evince (09-26-2021), Guno צְבִי (09-27-2021), PoliTalker (09-26-2021)
“There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good,” he wrote. “On any other basis, organized society could not exist with safety to its members. Society based on the rule that each one is a law unto himself would soon be confronted with disorder and anarchy.”
Op-Ed: Delusional reactions to epidemics are as old as time. COVID has been no different (msn.com)
Written by a Red State Republican, but an educated one, rare as a four leaf clover these days.
evince (09-26-2021), Guno צְבִי (09-27-2021), PoliTalker (09-26-2021)
Hello Micawber,
Not only was it a prescient thing to say, his words held true weight because it was the majority view in a Supreme Court Decision!
"1905 Supreme Court case Jacobson vs. Massachusetts. "
No wonder none of the anti-vax crowd here wants to post to this thread.
Personal Ignore Policy PIP: I like civil discourse. I will give you all the respect in the world if you respect me. Mouth off to me, or express overt racism, you will be PERMANENTLY Ignore Listed. Zero tolerance. No exceptions. I'll never read a word you write, even if quoted by another, nor respond to you, nor participate in your threads. ... Ignore the shallow. Cherish the thoughtful. Long Live Civil Discourse, Mutual Respect, and Good Debate! ps: Feel free to adopt my PIP. It works well.
evince (09-26-2021), Guno צְבִי (09-27-2021)
It's like COVID has a payroll.
evince (09-26-2021)
OP link:
"For more than a century, we lived in a society guided by the Jacobson decision, though most of us had never heard of the case. The vaccination schedule quietly became part of the fabric of our lives. But it never felt like a trade-off between freedom and health — and certainly not like a choice between Republican and Democrat, red state and blue state allegiance. The government approved the shots. The family doctor advised and administered them. With the terrors of polio fresh and visceral, few people asked questions.
It was what you did, as a parent and a citizen. People got vaccinated not because they had fully considered the rational arguments but because it was part of the implicit social contract, quietly rooted in structures of trust and an understanding of what we owe each other.
That bit of fabric has come undone.
The tribalization of vaccinations and masks happened so fast that it caught most of us off guard. Federal pressure has become necessary to bring the pandemic under control, but it also guarantees that the politics of public health will remain acrimoniously partisan. It will take work and leadership and empathy to stitch the pieces back together, neighborhood by neighborhood. This pandemic is far from over. Eventually the virus will run out of victims, and then we don’t know what will happen. Maybe we can muddle through, though only with unnecessary human cost. But the “disorder and anarchy” will linger.
Kyle Harper is a professor of classics and letters at the University of Oklahoma and author of the forthcoming “Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History.”"
Personal Ignore Policy PIP: I like civil discourse. I will give you all the respect in the world if you respect me. Mouth off to me, or express overt racism, you will be PERMANENTLY Ignore Listed. Zero tolerance. No exceptions. I'll never read a word you write, even if quoted by another, nor respond to you, nor participate in your threads. ... Ignore the shallow. Cherish the thoughtful. Long Live Civil Discourse, Mutual Respect, and Good Debate! ps: Feel free to adopt my PIP. It works well.
evince (09-26-2021), Guno צְבִי (09-27-2021)
I thought it was a well written and thoughtful short Op-ed. It's gratifying that a couple posters read it.
It's an interesting phenomenon at play here. It appears politicians on the far right can simply declare a thought, action or rule forbidden to those who identify with the group,
and they all fall in line, avoid the thought, action or rule, and declare the free thinking rationalists pariah. To think something with every logical and rational justification in its favor, in this case vaccines that are highly effective against a lethal illness, is a litmus test for their group affiliation, causes me cognitive dissonance. It's totally self destructive.
It reminds me of the Thomas Milgram experiment that showed that normal average and sane people will engage in atrocious behavior provided a trusted authority tells them to.
And the article provides the historical context that this is anything but new. I guess we are damned to repeat history whether we forget or remember it.
evince (09-26-2021), PoliTalker (09-27-2021)
And Fox supplies those voices of authority for the gullible and compliant
PoliTalker (09-27-2021)
Personal Ignore Policy PIP: I like civil discourse. I will give you all the respect in the world if you respect me. Mouth off to me, or express overt racism, you will be PERMANENTLY Ignore Listed. Zero tolerance. No exceptions. I'll never read a word you write, even if quoted by another, nor respond to you, nor participate in your threads. ... Ignore the shallow. Cherish the thoughtful. Long Live Civil Discourse, Mutual Respect, and Good Debate! ps: Feel free to adopt my PIP. It works well.
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