If you chain smoke on your porch while getting blindingly drunk, it is a case of "my body my choice." If you go to a bar, imbibe an equivalent amount of alcohol, blow cancerous fumes on others, & then drive home, you have made several choices that are not just about your own body
I remember when smoking bans were enacted on trains in France. As a young smoker, I viewed this as tragic. Then I was on a train where people were still lighting up, creating a massive fog, & a woman cried from her seat, "I have asthma!" Anti-vaxxers are the smokers on the train
Public policy was put in place to protect the woman with asthma & many others from the choices of the smokers. Because the choices they were making were not actually just about their own bodies, but also entailed consequences for the bodies of others.
And, for the record, I am the LAST person who would stigmatize people for smoking cigarettes if they are doing so in a way that does not affect others. There's a difference between someone who smokes in their backyard & a person who smokes while strolling down the street.
I can tell this will now turn into a convo about stigmatizing smokers. No, we shouldn't do that, just as we should not stigmatize any addiction. It's not a choice. It's also highly correlated w/ mental health issues & socioeconomic status. Stigmatization is a barrier to care.
Now, while you shouldn't stigmatize addiction, you can criticize people when they impose the cost of their addiction on others. Smokers shouldn't smoke in public spaces, nor should they litter. A person addicted to other drugs or alcohol shouldn't drive while intoxicated, etc.
And that gets us back to the original point of the convo. It's "your body your choice" when your choices are not imposed on others. We can view all manner of things with compassion-like smoking or alcohol abuse-& simultaneously condemn it when your behavior is dangerous to others
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In my new piece for @johnastoehr, I write about the most subtle & pernicious form of anti-vaxx propaganda: the manipulation of scientific information & the appropriation of scientific authority editorialboard.com/to-fight-vacci…
Case #1: Anti-vaxxers have latched onto a preprint wherein the authors report results suggesting "natural immunity" is more robust than vaccine-induced immunity. Anti-vaxxers are now arguing this scientific evidence entails it is *preferable* to become naturally immune
Conservatives have reported on "natural immunity" without stipulating all of the risks of contracting COVID. They are using natural immunity to argue against mandates, as well as to claim Democrats are the real enemies of science. Searches for "natural immunity" have sky-rocketed
I'm not going to comment on the nicotine taxes bc that's a complicated convo about which I have conflicting views. That said, re: the twitter commentary (not the policy), it always saddens me when liberal &/or progressive people take a stigmatizing or judgmental view of addiction
Nicotine addiction is legitimately very hard to kick. It requires major rewiring of the brain. Addiction also correlates w/ mental health and socioeconomic status. Many smokers self-medicate. The tools we have to fight nicotine addiction are hard to access for many.
Now, you can certainly be mad if someone chooses to exercise their addiction in a way that imports personal cost to you: littering; smoking in public, etc. But that doesn't mean you have to shame the addiction overall, ignore the forces that drive it, or be glib about recovery
This single clause in the Harper's Letter captures the attitude that drives so much political commentary. Because authoritarianism is expected of the GOP, it is no longer of empirical interest. It doesn't grab one's attention. This dangerously entrenches the behavior as "normal"
Think about how much as changed in just the past few years. In 2015, Trump's demagogic rhetoric was viewed as so abnormal, it received a full write-up in The NY Times. The press was aflame when it seemed he might not accept the results of the 2016 election time.com/4538700/electi…
Now, Larry Elder cited voter fraud before the California recall election even happened and we barely react. The Senate GOP is attempting to "audit" the 2020 results in PA by accessing every voter's info & we're like, "typical."
Per the NYT's latest count:
64% voted "No" (for Newsom)
36% voted "Yes" (for recall)
On Q2, "Who should replace Newsom?," many left their ballots blank.
For the filled-in ballots, Elder received 47% against 45 other candidates.
I would not call that a resounding victory
So, there's no real evidence for the claim that Elder did well. He did not do well. He did terribly. That aside, I'm a bit concerned that none of these headlines mention the fact that Elder tried to undermine the results of the election before it had even occurred.
It used to be, back in 2016 and before, that a person trying to undermine the results of the democratic process was treated as a huge deal. Now, Republicans have done it so many times that we think it is normal? This is rather disturbing. bbc.com/news/election-…
The thing that bugs me the most about this is that people think they're saying something really profound about an Orwellian turn in our society when, really, Public Health has been operating in a strict fashion for generations, which could be revealed by a quick google search
Has it occurred to anyone to say, "Huh, I wonder what happens w/ HIV?" If you asked that simple Q, you would find that HIV patients are often subject to legal measures, including contact investigations &, in many states, criminalization of non-disclosure to sexual partners
In my case of TB, the mandated treatment + contact investigation was traumatic. I still feel the ethical balance comes out in favor of the gov't protocol. HIV poses much deeper ethical problems, even in cases of non-criminalization.
You guys keep writing these ten tweet threads and I keep telling you to just look up how Tuberculosis has been treated in this country. You can disagree with the practice, but stop pretending it's new. And also stop pretending it hasn't been effective at keeping you safe.
Me: "I was under threat of going to jail if I didn't take toxic meds for 7 months under the constant surveillance of the government. Sometimes they made me go into a chamber & choke until I gave a good bio sample"
You: "A mandate for a vaccine? What does this mean for society?"
And I'm not complaining. I'm glad they made me take meds I hated for 7 months and watched me every day and made me choke into a jar. That's why we don't have to worry about drug-resistant TB. Which is good. I get mad when people act like any of this is new.