccinated, that should absolutely be their decision. It’s a shitty decision, but I do believe that parents should have the authority to decline.
That being said, if they choose not to vaccinate, their children should absolutely be banned from any public school or community rec league sports, or anyone else publicly funded.
And the private institutions that focus on children (day cares, private schools, etc.) should have a requirement in their license agreement where all children they serve must be vaccinated as well or else they lose their licensing.
Basically going non-vax should be handled in a way similar to how they should handle these idiot sovereign citizens: sure, you don’t have to have your vehicle registered or interacted or even plated…but if you choose not to do that, you better keep it on your own property. The minute you turn onto a public road we’re gonna throw the book at you.
I get what you’re saying, but what you’ve described isn’t really giving people a choice. Even if that choice they’re making in not vaccinating their kids is a bad one.
Wrong.
It’s absolutely a choice. It’s just a choice with consequences.
Anti-vaxxers always seem to want to have their cake and eat it too: they want to enjoy the benefits of herd immunity and participation in society without doing the things that society agrees upon to keep everyone safe and healthy.
Decisions have consequences, and those who would make decisions that put others at risk should be the ones to bear the burden of the consequences of their decisions.
How is it a choice when you can get fired for not having a vaccine? You live in a society that requires people to be employed in order to survive. If you need a vaccine to be employed, then it is not a real a choice at all.
I AGREE! Even though before Covid we also couldn’t participate in things like travel or schooling or sometimes even workout with the Right Vaccine!
I don’t usually do this, but…
In the context, “I know, over a million Americans have died” stinks nationalism from a distance - because it implies that the tragedy is not people dying; it’s only when those people pay taxes to the same government as you. (16~28M people died, regardless of country, by the way.)
Not sure if the author realises the nationalism in that. Probably not.
Seeing the worst meaning in everything, eh?
As a species we are more worried about things happening close to us. That’s how we work.
A kid dying in Uganda does not move you because why would it? A kid dying in your hometown is something else.
Don’t pretend to be superior about it.
The very conflation between “my hometown” and “the territory controlled by the government that I pay taxes to” is nationalistic in nature.
Your assumption that I’m seeing the worst meaning in everything is partially incorrect. Pragmatics taught me to look for the implicatures of what is said, but it is not just the worst. And the implicature is there, due to the maxim of quantity. (Note that not even in this case I’m “seeing” the worst meaning, as it wouldn’t be justified by the text.)
Regarding your Uganda example: if someone lives in, say, Texas, why would they care more about the deaths in Maine than the ones in Uganda? This gets specially nasty once you swap “Uganda” with “Coahuila”. I see the exact same thing where I live, by the way, before some assumer starts distorting this into a “y u bashin unired starians? i is so confyuzed…”.
Don’t pretend to be superior about it.
Yet another assumption: that I’m “pretending to be superior” about not feeling attached to a government or the concept of nation. Please distinguish between what’s implied by something said/written vs. what you assume from it. The former is to retrieve information; the later is to make shit up.
The main reason that I’m pointing this out is to highlight a specific right-wing discourse (nationalism) that is so ingrained into society that even us, at the left, give it a free pass. I’m focusing on the discourse, not putting myself on a higher ground.
[EDIT reason: clarifications + trying to be slightly less verbose.]
You often have the same relation to the kid in Uganda and the kid in your hometown. But they are still different.
This comic is probably made by someone American. They made it for a target audience. That’s why it’s specified. Making the message more targeted is an effective tool. It’s called pathos.
Believing people on the left care for everyone on the planet equally while people on the right only care for the nation they tax to is a strange take.
You’re allowed to be proud of your country or people without being a q-anon nuthead nazi.
Believing people on the left care for everyone on the planet equally while people on the right only care for the nation they tax to is a strange take.
Don’t be disingenuous (or worse), you’re distorting what I said. Refer to the first and third paragraphs of the very comment that you’re replying to.
Now, if you really want to pretend that your hometown should “magically” coincide with the territory controlled by your government, by all means, do it. But then let’s call a duck a duck - then you are a nationalist, and should be treated as one.
This comic is probably made by someone American. They made it for a target audience. That’s why it’s specified.
I’m not going to guess the author’s “intention”. I’m focusing on what the character says, on the light of the maxim of quantity (refer to this or this for further info).
If I told you “I have two books”, and I actually have three, you’d correctly point out that I’m saying something untrue, right? Because of that maxim - by saying “I have two books” I’m implying that I have no more than two books.
Now look at what the character says within that context:
- [A] “It’s the anniversary of a great tragedy.”
- [B] “I know, over a million Americans have died.”
The exact same maxim operates here; the implicature being created is that the tragedy does not include non-Americans dying. It’s probably an accidental implicature, but the very fact that people don’t pay attention to this shit is concerning.
It’s called pathos.
It’s pathos only in the original meaning. Because damn, it’s a really miserable discourse! /s
Etymology aside, “pathos” in the meaning typically associated with the usage of the word in English can be easily conveyed without that nationalistic discourse.
You’re allowed to be proud of your country or people without being a q-anon nuthead nazi.
Let us not fool ourselves that the only nationalists out there are the Q-Anon tier Nazi. In that situation you’re still a nationalist, and promoting a harmful discourse.
“Hometown” is not a metaphor. A country is not a hometown.
Absolutely radical.
