shutupyouareanidiot.com

(thanks, Popjellyfish… I think.)

Shut up, Jenny McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

These people make me so angry I can hardly even write about them; the anti-vaccination people. The ones who believe, with a deep devoutness, that vaccines cause autism, ADHD, and a host of other allegedly modern syndromes and disorders that, in times past, used to simply be diagnosed as “psychosis” or “idiocy” and treated with Thorazine and regular beatings.

I hate these people. Despite the fact that much larger, better-conducted studies have failed to show any link to autism; despite the fact that ten of the original thirteen doctors who participated in the 1989 study that indicated a connection have withdrawn their support from the study; despite the well-founded allegations that the head researcher behind the study falsified data, these people forge on with a mighty religious fervor, and handily dismiss overwhelming scientific data that vaccinations don’t cause autism with the casual allegation that it’s a giant conspiracy by Big Pharmacy. And, apparently, all the medical research institutions in the world.

“I’ve got a book right here,” they’ll tell you, “Written by a Real Doctor.”

The guy who implanted eight embryos in Nadya Suleman was a Real Doctor too. Do I really need to say more?

Yet they’ll cite their quack-of-the-moment again and again, and when you present multiple independent studies that contradict the quack, they’ll cite him AGAIN, or one just like him. I think they all know each other. “All of these questions are addressed in this book!” they say. And of course the book cites studies, funded by an independent foundation that fully endorses the doctor who wrote the book. In fact, they provide him with a lot of data.

I thought to myself, once, that the next time I encountered one of these deluded morons, I would counter their claim with one even stupider… I would claim that vaccinations cause depression! After all, there can’t be as much money in vaccinations as there would be in selling existing medicines to treat these diseases if they were still running rampant,  but depression is a multi-billion-dollar industry… at least that way there’s motive, beyond some Machiavellian medical industry plot to give one in every 150 children Autism. It turns out, they’ve already thought about that.

Maybe cancer? That’s a pretty stupid allegation. But oh god, say it ain’t so! Noooooooo!

No matter how completely insane the allegation, no matter how much evidence there is against it, some crackpot with a website and a product to sell already believes it and wants you to believe it, too.

The thing about vaccines and risks is that there are already plenty of real, well-documented side effects that we can all be afraid of, including death. Why make up more? What’s the point? We all know these risks, and we also know that they are far smaller than the risks of actually contracting the diseases themselves. Sometimes they say “Oh I’m not AGAINST vaccines, I just think people should be more cautious with them.”

Is that so? Then why aren’t their kids vaccinated? Thousands of people, “armed” with the certain knowledge they’ve gleaned off the Internet, are choosing not to vaccinate their children, stripping our society of the all-important herd immunity and allowing wretched, painful, crippling, killing diseases like mumps, measles, rubella, and polio to enjoy a resurgence. Yes, POLIO.

These people are putting us all at risk. “I just don’t want to take a chance” they’ll say. Because any self-deluded researcher seeking publication and fame is capable of fabricating a sensationalist story, and any articulate whackjob with a PhD can publish a book full of questionable research, they choose to take a departure from reality and in doing so give us, everyone, a “chance” to experience the wonder of infectious disease.

There is so much more to say about these idiots, but the bottom line is that they are authentically stupid people who cannot think for themselves and therefore believe foolish, facile things, and you, dear reader, presumably are not. Go read the studies and think for yourself, schmuck.

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Uri already busted George Will for this article, but let me add one little point. Check out this trenchant criticism of the modern liberal:

And long before climate change became another excuse for disparaging America’s “automobile culture,” many liberal intellectuals were bothered by the automobile. It subverted their agenda of expanding government—meaning their—supervision of other people’s lives. Drivers moving around where and when they please? Without government supervision? Depriving themselves and others of communitarian moments on mass transit? No good could come of this.

The reason why conservative criticism is so moronic is that it regards liberalism with nothing but tin-foil-hat paranoia. The basic agenda of liberalism is to control people? Maybe that argument would fly with the Birchers during the cold war, but it’s long past time to get over it. The criticism that liberals hate freedom is willful ignorance.

George Will used to write columns that included actual thought, and had a little bit of intellectual heft. Now he’s a beltway limbaugh. George, shut the fuck up.

Also, a more reasoned rebuttal.

George Will has written a new screed on Newsweek decrying anti-surburbanization, bicycling, Portland, and government planning. Terrible. It’s not even well-written. He says, “as for Portland…” and then never gets around to chastising it, as though merely describing the steps taken to achieve its status as the liberal mecca of the US was some damning critique. Holy crap, you mean they put in bike lanes? Damn liberals, what are they thinking ?! They’ll ruin everything!

Look, I live here in Portland, and it’s frickin awesome. You can bash it all you want, but we have a better quality of life than anywhere in the country. The bicycles are a big help. The public transit is a big help. Having shopping within walking distance everywhere inside city limits is a big help. This is a city where not having a car is appropriately a badge of pride and hardly a hardship at all, where you can actually afford to live on low-wage jobs, where employers treat their employees with respect more than anywhere in the country, and where government at least tries to pay attention to the needs of the people, and the people have a reasonable chance to actually affect their local government, even when it goes against the interests of large corporate interests from out of state. This city deserves every accolade it gets, and to be honest, it still doesn’t go far enough. 

So what are you really crapping on here, George? Having a sense of community, of regional identity? Having services available to those in need? Disliking the endless sprawling tract housing and strip malls that have devastated traditional American culture and pinned our economic stability on the decisions of foreign countries that hate us and corporations that couldn’t care less about anything but the bottom line? Or are you just dissing on those who are willing to make the necessary changes to prevent the ecological disaster that you so desperately wish to ignore?

You’re useless, George, utterly and entirely, a pretentious dinosaur, a danger to humanity itself. Shut the fuck up already. You’re wasting our time and brain cells with your incessant prattle, and it has got to stop.