Formerly Known as Leo's Blind Tasting Group - April 2019

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
There's a big difference between taking the strongest stand possible against someone's position and cutting him off or treating him like a pariah. Argument, expressing social disapproval and censure are all part of a liberal society. Refusing to have anything to do with people over their ideas is not.
Click to expand...
They eventually jailed Typhoid Mary, you know.
Click to expand...

She did somewhat more than espouse typhoid. Are you really suggesting throwing anti backers on jail? You will, of course, have first to get the first amendment repealed.
Click to expand...

Fair distinction. Those who advocate for anti-vaxing may indeed be protected from Government action by the 1st Amendment --assuming they're not found to be advocating for immediate, or imminent intent, to do violence, which, maybe, could be a separate inquiry in the case of speech attempting to convince folks not to vaccinate their children. But private ostracism of people with such views and who attempt to spread them seems perfectly reasonable to me. Would you associate with an otherwise sweet, lovely racist? Why give them emotional support and succor? Try to make them see the light for sure; but if that fails, why is ostracism not a perfectively acceptable call?

I do wonder about the non-speech aspects of the anti-vaxxers too. For example, should the government or the child have no cause of action (criminal or civil) in a case like this:
Boy Nearly Dies Because Parents Refused to Vaccinate. (of course many in the recent measles outbreaks not only suffered *BUT* unwittingly infected (i.e., harmed) others who couldn't be vaccinated because of their pre-existing health issues.

"His opisthotonus worsened, and he developed autonomic instability (hypertension, tachycardia, and body temperatures of 97.0°F104.9°F [36.1°C40.5°C]). He was treated with multiple continuous intravenous medication infusions to control his pain and blood pressure, and with neuromuscular blockade to manage his muscle spasms. A tracheostomy was placed on hospital day 5 for prolonged ventilator support. Starting on hospital day 35, the patient tolerated a 5-day wean from neuromuscular blockade. On day 44, his ventilator support was discontinued, and he tolerated sips of clear liquids. On day 47, he was transferred to the intermediate care unit. Three days later, he walked 20 feet with assistance. On day 54, his tracheostomy was removed, and 3 days later, he was transferred to a rehabilitation center for 17 days.

The boy required 57 days of inpatient acute care, including 47 days in the intensive care unit. The inpatient charges totaled $811,929 (excluding air transportation, inpatient rehabilitation, and ambulatory follow-up costs). One month after inpatient rehabilitation, he returned to all normal activities, including running and bicycling. Despite extensive review of the risks and benefits of tetanus vaccination by physicians, the family declined the second dose of DTaP and any other recommended immunizations."

These parents have not just engaged in speech. Their omissions are acts.
 
I'm fine passing a law requiring everyone to vaccinate. I'm not fine deciding that nobody is a better person than someone else's characterization of their worst opinion.
 
not sure most of us are being specific about Leo any more. i wasn't anyway. I thought we were talking about the notion of one shunning a person that one knows to hold one or more abhorrent views; abhorrent enough to have an impact outside your specific friendship (e.g., he likes yellow shoes v. he thinks Jews are dirty, money grubbing and dishonest).
 
Tolerance of other opinions is a good thing. When people start to die because of them, however, it may be time to act.
--

Typhoid Mary was a cook. She never figured out that the deaths at her employers' households were her fault but the NYC Dept of Health made it quite clear to her... once they finally caught up with her.

She refused to cooperate with them in any way and even declared that they could not deprive her of her profession and she would go on cooking. They deprived her of her liberty instead.

She spent roundabouts 26 years in quarantine, all in all, and died there. She sickened hundreds, possibly thousands, and is implicated in 5 known deaths. (There could be more because no one was tracking the movements of Irish domestics in 1908.)

Was it her intransigence that provoked a stern reaction?

Was it simply that she was first and there were really no laws or even guidelines about what to do with an asymptomatic carrier?

Or was the Commissioner right that she had to be stopped, no matter the morality of it, because large quantities of people were getting sick and dying?
--

Anti-vaxxers have forgotten what it's like to see your child scarred for life, her limbs bent and twisted, the high fevers and death. They are idiots concerned with their own tidy viewpoints... ignorant of history, dismissive of scientific evidence, and uncaring what happens to anyone else.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Tolerance of other opinions is a good thing. When people start to die because of them, however, it may be time to act.
--

Typhoid Mary was a cook. She never figured out that the deaths at her employers' households were her fault but the NYC Dept of Health made it quite clear to her... once they finally caught up with her.

She refused to cooperate with them in any way and even declared that they could not deprive her of her profession and she would go on cooking. They deprived her of her liberty instead.

She spent roundabouts 26 years in quarantine, all in all, and died there. She sickened hundreds, possibly thousands, and is implicated in 5 known deaths. (There could be more because no one was tracking the movements of Irish domestics in 1908.)

Was it her intransigence that provoked a stern reaction?

Was it simply that she was first and there were really no laws or even guidelines about what to do with an asymptomatic carrier?

Or was the Commissioner right that she had to be stopped, no matter the morality of it, because large quantities of people were getting sick and dying?
--

Anti-vaxxers have forgotten what it's like to see your child scarred for life, her limbs bent and twisted, the high fevers and death. They are idiots concerned with their own tidy viewpoints... ignorant of history, dismissive of scientific evidence, and uncaring what happens to anyone else.
Click to expand...

let's not forget the health care workers in vaccine programs gunned down by anti-vaccine nut jobs.

the 1st amendment doesn't let a person shout fire in a crowded theatre. should it allow the baiting of nut jobs that want to lethally attack those working in public health?
 
It's consistent with first amendment rights and your own right to exercise your choice of fellowship to shun whom you damn please. But to the extent that liberal society has as an ideal the exchange of views, it's not consistent with that ideal.

Like Keith, I have no problem with a law requiring vaccination. I would have no problem with a law requiring vaccination if the child is to attend public school. None of these actions could conceivably stop people espousing the injustice of such lawa and the their belief in the danger of vaccination.

In Jeff's account of the Typhoid Mary case, the relevant point was that she refused to stop infecting people by being a cook after she knew her condition. The case bears no resemblance to espousing anti-vaccination or, for that matter, even practicing it.

The answer to Robert's last question above is that the crowded movie theater example is an ignoratio elenchi. People who shoot down health workers are guilty of murder, not of abusing their first amendment rights.
 
I agree that the ideal is an exchange of views, but only if the possibility exists of either party changing their mind if the other presents arguments that one considers convincing. Shunning is justifiable if one makes the judgment call that the other party is unavailable for change. I am talking in the abstract. In practice, I can't see myself breaking bread with, say, a holocaust denier or a Jehovah's Witness because of the presumption (admittedly a judgment call) surrounding everything else that surrounds those beliefs. But I could drink with someone who won't press an elevator button on a Saturday, despite finding the literal-mindedness of that absolutely mind-numbing. Each chooses their Rubicon, but perhaps the placement of the river should not depend on how nice the person is.
 
When it comes to breaking bread, I don't invite people into my home just because I don't like them. And I haven't yet started confusing my taste with a moral requirement. And whereas I have been known to associate with conservative economists, I also avoid racists and homophobes. But a wine tasting in a public restaurant with someone who has potentially dangerous beliefs about reality that are nevertheless not inhuman prejudices (say a climate change denier, or for that matter a a holder of a religious belief that requires them not to allow blood transfusions), seems a different proposition. In the last analysis, shunning is originally a religious practice. I can't avoid my repugnance at certain beliefs, but I generally don't make a principle of them.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

In Jeff's account of the Typhoid Mary case, the relevant point was that she refused to stop infecting people by being a cook after she knew her condition. The case bears no resemblance to espousing anti-vaccination or, for that matter, even practicing it.
Click to expand...

Though espousing anti-vaccination doesn't really resemble the Typhoid Mary case, practicing it does, in some respects.

Let's say that two children are in a public school class. The first has a medical exemption from vaccination (e.g., they have had a life-threatening allergic reaction to a component of the vaccine). The second has parents who have - for whatever nonmedical reason - opted out of vaccination. That second child visits a place where there is a lower rate of vaccination (say, Rockland County, NY) and contracts measles, and then infects the first child, who dies. You might think that there is a difference between knowingly and unknowingly infecting another person, but your uninformed choice is ipso facto not just a personal choice, but one that greatly affects public health, as it not only affects you but those with whom you come in contact.

Thankfully there is an active debate going among pediatricians and public heath experts about allowing minors to overrule their parents and get vaccinated.
 
Legally, there is an important distinction between knowing and not knowing. But your case involves not vaccinating. Not just espousing an anti vac position. It can be dealt with by requiring vaccination to attend public schools.

There is, by the way a long and from history of anti vaccination activity, usually under the aegis of resistance to intrusive medical and state authority. And it has by no means always been the case that the doctors had fact and not prejudice on their side. But it has been the case that those in favor of enforcing vaccination had the same tone of moral outrage and intellectual dismissiveness to that opposition. I'm not saying that makes the current any-vaccination position more tenable. It should make us more cautious of our condemnatory language with regard to it.

I wish Cliff, who did historical research in such matters still followed this board.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Legally, there is an important distinction between knowing and not knowing. But your case involves not vaccinating.But Not just espousing an anti vac position. It can be dealt with by requiring vaccination to attend public schools.

There is, by the way a long and from history of anti vaccination activity, usually under the aegis of resistance to intrusive medical and state authority. And it has by no means always been the case that the doctors had fact and not prejudice on their side. But it has been the case that those in favor of enforcing vaccination had the same tone of moral outrage and intellectual dismissiveness to that opposition. I'm not saying that makes the current any-vaccination position more tenable. It should make us more cautious of our condemnatory language with regard to it.

I wish Cliff, who did historical research in such matters still followed this board.
Click to expand...

I have a couple of "experts" here (if I may be so bold as to refer to them as such). My wife, who has a Ph.D. in the history of medicine and wrote her thesis on the history of Imperial public health and laboratory medicine, and her visiting sister, who is a practicing pediatrician. I can certainly ask them to comment if you have something specific that you think might clarify the debate.
 
If your wife is an expert in medical history, she will hardly need me to refer her to Nadja Durbach's book, Bodily Matters, on the Victorian debate over compulsory vaccination, Nor the facts that the anti vaxers were largely working class people who had good reason to be suspicious of doctors, whose treatment of prostitutes with the justification of fighting STDs was less than exemplary, and that the anti small pox vaccinations at that time, while they did prevent small pox, also carried measurable risks for those being vaccinated. There is also an article in the Atlantic somewhere.

I mentioned Cliff because he is working on colonial health and vaccination policies in North Africa, I believe. Your wife may be more aware of his work than I am.
 
It’s ultimately a personal choice whether to shun others for particular beliefs or speech on an individual level. It’s clear there is a divide here as to whether and when that is proper. I’m going to weasel out of thinking about and expressing where I stand although putting aside the anti-vax nonsense, I do like Leo a lot.

Also shaming and shunning have a long history as broader societal and quasi-legal mechanisms, albeit in modern times they are somewhat in tension with free speech norms. The Vikings largely used them as their effective legal regime for punishment and deterrence and to express community-held norms as a substitute for what we now think of as law / legally prescribed punishment.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
If your wife is an expert in medical history, she will hardly need me to refer her to Nadja Durbach's book, Bodily Matters, on the Victorian debate over compulsory vaccination, Nor the facts that the anti vaxers were largely working class people who had good reason to be suspicious of doctors, whose treatment of prostitutes with the justification of fighting STDs was less than exemplary, and that the anti small pox vaccinations at that time, while they did prevent small pox, also carried measurable risks for those being vaccinated. There is also an article in the Atlantic somewhere.

I mentioned Cliff because he is working on colonial health and vaccination policies in North Africa, I believe. Your wife may be more aware of his work than I am.
Click to expand...

As Jonathan has noted, the original vaccines were only slightly less risky than the dreaded diseases they prevented. But over the last 30-70 years, vaccines have improved substantially and are now many or orders of magnitude less risky than the disease itself.

Humans are notoriously bad at assessing risks, and all to often fall prey to the "Post hoc ergo proptor hoc" fallacy

For anyone interested in a more detailed but still eminently readable account of both the history of vaccines and the resistance to them, there is this wonderful review in NYRB

Resistance To Immunity
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
It's consistent with first amendment rights and your own right to exercise your choice of fellowship to shun whom you damn please. But to the extent that liberal society has as an ideal the exchange of views, it's not consistent with that ideal.

Like Keith, I have no problem with a law requiring vaccination. I would have no problem with a law requiring vaccination if the child is to attend public school. None of these actions could conceivably stop people espousing the injustice of such lawa and the their belief in the danger of vaccination.

In Jeff's account of the Typhoid Mary case, the relevant point was that she refused to stop infecting people by being a cook after she knew her condition. The case bears no resemblance to espousing anti-vaccination or, for that matter, even practicing it.

The answer to Robert's last question above is that the crowded movie theater example is an ignoratio elenchi. People who shoot down health workers are guilty of murder, not of abusing their first amendment rights.
Click to expand...

+1 on all counts
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
I agree that the ideal is an exchange of views, but only if the possibility exists of either party changing their mind if the other presents arguments that one considers convincing. Shunning is justifiable if one makes the judgment call that the other party is unavailable for change. I am talking in the abstract. In practice, I can't see myself breaking bread with, say, a holocaust denier or a Jehovah's Witness because of the presumption (admittedly a judgment call) surrounding everything else that surrounds those beliefs. But I could drink with someone who won't press an elevator button on a Saturday, despite finding the literal-mindedness of that absolutely mind-numbing. Each chooses their Rubicon, but perhaps the placement of the river should not depend on how nice the person is.
Click to expand...

IMO, if he could be convinced by the pseudo science of the anti vaxxers he can be convinced by real science as well.

And IIRC his kids are vaccinated, he has just been taken in by the anti vax propaganda since then.
 
originally posted by kirk wallace:
I thought we were talking about the notion of one shunning a person that one knows to hold one or more abhorrent views; abhorrent enough to have an impact outside your specific friendship (e.g., he likes yellow shoes v. he thinks Jews are dirty, money grubbing and dishonest).
Click to expand...
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
I can't see myself breaking bread with, say, a holocaust denier
Click to expand...
What about a person who clicks the like button on Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib tweets?

originally posted by robert ames:
the 1st amendment doesn't let a person shout fire in a crowded theatre
Click to expand...
Please read this: https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/...hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/

originally posted by (multiple people):
(references to people dying)
Click to expand...
Does this death-based shunning mandate also extend to de-friending people who oppose GMOs, which prevent world hunger? Because I have a loooooong list of friends who should be smart enough to know better when it comes to that one.
 
Does this death-based shunning mandate also extend to de-friending people who oppose GMOs, which prevent world hunger? Because I have a loooooong list of friends who should be smart enough to know better when it comes to that one.
Click to expand...

I think you've put at least one finger on what some folks (at least me and, if I read him right, O) are getting at: you get to choose your defriending threshold. Jonathan seems to be defending the idea that one might still willingly (or even with mixed emotions) drink or eat with folks who have abhorrent views even after one has tried to sway or shape their adherence away from those views and admitted defeat. Others might draw the line elsewhere. If your threshold is GMO antipathy, so be it.

I also think there is a question here of what is the "shunning" supposed to accomplish. For me, I don't imagine that my withdrawal of companionship will change their views; i just don't want to give them any additional support (however minimal) that they can count me among their circle of friends or social partners. Of course, maybe, for some, if they found themselves with no or very few fellow diners & drinkers, they might pause and assess why that was, but experience suggests that in real life few change. (see, e.g., Kirstjen Nielsen & Sarah Sanders.) Unlike the old days, this sort of shunning does not result in risk of death by starvation or exposure.
 
originally posted by kirk wallace:

I also think there is a question here of what is the "shunning" supposed to accomplish.
Click to expand...
Yep - useful question. The answer is generally to punish, not to persuade. You change minds by talking to people, not by refusing to.
Especially when organized exclusions tend to feed persecution complexes that cause people to dig in even deeper.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top