Rand Paul thinks vaccines cause mental illness

[BaalChatzaf]

No statistically significant correlation has ever been established between vaccination and autism by any clinical test.

The correlation, as asserted by some, lives in the Realm of Platonic Bullshit.

[william.scherk]

Warning!

The whale.to website is anti-establishment.

Are you sure about that? It looks to be more or less a sink for every conspiracy tale on offer in this big world ... or as the site proclaims, "Mapping and Killing the Matrix with Orgonite and Knowledge":

As for "Shitoads," Jerry, I have to agree. At your second link, we have the Reptilian Conspiracy:

THE VACCINATION RACKET¹

Human Abuse Home

[They knew in the 17th century how to cure smallpox (Sydenham had a 98% cure rate, see Case mortality for 19th century), while it was considered an 'established fact' (1877) that Apple Cider Vinegar was protective against smallpox. If you can cure you know the true cause (the Vaccinators/Allopaths campaigned against sanitation reform! 1), so for 200 years now they have been deliberately 1) inducing and spreading disease (such as Leprosy into Hawaii), 2) killing 3) sterilising4) & robbing for vast profit, with vaccines, as part of the longstanding Reptilian (500 years+) humanDepopulation programme.

Who knew?

Edited February 5, 2015 by william.scherk

[jts]

Two statements:

- some people become autistic without having been vaccinated.

- some people do not become autistic even though they have been vaccinated.

I don't think there is anyone here (except JTS) who would not accept these statements as generally true.

You don't have the foggiest clue about me.

I hold to the idea that most diseases have multiple cause factors. For example it is not quite correct to say smoking causes lung cancer. More correctly, smoking contributes to causing lung cancer. Other things also contribute: genetics, nutritional problems, air pollution, sleep deficiency, poisons, etc. So some people smoke, and heavy too, and don't get lung cancer and some people never smoke and do get lung cancer.

In the case of autism, I would expect multiple cause factors.

Anyone who is familiar with the NH literature, starting with Tilden and Trall is familiar with the idea that many causes (or cause factors) contribute to many diseases.

[jts]

Warning!

The whale.to website is anti-establishment.

Are you sure about that? It looks to be more or less a sink for every conspiracy tale on offer in this big world ... or as the site proclaims, "Mapping and Killing the Matrix with Orgonite and Knowledge":

Does that not qualify it as anti-establishment?

You can in an unthinking knee jerk way reject everything in the whole website.

Or you can in an unthinking knee jerk way believe everything in this whole website. (As you probably expect me to do.)

Or you can consider each piece of information without ad hominem.

[jts]

As for "Shitoads," Jerry, I have to agree. At your second link, we have the Reptilian Conspiracy:

THE VACCINATION RACKET¹

Human Abuse Home

[They knew in the 17th century how to cure smallpox (Sydenham had a 98% cure rate, see Case mortality for 19th century), while it was considered an 'established fact' (1877) that Apple Cider Vinegar was protective against smallpox. If you can cure you know the true cause (the Vaccinators/Allopaths campaigned against sanitation reform! 1), so for 200 years now they have been deliberately 1) inducing and spreading disease (such as Leprosy into Hawaii), 2) killing 3) sterilising4) & robbing for vast profit, with vaccines, as part of the longstanding Reptilian (500 years+) humanDepopulation programme.

Who knew?

Your reasoning seems to be there is a piece of bullshit, therefore everything in the whole website is bullshit. We can leave reptilians out of the discussion. Cider vinegar also is bullshit. So is homeopathy. And herbalism. And ozone. And a shitload of other things on the whale.to website.

Any website with as much stuff on it and as many authors as whale.to is likely to have some bullshit in it. Or take OL, Objectivist Living. Any discussion website with as many posts and as many authors as OL has probably includes some bullshit. Should we therefore infer that all of it is bullshit?

Who knew. I don't know about the 17th century. But Shelton says Trall in the 1800s had many cases of smallpox and never lost one. Perhaps Trall knew something.

http://www.whale.to/vaccine/shelton.html

But Trall's theory of disease was contrary to what you would call science.

Read his speech in html form.

I don't agree with the title of his book. I think healing is not an art but a biological process. But that's minor. Whether you agree with his theory/philosophy or not, he seems to have been a good speaker.

[william.scherk]

Two statements:

- some people become autistic without having been vaccinated.

- some people do not become autistic even though they have been vaccinated.

I don't think there is anyone here (except JTS) who would not accept these statements as generally true.

You don't have the foggiest clue about me.

Okay. So, you do agree that the two statements are more-or-less true? -- some people become autistic without having been vaccinated, and some people do not become autistic even though they have been vaccinated?

It's not a trick question. Just establishing some common ground.

Warning!

The whale.to website is anti-establishment.

Are you sure about that? It looks to be more or less a sink for every conspiracy tale on offer in this big world ... or as the site proclaims, "Mapping and Killing the Matrix with Orgonite and Knowledge":

Does that not qualify it as anti-establishment?

Er, not my point. Anti-establishment Whale may be. Anti-Reptilian Conspiracy it is.

You can in an unthinking knee jerk way reject everything in the whole website.

You mean kinda like a certain hominin here rejects everything from, oh, the CDS, NIH, "studies" and so on? The one who would rather be anti-establishment than right. Yeah, I can knee jerk when I come across kooky material. Don't you?

Or you can in an unthinking knee jerk way believe everything in this whole website. (As you probably expect me to do.)

Jerry, sweet Jerry, you are the one who linked to the 500 year old Reptilian Conspiracy material. I find that wacky nonsense. I don't know what you think. You simply posted the link with the qualifier Shitload.

The Reptilian Conspiracy nonsense is not the only material that is wack. Look deeper into the claims of preventing and curing Smallpox, and you turn up materials from a hundred and ten years ago and older, material like this:

Or, "Apple cider vinegar might seem silly, but only because most people have been conditioned to accept the age-old prophylaxis for smallpox: raw, disease-laden, contaminated pus scrapings from an infected animal's (usually a cow) belly, diluted in glycerin, and scratched into the human arm with a metal prong until the arm was raw and bleeding. What seems sillier now?"

Or you can consider each piece of information without ad hominem.

Oh, please.

[jts]

william.scherk, obviously you did not read what I wrote that you are responding to.

I told you I agree with those 2 statements. A person can have autism without a vaccine; a person can take a vaccine without getting autism.

I did not link to a reptilian website, tho it might have a reptilian link in it.

I told you that I see vinegar as bullshit. Acetic acid is a poison. Vinegar, as a poison, might be used to kill bacteria, but that is not the same as drinking it. Janitors sometimes spray vinegar to clean things and kill germs. Vinegar has its uses as a poison. I don't accept that vinegar works on smallpox by drinking it just because it's on the whale.to website.

I don't know how to communicate with you.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

To my eyes, that now makes sense.

William,

All that effort. Dayamm! I admire your gumption. But you wasted it because you are squarely on one side of the fence and used the wrong tool. Persuasion-wise, it was clever pretzel of blah blah blah, but I seriously doubt it was effective.

The worst thing you can do with a metaphor is try to dissect it and make it make sense. (I speak from study and practice.) Besides, flipping a meta-construction only works the first time and I already did that. A meta-construction is the form underlying an aphorism or statement.

When you insist on continuing--like people who change the words of a song once again after someone just did it--and it is agenda-driven without flair, surprise, or something to spice it up, people tune out (except the choir, and even they don't get excited over it).

Let me give you an example: Sermon on the Mount - the SOLO Version. This was considered lame even back then. (Just look at the lukewarm response, not from the choir, but signaled by the absence of everyone else.) Why? Because it added nothing new, just a tired old agenda that everyone already knew.

I fear your effort did that, too. Not for me and not for you, but for the general reader.

If you want to counter what I did, may I suggest coming up with a different metaphor that attacks mine? One with humor or surprise or both?

Now here's a secret. It must be something that allows people to figure out the meaning on their own. (Notice that mine did that. This is what gave it teeth.)

That would be a lot more effective. And creative.

Not to you feeling good and believing you trounced the enemy or whatever you were attempting, perhaps, but in terms of getting people who are not committed to actually consider that your side is the One True Way forever and ever Amen.

If you bludgeon folks over the head with your agenda, they tune out. (Unless you throw in good storytelling like Rand did.)

I can't offer any better tactics for now because I am not on either side. I am outside that particular agenda divide. (I have a kid to take care of, one I love dearly, and that trumps all rhetorical pastimes or political shenanigans.)

But if I think of something, I'll let you know.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm simply pointing out that the topic can be discussed without any screaming to hide from. Not everybody has a story war over it.

Deanna,

Really?

Where?

Watch what happens with this thread.

In fact, it's already underway.

You just can't keep the screamers away.

And it's going to get worse. If I were a betting man, I would put a lot of money on it with great odds for all takers.

Michael

[william.scherk]

As for "Shitoads," Jerry, I have to agree. At your second link, we have the Reptilian Conspiracy:

THE VACCINATION RACKET¹

Human Abuse Home

[They knew in the 17th century how to cure smallpox (Sydenham had a 98% cure rate, see Case mortality for 19th century), while it was considered an 'established fact' (1877) that Apple Cider Vinegar was protective against smallpox. If you can cure you know the true cause (the Vaccinators/Allopaths campaigned against sanitation reform! 1), so for 200 years now they have been deliberately 1) inducing and spreading disease (such as Leprosy into Hawaii), 2) killing 3) sterilising4) & robbing for vast profit, with vaccines, as part of the longstanding Reptilian (500 years+) humanDepopulation programme.

Who knew?

Your reasoning seems to be there is a piece of bullshit, therefore everything in the whole website is bullshit.

How much confidence do you have in the Whale,to page you cited above? Maybe we can start there, and see which of these various elements you consider reliable or truthful or logical or in line with the kind of rational thinking OL promotes?

• They knew in the 17th century how to cure smallpox
• it was considered an 'established fact' (1877) that Apple Cider Vinegar was protective against smallpox.
• If you can cure you know the true cause (the Vaccinators/Allopaths campaigned against sanitation reform!)
• for 200 years now they have been deliberately inducing and spreading disease for vast profit,
• for 200 years now they have been deliberately killing with vaccines
• for 200 years now they have been deliberately sterilising with vaccines
• for 200 years now they have been deliberately robbing for vast profit, with vaccines,
• This has been part of the longstanding Reptilian (500 years+) human Depopulation programme.

[i see you have put the pox on a few of those things, so I crossed them out]

We can leave reptilians out of the discussion. Cider vinegar also is bullshit. So is homeopathy. And herbalism. And ozone. And a shitload of other things on the whale.to website.

Oh, I sense a lurch into martydom via sarcasm. I sense you think homeopathy and herbalism and ozone are fine. But no matter, they weren't mentioned in the cut above. I am left wondering why you posted the link, if it didn't actually say much that you believe to be true.

If you aren't being sarcastic/ironic, then hell yeah there is a shitload of bullshit at Whale.to. In fact I would say it is like a massive lost-property barge with no office, where conspiracies fall and breed without supervision and end up forlorn and unmoored from things like consensual reality. I'd say if you are looking for fresh factual material, Whale is to be avoided like the, er, plague.

Any website with as much stuff on it and as many authors as whale.to is likely to have some bullshit in it. Or take OL, Objectivist Living. Any discussion website with as many posts and as many authors as OL has probably includes some bullshit. Should we therefore infer that all of it is bullshit?

Not for me -- I try to do my level best where competent to decrease the load of bullshit we sometimes get dumped on list. It's not a fair comparison in any case: Whale is renowned for its anything-goes lack of editorial or curatorial guidelines. At OL, we know from reading the OL guidelines just what kind of place has been set up for us. I won't belabour the issue, but I think OL is a place first and foremost for rational minds, rational thinking, rational approaches to problems. Even in matters of style and layout and format of material, Whale looks plenty kooky on the face of it. It's just splodges of ugly texts and links. OL looks sane and orderly next to that.

Now and again we at OL come up with some wacky things that dominate discussion for a time, as when J Neil Schulman came over to discuss his mind-meld with God. But in that case the great majority of interlocutors were tough and critical. It was, ultimately, a written conversation among peers, richly intellectual. Whale seems more like multiple screaming maniacs seeking attention.

Who knew. I don't know about the 17th century. But Shelton says Trall in the 1800s had many cases of smallpox and never lost one. Perhaps Trall knew something.

http://www.whale.to/vaccine/shelton.html

Herbert Shelton was, in my opinion, a quack, anything but a medical doctor. I don't know Trail. If they are both dead, then lets just say that neither corpse is 'up to date' on the issues in this thread.

But Trall's theory of disease was contrary to what you would call science.

Read his speech in html form.

Do I have to? Some guy who does not accept modern medicine? Another dead guy? Is it about vaccinations and autism, or autism and Reptilians? You are such a tease, Jerry. I am hoping he is not another Natural Hygiene promoter.**

I don't agree with the title of his book. I think healing is not an art but a biological process. But that's minor. Whether you agree with his theory/philosophy or not, he seems to have been a good speaker.

One can only hope he was a good thinker. I will read his speech and report back.

_________________________________

** Natural Hygiene, from the first link above:

Natural Hygiene rejects the use of medications, blood transfusions, radiation, dietary supplements, and any other means employed to treat or “cure” various ailments. These therapies interfere with or destroy vital processes and tissue. Recovery from disease takes place in spite of, and not because of, the drugging and “curing” practices.

[BaalChatzaf]

In the 17 th century they know how to inoculate against small pox. Most of the people who got the disease died from it which show they did not know how to -cure- the disease.

It wan't until the 20 th century that a weakened inoculation was discovered/invented. In the old days the used the dried pus of a person down with the disease and rubbed it into a scratch. About five percent of the persons so inoculated died from the treatment. Apparently dried pus was a somewhat weakened agent and those who got the fever mostly survived and were immune after that.

The people who were inoculated with cow pox fared much better. It was not until after Pasteur that the process was finally understood..

Ba'al Chatzaf

[jts]

william.scherk:

About whale.to:

I don't know what whale.to has to do with confidence. Am I supposed to believe or disbelieve everything on the website just because it is on whale.to? I can understand why you think it's a lousy website. You are thumbs down on whatever is not generally accepted; that means probably everything on whale.to.

About sarcastic:

I was not being sarcastic about homeopathy, herbalism, ozone. I think those things are quackery. Plants that can be eaten are 'veggies'; poisonous plants are 'herbs'.

About Shelton:

The subject was Trall's success against smallpox. I merely linked to an article by Shelton as a source for this information.

You will call both Trall and Shelton quacks because they didn't have government approval. But I don't judge doctors by whether they have government approval. I judge doctors by how well their patients do. Both Trall and Shelton got their patients well where other doctors failed. There are modern doctors who are better than Trall and Shelton, who have the benefit of modern knowledge but who never encountered smallpox.

Shelton did not claim to be a medical doctor. He was a hygienic doctor.

You ask a question about smallpox: who knew. I attempt to answer it, Trall knew. Then you say Trall and Shelton both are dead and have nothing to do with the subject.

About Trall:

I merely offered evidence that his theory is not what you would call science, even tho it seemed to work against smallpox. I think you will find the evidence that it is not science, in the form of his lecture, convincing. If you read his lecture and report back, your report is predictable: he was not a good thinker.

Natural Hygiene:

I know what NH is. You seem to think that saying what it is is proof that it is wrong. That is predictable. Anything contrary to what is generally accepted is wrong according to you.

It is not generally known that the word 'hygiene' means the science of health. Most people think 'hygiene' means washing hands. Washing hands may be a small part of hygiene, as surgeons learned in the early history of surgery. But 'hygiene' in the original meaning means the science of health. The term 'natural hygiene' was coined by Shelton because the word 'hygiene' had become corrupt. But in his books he usually says simply 'hygiene' the science of health.

Medicine is not a science but a profession. Medicine may or may not use science. As a profession, their goal is money. I am not knocking money. There is more money in keeping a diabetic patient on insulin or metformin for 30 years than in reversing diabetes in 30 days by nutrition, as Dr. Furhman does. There is more money in disease management than in health.

In a free market (one not controlled by government), doctors would be in the business of putting themselves out of business. Health doctors, as opposed to disease management doctors, tend to get their patients well and tend to not get a lot of repeat business. And the doctor who is the most effective in putting himself out of business would get the most business.

Disease management doctors are not in the business of putting themselves out of business.

Quackery:

The word 'quack' can be defined as any doctor who pretends to have knowledge and skills that he does not have. By this definition, any doctor whose patients don't get well is probably a quack.

Another definition of 'quack' might be any doctor whose doctoring is not based on science. Here I refer to the science of health, hygiene, as mentioned above.

There are 2 kinds of quacks, orthodox and alternative. There is orthodox quackery and there is alternative quackery. Doesn't matter to me whether government approves of it.

I judge doctors by how well their patients do, not by whether they have a government approved MD after their name.

For most people, 'quack' means any doctor who does not have government approval. They equate government approval or 'generally accepted' with scientific.

[BaalChatzaf]

william.scherk:

About whale.to:

I don't know what whale.to has to do with confidence. Am I supposed to believe or disbelieve everything on the website just because it is on whale.to? I can understand why you think it's a lousy website. You are thumbs down on whatever is not generally accepted; that means probably everything on whale.to.

About sarcastic:

I was not being sarcastic about homeopathy, herbalism, ozone. I think those things are quackery. Plants that can be eaten are 'veggies'; poisonous plants are 'herbs'.

About Shelton:

The subject was Trall's success against smallpox. I merely linked to an article by Shelton as a source for this information.

You will call both Trall and Shelton quacks because they didn't have government approval. But I don't judge doctors by whether they have government approval. I judge doctors by how well their patients do. Both Trall and Shelton got their patients well where other doctors failed. There are modern doctors who are better than Trall and Shelton, who have the benefit of modern knowledge but who never encountered smallpox.

Shelton did not claim to be a medical doctor. He was a hygienic doctor.

You ask a question about smallpox: who knew. I attempt to answer it, Trall knew. Then you say Trall and Shelton both are dead and have nothing to do with the subject.

About Trall:

I merely offered evidence that his theory is not what you would call science, even tho it seemed to work against smallpox. I think you will find the evidence that it is not science, in the form of his lecture, convincing. If you read his lecture and report back, your report is predictable: he was not a good thinker.

Natural Hygiene:

I know what NH is. You seem to think that saying what it is is proof that it is wrong. That is predictable. Anything contrary to what is generally accepted is wrong according to you.

It is not generally known that the word 'hygiene' means the science of health. Most people think 'hygiene' means washing hands. Washing hands may be a small part of hygiene, as surgeons learned in the early history of surgery. But 'hygiene' in the original meaning means the science of health. The term 'natural hygiene' was coined by Shelton because the word 'hygiene' had become corrupt. But in his books he usually says simply 'hygiene' the science of health.

Medicine is not a science but a profession. Medicine may or may not use science. As a profession, their goal is money. I am not knocking money. There is more money in keeping a diabetic patient on insulin or metformin for 30 years than in reversing diabetes in 30 days by nutrition, as Dr. Furhman does. There is more money in disease management than in health.

In a free market (one not controlled by government), doctors would be in the business of putting themselves out of business. Health doctors, as opposed to disease management doctors, tend to get their patients well and tend to not get a lot of repeat business. And the doctor who is the most effective in putting himself out of business would get the most business.

Disease management doctors are not in the business of putting themselves out of business.

Quackery:

The word 'quack' can be defined as any doctor who pretends to have knowledge and skills that he does not have. By this definition, any doctor whose patients don't get well is probably a quack.

Another definition of 'quack' might be any doctor whose doctoring is not based on science. Here I refer to the science of health, hygiene, as mentioned above.

There are 2 kinds of quacks, orthodox and alternative. There is orthodox quackery and there is alternative quackery. Doesn't matter to me whether government approves of it.

I judge doctors by how well their patients do, not by whether they have a government approved MD after their name.

For most people, 'quack' means any doctor who does not have government approval. They equate government approval or 'generally accepted' with scientific.

In the Good Old Days before medicine took charge of cures, the average life expectancy was between 30 and 40 years of age.

Now with those phony baloney doctors in charge the average life expectancy is in the mid 70's

[jts]

In the Good Old Days before medicine took charge of cures, the average life expectancy was between 30 and 40 years of age.

Now with those phony baloney doctors in charge the average life expectancy is in the mid 70's

Doctors want you to live as long as possible. They can't make much money out of dead people.

There are 2 categories of people that doctors have difficulty making money out of: dead people and healthy people. The ideal for the medical profession from the point of view of money making is for you to live as long as possible but in a state of bad health.

The correct dose of a drug is the dose that makes the most money. If the dose is too high, the patient dies, bad for business. If the dose is too low, the patient recovers, again bad for business.

What do doctors do? Mostly cut, poison, burn. In a word, torture. So you get a disease, they torture you until you die or run out of money. The longer you live and can pay them to torture you, the more money they make. Obviously they don't want the torture to be so severe as to kill you; that would be bad for business. All the time they are torturing you, you sing their praises and think they are doing something wonderful to you. It is quite a profession.

The advances in health were achieved by such things as cleanliness and nutrition, which are part of hygiene, the science of health. And by capitalism which led to wealth which made cleanliness and nutrition possible. At first cleanliness and nutrition were ridiculed by the medical profession.

[Brant Gaede]

Public sanitation and knowledge of germs had the most to do with overall increased lifespan, especially by lowering infant mortality. Medicine as such has little to do with that broad statistical category. The two biggies for medicine are vaccinations and antibiotics. This doesn't gainsay the tremendous value of reactive medicine.

--Brant

a good doctor must be conservative for many patients know too much for knowing a little

[dldelancey]

In my house. At my son's school's PTO meetings. At my son's Cub Scout meetings. At my gym. At the club where my son and I play tennis. Obviously not here, and not at your house, but there are actually people who don't turn it into a bed of vipers.

[william.scherk]

When an autistic person doesn't get the vaccine --- and other persons who do get the vaccine do not become autistic we can conclude that the vaccine has nothing to do with the autism, whether we know what causes autism or not.

When a person dies in a car accident and had the airbag deployed, but there are others who have airbags deployed who don't die, we have to conclude that airbags have nothing to do with staying alive in car accidents, whether we know what causes death or not.

To my eyes, that now makes sense.

William,

All that effort. Dayamm! I admire your gumption. But you wasted it because you are squarely on one side of the fence and used the wrong tool. Persuasion-wise, it was clever pretzel of blah blah blah, but I seriously doubt it was effective.

The worst thing you can do with a metaphor is try to dissect it and make it make sense. (I speak from study and practice.) Besides, flipping a meta-construction only works the first time and I already did that. A meta-construction is the form underlying an aphorism or statement.

When you insist on continuing--like people who change the words of a song once again after someone just did it--and it is agenda-driven without flair, surprise, or something to spice it up, people tune out (except the choir, and even they don't get excited over it).

Let me give you an example: Sermon on the Mount - the SOLO Version. This was considered lame even back then. (Just look at the lukewarm response, not from the choir, but signaled by the absence of everyone else.) Why? Because it added nothing new, just a tired old agenda that everyone already knew.

I fear your effort did that, too. Not for me and not for you, but for the general reader.

If you want to counter what I did, may I suggest coming up with a different metaphor that attacks mine? One with humor or surprise or both?

Now here's a secret. It must be something that allows people to figure out the meaning on their own. (Notice that mine did that. This is what gave it teeth.)

It was my third try to explain to myself why I thought your take-off on Bob was unfair. I tried to show my work at length. I wasn't dissing you, but pointing out that your analogy didn't hold because you mistransposed the elements of Bob's argument. In his the first victim of autism/accidental death did not have airbag/vaccine ... whereas in yours the first victim did have airbag/vaccine. In yours, both had airbags, so it didn't properly map to what Bob is saying.

I'd say that using analogies to do the work of argument can be difficult. It's a kind of abstraction or mapping of concepts, and as I discovered, seemingly direct analogous reasoning can lead to bizarre results. I do use metaphor and analogies, and I accept criticism where the devices are misplaced or poorly translated. As for the rest of your critique on style and so on, well put, and thank you.

The general reader would, I think, snooze through the above failed analysis. You were my ideal audience for my trying to figure out what was wrong with your admittedly punchy analogy to Bob's argument.

Beyond that, we probably have no argument on a lot of the details of what Bob is so pithily and pitilessly droning on about. I laid out that material as I understood a page or so ago.

If you bludgeon folks over the head with your agenda, they tune out. (Unless you throw in good storytelling like Rand did.)

I can't offer any better tactics for now because I am not on either side. I am outside that particular agenda divide. (I have a kid to take care of, one I love dearly, and that trumps all rhetorical pastimes or political shenanigans.)

But if I think of something, I'll let you know.

Michael

You aren't on either side of the fence I think you mentioned I had taken a side of. This means you haven't been convinced one way or the other about vaccine-autism link. Bob and I are confident in saying the link is not proven. And I believe we are correct.

If you are on the fence, what kind of material or argument would convince you that the link has not been proven? Or if you don't want to specify, maybe you acknowledge that Bob and I probably did not get to our confidence by irrational means, by screams or heightened emotion or misapplied zeal or general nastiness or pomposity.

I only now click the Sermon on Mount Perigo. Yow. What a pompous, ridiculous self-elevating prat was Lindsay in the day, huh? I notice you ragged him well.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

In my house. At my son's school's PTO meetings. At my son's Cub Scout meetings. At my gym. At the club where my son and I play tennis. Obviously not here, and not at your house, but there are actually people who don't turn it into a bed of vipers.

Deanna,

Actually my house is a pretty good place to talk about this.

Kat and I have very good conversations with people at the differing groups we go to. Kat goes to a lot more than I do. And we do both sides of the aisle.

We're just as comfortable raising money for Autism Speaks as we are watching Andrew Wakefield speak. And we judge the merits on looking, comparing, thinking. Trying to sift out facts from the bullying. You know, using our brains.

We just never tell people at one (when the event slants fanatical) that we look at the stuff of the other unless we are very comfortable with the people we are talking to.

As to the places you mentioned, we have similar places where we have very good conversations, especially among Sean's schools, workplaces, teachers, therapist, counselors, psychologists, sundry doctors (both standard and experimental) and so on. They don't scream. In fact, they tend to be polite, helpful and understanding. And, in general, they are aware of our all-encompassing approach.

But my focus was on public discussions open to all and easily accessed by people with differing views. That's when the screaming takes place.

EDIT: Here's an experiment if you have a Facebook page, YouTube channel, or other place where all kinds of people show up who are not necessarily in an in-group (or even if they are most of the time). Put out a message saying: "I'm wondering about vaccines and autism. I have to make a serious decision right now and I'm not sure what to do."

Then watch what happens.

It's great if you like that kind of entertainment.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If you are on the fence, what kind of material or argument would convince you that the link has not been proven? Or if you don't want to specify, maybe you acknowledge that Bob and I probably did not get to our confidence by irrational means, by screams or heightened emotion or misapplied zeal or general nastiness or pomposity.

William,

I'm not on the fence because I'm not part of the divide. I have no wish to be part, either. You and I have different fundamental goals in this issue. You want to be right under the mantle of institutional science and I want to improve the lot of my stepson.

As to how you and Bob got your confidence, I have no idea. I do know if I had not preempted the snark, it would have been far worse by now. I say that from years of dealing with things like this. And, in fact, just look at this thread as it is already. It probably will get there before too long.

I only now click the Sermon on Mount Perigo. Yow. What a pompous, ridiculous self-elevating prat was Lindsay in the day, huh? I notice you ragged him well.

I was trying to be nice back then to my new host during an Easter rerun and it was the best I could do. (Notice there were only two posts on that thread in that year and one was mine.) Read my other stuff from around that time (I had recently started posting in O-Land) and you will realize just how lukewarm that was. Besides, I wrote a lot of crap back then trying to situate myself and figure out what I was supposed to do in online posting.

In fact, I tried to spice it up with a quip to generate some interest, but the thread had died dead and deceased.

Lame, lame and lame.

You do what you can, but you can't make a dead horse run.

(Like when one tries to dissect a metaphor as confrontational rhetoric. )

Michael

[Francisco Ferrer]

Communism has killed more people in the past century than typhus. Should people be "vaccinated" against Marx's ideas by banning his writings?

[Brant Gaede]

Communism has killed more people in the past century than typhus. Should people be "vaccinated" against Marx's ideas by banning his writings?

It wasn't communism. It was fascism called "communism." Today it's fascism called "Islamism." Fascism is everything political not freedom. Delimited government is fascism so constrained as to hardly exist--in governance. Socialism is fascism. Qua political philosophy, that's basic. Derivatively there is a particular fascism exemplified by fascist Italy more totalitarianly expressed by Nazism in which the governments control but do not own "the means of production." Socialism is thus similar to communism in which the government owns some means of production degenerating to total ownership in totalitarian expression. If it had been merely Nazi Germany against Communist Russia in WWII, Russia would have lost. That's one reason socialists hate the Nazis so much. It has nothing to do with Nazi totalitarian brutality, but that the Nazis were much more efficacious. The socialists hate efficaciousness except the efficaciousness of total domination over all people, not just Jews, but Jews will do even for some Jews who are socialists. Ironically, Stalin didn't hate Hitler--they divided up Poland--as a fellow fascist he respected Hitler. See, Stalin wasn't a communist except in name only. Instead of the state whithering away, Trotsky gets an an ax buried in his head. "Communism" is the biggest political con job of all time. It was fascism all along.

--Brant

"It was Barzini . . . ."

[Francisco Ferrer]

Of course. What I meant to say is, given that it was not communism but fascism that has caused more deaths in the past century than typhus, shouldn't we vaccinate the public against the fascists by banning their works? To be included would be writings advocating fascism called "communism," but excluding non-fascistic communism.

We would obviously exclude Lenin and the Bolsheviks because their revolution occurred before the term fascist was even invented.

[Jjeorge]

We would obviously exclude Lenin and the Bolsheviks because their revolution occurred before the term fascist was even invented.

That doesn't mean they weren't fascists. Just that there wasn't a label for it yet.

[Brant Gaede]

I broadened out the definition of fascism to all rights' violating by governments and their minions. I also include would-be fascists wanting fascism.

--Brant

[Francisco Ferrer]

We would obviously exclude Lenin and the Bolsheviks because their revolution occurred before the term fascist was even invented.

That doesn't mean they weren't fascists. Just that there wasn't a label for it yet.

They were mass-murdering communists who believed in the Communist Manifesto's call for class war and dictatorship. You can call them "fascists" if you're worried about the label "communist" getting a bad reputation.