The hypocrisy of the political Left knows no boundaries. The relentless radicalization by the Democrats and their fellow travelers in the media of all things Trump since the election is tearing this country apart.
All the while they continue to believe they are the champions of decency and progress. It is that gulf between perception and reality that is crux of the problem and it leads to events like the recent shooting in Alexandria where a man with extreme political views took it out on Republican congressmen with an AR-15.
And, as always, an event like this happens in a state with the strictest gun ownership laws. If not for the swift response by the security detail many more people would have been shot.
All of the post-election violence perpetrated by Progressive people have occurred in places where proportional self-defense has been effectively outlawed. But, the left is still staunchly anti-gun, no matter how many crime statistics are trotted out.
No matter how many times a woman defends herself successfully with a handgun, people still believe what they want to believe. And, more importantly, choose which side of the political spectrum to support. Sometimes it’s at the ballot box.
Sometimes it’s with a gun.
So, where does herd immunity come into the Left’s hypocrisy?
Vaxx Populi
If there is one group of people the Left hates more than Republicans (and Alex Jones), it is the so-called Anti-Vaxxers. Even Climate Deniers are treated better than these folks. They are the people who are skeptical about the efficacy of certain vaccines as well as the link between them and the rise in Autism.
Concerns that are, to all available data, real.
And we all know that Progressives love data, as long as that data fits their narrative.
Vaccines, like public education, to Progressives are an unqualified good thing. There can be no nuanced discussion of these subjects. Try having one sometime and see how fast a polite conversation turns into a friendship threatening shout-fest.
In their defense, the data shows a strong correlation between education and wages. Vaccines have been an inarguable success in wiping out diseases which used to be common.
No one is arguing these things. And, yet, the discussion is framed as if it is.
Vaccines are, at their core, the shining example of the Prevention Principle, which governs so much Progressive thought. And the Prevention Principle has to be defended without reservation.
More Guns, Less Disease
It’s why Progressives love gun control. Get rid of the guns and you pre-empt shootings. Vaccinate children and you pre-empt infection.
At first blush, it seems reasonable. But here’s the problem.
Guns are not the disease. Crime is the disease. Guns are the vaccine.
In vaccination, you receive a small dose of the disease to teach your immune system how to deal with it. Inoculate enough people and you protect the entire community including those who haven’t been vaccinated.
Herd Immunity occurs when a critical mass of vaccinated people in a population retards the spread of the disease because it can’t find a new host to ravage within its lifespan.
In the case of guns, the more people armed the less violent crime is committed per capita. Crime is retarded because the personal risks far outweigh the benefits for a critical mass of would-be criminals.
If the population of gun owners drops below a certain level, crime explodes. There are other factors, like economic prospects and cultural bonds, which raise or lower that threshold to violence but guns are the rate-limiting factor.
A priori this argument makes as much sense for armed robbery as it does for polio.
Progressives should see that accepting a little bit of the disease, the regrettable accidents and crimes of passion that occur with guns, is the way to maximize society’s herd immunity against its worst impulses.
Inoculating the Truth
Loss of herd immunity is one of the main arguments Progressives make against Anti-Vaxxers. Their unwillingness to vaccinate their children threatens the whole population. But, it’s completely hypocritical to be opposed to them on those grounds and a complete ban on guns at the same time.
Moreover, they attacked Dr. Andrew Wakefield viciously over his findings with the MMR vaccine for his involvement with a potential competitor vaccine. This is simple genetic fallacy – attacking a person’s motives rather than their data.
The same thing happens in the gun control debate. In fact, it doesn’t matter what the issue is, if you disagree with Progressive policy positions you must be a shill for the evil corporations who resist their ham-fisted attempts at bettering the human race.
By marginalizing Anti-Vaxxers, who for the most part aren’t against vaccination but the real dangers associated with certain vaccines, Progressives unwittingly carry water and improve the bottom line of the very same crony capitalists in the Pharmaceutical industry they profess to hate so much.
If Progressives were truly as enlightened as they think they are they would see this. But, our politics have become so radicalized that every issue associated with the wrong team needs to be resisted reflexively.
And that leads to a different type of dangerous human behavior that Progressives decry in their endless invocation of identity politics, in-group/out-group bias. Blue Team good, Red Team Bad.
If Not A, then B. If you aren’t sure about vaccines you want people to die of small pox.
So, for all their appeals to reason and science, their arguments, when boiled down to their essentials, are nothing but the basest of irrational fears.
Fears which lead some to buy an assault rifle they say no one should own, travel halfway across the country and open fire on a bunch of Republicans at a baseball park. Thankfully, there were people with guns nearby to contain his disease.
One of the problems with progressives is they want someone else to do the work. All the support they can manage is lip service, and virtue signaling. I've read studies showing that they tip less, lie more, steal more, among other societal negatives. There is one study that concluded that they develop actual physical structures in the brain that allow them to more successfully lie to themselves with an increase over time.
Had to resteem... good article
Truth be told, when Obozo was re-elected , the majority was mad enough to do something about it, not with violence but at the ballet box.
But when republicans won the majority of seats, all their promises to stop obozo and repeal the failed obozo care " un- affordable health act, they did nothing! Many people who voted for them are pissed, Voting in Trump was a message to the political establishment of both sides, people were lied to, people are tired of the lies from government, their all in bed together.
Trump is screwing up theirs agenda, but the real thing you have to take from everything is history. The last time people started hating each other and that means brother against brother and cousin against cousin
Right now this country is more devided than ever and this was the same thing that cause the civil war.
The media is playing everyone a fool, and the people saying to fight and kill. Telling people to go riot , make racial slurs, calling g the death for a president are all coming from those who are from the left.
So it has begun already.
We are definitely on the path to civil war. It's being stoked by the powers that be to keep us fighting each other instead of them.
And that's exactly what is happening , it's a two part plan, one is to divide and conquer and the other part is the helgelian affect, create a problem, have the solution, wait for them to "ASK" for help.....
I'm trying to think of a corollary between guns and shingles.
Once you've had chicken pox, you're immune, as long as you keep getting re-exposed to it.
By eliminating that horrific disease, that for the most part causes itchy red spots, you eliminate the natural "booster shot" effect you get from the little brat down the street getting chicken pox.
We eliminate what is, for most, a slight nuisance only to have it cause horrible consequences down the road.
This kind of thinking is predicated on the idea that through legislation we can keep everyone safe, from everything, forever.
Which is even crazier when you look at the push to require teenage Boys to get the HPV vaccine.
We can't tolerate an itchy red spot disease but we're willing to accept the percentage of girls who have serious reactions including seizures and paralysis in order to "prevent, well, maybe prevent a certain percentage of a few types of a cancer" that a small percentage of women will get.
And now they want to mandate that boys get it too, so they don't get Cervical Cancer.
I hope none of your readers need an explanation as to why that's a stupid idea.
Maybe they can google "What is a cervix"?
I know. And why would they want boys forced to get a vaccine for girls? TAM that's why. Total Addressable Market. It's complete nonsense.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
And, as an aside, I'd love enforced gun ownership over enforced vaccination any day.... not that I would ever advocate such a tyrannical thing.
But wait, doesn't Sweden or Norway or Switzerland (you know, the countries where ALL of the women have blond hair and blue eyes and who love to romp around in the snow wearing their teeny-tiny bikinis) require their adults to keep their fully automatic military weapons at their homes in case of an invasion by...shit, I don't remember who they're threatened by anymore.
You always hear about progressives wanting to emulate those country's other social programs, why NOT guns in every home?
It's Switzerland.
Sorry if I ramble.
It's just that I'm not used this kind of adult discourse and I get going and stuff just comes out.
Never apologize, never surrender! /grin
Anti-vaxxers are seen as the worst people on the planet. They are even called "baby killers" by Bill Gates. We all need to protect ourselves from people like Bill Gates more than we need to protect ourselves against chicken pox! Herd immunity has been debunked. Great article Tom.
Thanks Stormie, and you are right... People like Gates are really evil.
Agreed. How many chambers have to be in the cylinder of a gun before you are not playing Russian roulette?
MIGHT get a disease, or WILL cause needless injury and death, I know which one I choose, even if I didn't know that there are cheaper and safer alternatives to vaccination.
I had a discussion just yesterday about how many people die each year from something like chicken pox compared to the number of people who suffer "adverse reactions" to vaccines. That's such an innocuous sounding phrase, much better than seizures or death.
There's a coordinated advertising campaign to make people look to drugs as the solution to every ache & pain & inconvenience and it's all about making money for Big Pharma.
Agreed.
Followed.
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Far from being inarguable, you may want to have another look at the timeline of the decline of pathogenic disease, the introduction of vaccines after the start of the decline, and the role played in the decline by improvements in sanitation, hygiene, and nutrition. Don't forget to look at the decline of diseases for which there are no extant vaccines.
Herd immunity has been shown to be a farce, as recent measles outbreaks have been recorded moving through vaccinated populations.
I hope you find these beneficial avenues of research.