Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Christianity and Gullibility Go Together

Michele Bachmann's attack on the HPV vaccine was probably politically motivated but there's an outside chance she may really mean what she says.  After all, she married an idiot who believes homosexuality is a mental illness that can be 'cured.'

OTOH she may be stupid like a fox.  The Tea Partiers would have been satisfied with a libertarian attack on Perry's order to have all 12-year-old girls vaccinated against the cancer-causing virus, but Bachmann's rhetoric in an interview after the debate took things to a whole 'nother level of dishonesty:

Yes, of course it violates liberty, when you have innocent little 12-year-old girls that are being forced to have a government injection into their body. This is a liberty interest that violates the most deepest personal part of a little child. And it violates the parental rights, because what we understand is, again, this was an executive order that mandated that every little 12-year- old girl had to have this vaccination. And then you'd have to opt out.

...The problem is, again, a little girl doesn't get a do over. Once they have that vaccination in their body, once it causes its damage, that little girl doesn't have a chance to go back. So you can't just say you're sorry.

Sounds a lot like rape doesn't it?  She makes it sound like the vaccine is intra-vaginal and breaks the hymen.   It's government rape of virgin girls!!!!!!

What a dishonest whore, and I have not seen any outcry about this. As a woman I'm offended that she feels that the STD nature of the virus has given her the right to couch her statements in these terms.  Does she think that all the little boys and girls who got the measles vaccine were also violated in "the most deepest personal part" of a child? The injections are given to the same part of the body.

There's lots of attention to a claim that the HPV vaccine caused mental retardation... a claim made by a stranger and never backed up.  Her claim has about as much merit as any other anecdotal claim, and any parent who makes a post hoc claim should be presumed to be in error until proved otherwise.  This is the same post hoc error made when parents linked vaccination to autism diagnosis.  Besides the original "study" being discredited, autism diagnosis can be made earlier than the scheduled vaccination that had been blamed.  So I guess now we blame other conditions on it.

I can see why a parent might opt out from a vaccine that's a private health risk rather than a public risk.  And of course all parents believe their children will be virgins until marriage.  (Those are the kids most likely to get pregnant at 15 of course)

The pundits are attacking her insane claim that mental retardation could result rather than her sly sexualization of a sound preventative health measure.  She probably has her feet up on a coffee table somewhere, and she's laughing her ass off because she knows that the response of smart people who paid attention is completely irrelevant.  Her target audience is too stupid to know whether she's being attacked fairly or unfairly.  They live a life of willing gullibility when it comes to claims without evidence and an instinctive mistrust of smart people.   Her audience isn't watching pundit shows, except maybe Bill O'Reilly.  No, they'll be tuned in to NASCAR news or perhaps they'll check in on "Teen Mom" to see if anyone they know is on it.

4 comments:

Melty in the Desert said...

I followed your link from WEIT. Just wanted to stop by and say that I agree that there are rational ways Bachmann could have attacked Perry's mandated HPV vac's, the law not the actual vaccine. I wonder if any of the people who replied to your comment have ever heard the term "devil's advocate."

Anyway, I read a few of your other posts and you are f'ing mean! I'm sure you've heard that before in a derogatory sense, but I mean it in a good way. I love it.

Yours,
r

LadyAtheist said...

Thanks! I have my moments! I actually have a lot of believers as good friends so I let off steam here. They're waaaay too deep into it to see how ridiculous Christianity is so I keep my mouth shut except the occasional comment that begins "as an atheist...."

Arwen said...

The big issue with vaccines for me is their safety. I don't think we should be giving anyone unnecessary vaccines or too many vaccines at once because poisons can build up in the body (including the heavy metals they used to use in all vaccines). Vaccines are also big business - corporations make a fortune out of them. Vaccines can also hurt business - think of successful group action lawsuits against the makers of vaccines which later proved harmful and ill-conceived.

LadyAtheist said...

Toxic additives are a good reason to give multiple vaccines in one shot then. The amount of additive would be less over the lifetime of the individual.

The risk-benefit ratio is still on the side of the vaccine vs. the disease. I think the only vaccine that has been *proved* detrimental was the 1976 swine flu vaccine. Since then they've been very safe and have saved a lot of lives.