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Edited on Fri Feb-11-11 11:22 AM by LeftishBrit
I do appreciate that.
FTR:
Firstly, I feel that there's a bit of a double standard, in that it's acceptable for vaccine critics of using guilt-by-association by accusing pro-vaccine people of being pro-Pharma; yet if pro-vaccine people comment on the right-wing nature of a source, that is regarded as 'killing the messenger'.
Secondly: the aspect of sources that I consider relevant to this issue is: *what is their position on government involvement in healthcare provision?* It may not matter so much from this point of view whether someone is a Republican or a Democrat, or whether they're left or right on a variety of issues ranging from Iraq to gay marriage. *But* if they are right-libertarians on healthcare, and consider government involvement to be wasteful at best and tyrannical at worst, then their position on vaccines is likely to be embedded in this perspective. They are generally demanding freedom from government 'interference' in vaccination choices because they oppose government 'interference' in healthcare at all; they are asking people to be questioning and suspicious of government guidance on vaccines, because they are ideologically against 'trusting the government' to make decisions on anything. So I think that it's not too much to ask that people and organizations that are explicitly anti-'socialized medicine' should not be treated as valid commentators on this issue. That Canadian journalist was clearly so. And, while I can't find an explicit statement by the Assemblywoman on the subject, almost all Republicans nowadays are; New Jersey has, I believe, *occasionally* elected liberal Republicans, so that it's *just* possible that the Assemblywoman is in this category - but I'd bet quite a lot of money against it. (After all, not a single Senate Republican, even the moderate Senators from Maine, voted for Obama's quite modest healthcare proposals.)
What bothers me is that some people who are critical of vaccines are prepared to link to *any* site, however explicitly dedicated to promoting right-wing causes, as 'telling the truth' about vaccines. Mostly, I think, you are not the one who has linked to the worst sites; so this is not about you in particular, but is why I am so concerned and frustrated about this issue. Such sites have included the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (an organization specifically dedicated to opposing all government healthcare provision in America, ever since the 1940s); Judicial Watch; and, until it was explicitly banned by the mods, whale.to. Not to mention vile British sites such as the Daily Mail and Daily Express, and on one occasion Daniel 'The NHS is a 60-year mistake' Hannan. Some of these links may be honest mistakes by people who don't know what the general views being promoted are; but some do seem to suggest that some vaccine critics are prepared to form alliances with right-libertarians who oppose public healthcare. I think that all such alliances should be condemned in the strongest terms!
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