Personal and/or religious preferences as exemptions.
I don't really give a shit about your personal or religious preferences if it affects public health.
I don't want the government mandating what we stick into our bodies.
The government isn't mandating what you put in your body. It is however telling you that if you want a government funded education then you need to be vaccinated so you do not present a risk to others. You do have the right to opt out but there are (and should be) consequences.
However, with schools, it's best to allow unvaccinated children to attend with the understanding they won't be able to attend in an outbreak.
I could not disagree more. If you want to home school your children or send them to a private school, then that is your right. If they want to attend a public school then they should be vaccinated against common illnesses or provide that they cannot get the vaccine for provable medical conditions. I do not care at all about personal or religious preferences in this matter. Viruses do not notify people ahead of time when there will be an outbreak so by the time there is an outbreak it is already too late. The entire point of vaccines is prevent the outbreak in the first place.
Good luck finding an IT job that doesn't require testing. All of mine have required it so far. I fail to see how I have the right to decline when every fucking employer requires me to get a test done.
Who said you had to work in IT? I have had numerous jobs where no drug test was required and I don't work in IT.
Even McDonalds and all the other shitty retail jobs require it.
That's because a LOT of people fail the drug tests and remember that many of them are working registers and handling cash. Would you trust someone with a drug habit to handle cash or safely work a grill? I hire a lot of temps at my company and I'm not kidding when I tell you over 50% of applicants fail the drug test. Why would I hire that person when I can hire someone who doesn't give me the safety and liability concerns of a drug habit?
The protection is provides is on the herd level and NOT the individual.
Wrong again. If vaccines did not work on an individual level then there would be no herd immunity. Vaccines don't have to be 100% effective to create herd immunity but they do have to be effective on an individual level in a substantial portion of the population. Herd immunity protects those who cannot (or will not) get vaccinated for whatever reason.
Look up herd immunity to understand how this works.
You first since you clearly have no idea how herd immunity works.
i consider myself a libertarian, but at the same point i believe that what one does on their own time is of no concern to an employer. as such, one should be judged on the merits of their work, not their recreation
I have no quarrel with that. Problem is that I, as an employer (which I am), cannot be certain that your recreational (and probably illegal) drug habit will not present a safety or liability problem for me on the job. I have no problem ethically with an adult getting high on their own time provided it doesn't harm someone else. That last bit is the key though. As an employer I cannot afford to take avoidable risks of people getting harmed. If I don't test for drug use and someone gets injured with drugs as a contributing factor then I have several problems now. First, someone was needlessly injured due to my negligence. Second, there will be a lawsuit that follows and the lawyer is going to ask me "why did you hire someone with a drug problem?" And they will be right and I will lose and very likely have to pay a large settlement. Third, I run a company which operates heavy machinery and someone who is impaired runs a higher than normal risk of getting injured or causing injuries to others.
I cannot make these safety and liability concerns go away just because I want to respect what people do on their own time. Some people probably can manage a drug habit safely and without problems but many more cannot. I genuinely do not care if someone wants to smoke weed or do some other drug on their own time. None of my business. But what IS my business is the risk that potentially presents to me and my employees and I can't waive that away, like it or not.
forcing someone to prove their innocence by taking a drug test without any reason to assume so (pre employment and random testing) I have no issue with say a truck driver getting in an accident and being administered a test however
So you think it is a better plan to hire a truck driver who is taking substances that impair judgement/performance, wait for an accident which has a good chance of people getting killed, wait for the inevitable lawsuit that will follow asking why you didn't test a drug problem, and only then bother to see if the person was impaired? I don't think you have a future in risk management or insurance. How about you just pee in a cup and we prevent the accident in the first place saving a lot of pain, suffering and money in the process.
If I'm testing you for drugs I'm not assuming you are doing anything but I'm also would be stupid if I didn't confirm that fact. No, your word does not mean anything. People lie all the time. The problem is that I KNOW for a fact that some percentage of people will do drugs and I do not know which ones they are. Literally over half the temps who apply for work at my company fail a drug test. (Yes I can prove it) Many drugs demonstrably impair judgement and/or coordination. Someone who uses recreational drugs also is indirectly telling me something about their mental state and lifestyle which may present a problem for me as an employer.
I run a business that requires operation of dangerous machinery and uses hazardous chemicals. If I didn't check for drug use and someone was injured with drugs as a contributing factor, the very first thing a lawyer will ask in the lawsuit that follows and accident is "why did you hire someone who used drugs?" And they would be right and I would lose. Judgement for the plaintiff... [/gavel] It's no different than doing a background check to find out if someone has a conviction for embezzlement before hiring them for an accounting job. If you want to use drugs there are jobs that will not test you or you can work for yourself.
I genuinely do not care if you want to get high and I'm not making any moral judgment. I also respect the position that you do not want to be tested but understand that doesn't obligate me to hire you. I'm just not willing to take needless risks on your behalf or risk the safety of others so you can get high. That's your problem, don't make it mine.
But it's still no defense for armed robbery. "I asked him for his money or his life. He had the free choice and gave me the money voluntarily"....
Way to go straight to the absurd and irrelevant extreme.
So, how much harm is done by a "or else find yourself a new job" depends on the given individual. To some it's only a "...or else switch to another employer" but for some it's "...or else become homeless and die on the street like a dog"
Spare me. Nobody applying for a job at Disney is in a position where they have to get a job there or they will become homeless and die. There are plenty of other jobs out there and even if there aren't (finding work can be hard sometimes) there are other social safety nets for almost everyone. Yes some people are in better circumstances than others. Opportunity is not equal for everyone and never will be. Welcome to the real world. We all make choices that open some doors and close others. If you want to choose to not get a vaccine and you are an adult then that is your choice. But do not expect your decision to come without consequences. Possibly quite serious consequences.
So? The main reason are bacteria... the guy claims he has health like an Ox.
While the most common cause is usually bacterial, that doesn't rule out other causes. You claimed quite wrongly that pneumonia is solely caused by bacteria which is demonstrably untrue.
The english wikipedia article is btw. simplifying and misleading,I suggest to google for pneumonia and get your own idea via medical papers/sites what the "science" behind it is.
Since the only thing I'm seeking to establish is that bacteria are not the only cause of pneumonia, the Wikipedia article is as accurate is we need right here and now. If you want to prove that with a different source, knock yourself out but the answer will be the same.
Furthermore I just shouted down the hall to my wife who is a MD and asked her if she thought it was "misleading". She declared it to be fine. Since she is a physician and more informed than you and me put together on this topic, I'll just go ahead trust her opinion if it is all the same to you.
The flu vaccinations are for the very young and the very old.
The CDC reccomends everyone over 6 months get the vaccine with certain exceptions. They are better informed on this subject than you are.
I do not get the flu. I have never had it. I have never had a flu vaccine and don't plan on getting one until my body is so frail that the common flu is a threat to me.
Consider yourself lucky. The flu can be quite unpleasant. In fact it sometimes can be so unpleasant that it kills young and healthy people. Your choice to get vaccinated or not but the notion that the flu only affects the weak and frail is demonstrably nonsense.
Pneumonia is caused by bacteria, the flu by a virus.
Pneumonia is a description of symptoms relating to inflammation of the lung and can be caused by bacteria, viruses, other micro-organisms, drug reactions and autoimmune conditions. It is an inflammatory condition, not an infection by a specific type of organism.
I've got a WAIS 3 combined cognitive function test score of over 180 (that's all you need to know), and I am against vaccinations where they are not necessary.
Ok, I don't get what the needless bragging about your IQ score is about but most health care professionals would agree with you on this point. If you aren't going to Africa there probably isn't a need to get some of the more exotic vaccines out there since vaccines can have unfortunate side effects. Perfectly reasonable.
Influenza mutates every ten days, rendering vaccinations useless before they're even distributed. My wife got a flu shot in October, she had influenza over xmas. I've not even had so much as a cold since the last time I had a seasonal shot back in 1993 which resulted in me developing pneumonia thanks to influenza. Eight months it took me to recover from that.
You may be smart but you are quite ignorant on this point. Influenza isn't a single virus. It is a family of viruses and yes they mutate fairly often. Every year the CDC looks at the strains of flu viruses out there and how they are spreading and determines the 5 or so most likely strains to be a problem in the US. They then develop a vaccine to cover these strains. This vaccine does NOT make you immune against all strains of flu and you still might catch a strain not covered by the vaccine. And the CDC is often wrong about which strains actually prove to be most problematic since they are really just making an educated guess. If you get the flu vaccine you are more likely to be protected than if you don't against a few strains of flu but it does not and never did mean that you won't get the flu.
Furthermore if you choose not to get the vaccine you might actually encounter the virus but not become symptomatic but still carry it and infect others. The more people that get the vaccine the stronger the herd immunity benefit.
Finally it is highly unlikely that the vaccine caused you to get pneumonia. You seem to be unfamiliar with the latin phrase post hoc ergo propter hoc. Just because the pneumonia followed the vaccine doesn't mean the vaccine caused the pneumonia.
Rule of thumb: It's not a free choice, if there is a big "or else...." attached.
Free choice does not mean choice without consequences. I am free to speak my mind but that does not mean I shouldn't expect consequences for doing so. I can choose not to vaccinate my children or myself but that doesn't mean I should be allowed to endanger other people by making that choice. I can choose not to be tested for drugs for philosophical reasons but that might mean that certain jobs are closed to me.
Employers should not be put in a position where they are giving medical advice or direction. If there is a reason that large, public centered facilities or parks should have required vaccinations, then that needs to be public policy, not corporate policy.
Hospitals require testing and proof of vaccination as a condition of employment. I've worked in one in the past and they wanted proof of certain vaccinations, a TB test, and provided any needed vaccinations free of charge. (I got a booster for MMR and tetanus) I think if a place like a hospital it would be insane not to require the employees to be reasonably secure against likely communicable diseases. At a place like Disney where they have to deal with the general public I wouldn't have a problem with public health policy mandating vaccination as a condition of employment. I don't think people should be forced to accept a vaccine if they are adults and really don't want to (and of course if they cannot due to allergies etc) but I have no problem with certain jobs being closed to them if they are not vaccinated. I think all children should be vaccinated or have proof that they cannot safely be vaccinated before attending any public school.
drug tests should not even exist let alone be mandatory. what happened to innocent until proven guilty?
Innocent until proven guilty only applies to the State regarding criminal proceedings. It has nothing at all to do with private sector employers. You are free to decline to be tested so nobody's rights are being infringed. Yes, there may be consequences to that decision including not being hired. If a private sector employer determines that use of illegal drugs could cause the company problems (liability and safety in particularly), why shouldn't they have the right to require a drug test as a condition of employment? Use of many illegal drugs can demonstrably impair judgement and coordination in ways that are not always immediately obvious and have demonstrably caused injuries in many a work place. In my company we work with multi-ton presses and other dangerous equipment and we would be idiots to hire someone without taking reasonable precautions to ensure safety and to reduce liability.
There are plenty of employers who do not test for drug use. If you think a drug test is a problem for you (even philosophically) then seek out employment where they don't test. Plenty of companies don't care enough to bother.
Quiet (or as quiet as possible) is one aesthetic that may be desirable. For other people (or perhaps cars), a good rumble (as long as it not excessively load and obnoxious) is equally a desirable aesthetic. It's not so different, as you note, than choice of paint job.
The problem is that silent is never obnoxious but the "good rumble" often is. I can comprehend that some people enjoy a loud car (I do not) but I think the default should be silence. Make them quiet and people who make them loud should have to pay extra for the noise pollution they create.
Same for the Ecoboost. It purrs at idle, but put your foot in it and you hear the horsepower.
No you hear audio engineering. I had a Mercedes SLK230 some time ago. Supercharged 4 cylinder. Growled deeply like an old V8 because the Mercedes engineers tuned it to do that, not because it needed to. Now they are actually using the speaker system to emit sounds because some people (not me) for whatever reason like obnoxious noises. (Harley riders I'm looking right at you) They could make even relatively high horsepower cars much quieter than they do. They purposefully choose not to and they even try to make cars sound louder and more "impressive" than they really are.
It is a perceived safety issue and I don't buy the arguments in favor of mandating noise pollution. If it really were a problem we should expect to see cars that are quieter than average involved in proportionally more collisions that cars that are more noisy. I've not seen one speck of evidence that quiet cars get in more accidents due to their sound levels. It is to my mind a completely nonsensical argument with no evidence to support it.
There is nothing ridiculous about mandating some amount of noise in the meantime.
I completely disagree. If you mandate noise you will never get silence. Plus once you get enough cars close together you almost can't distinguish them anyway because it basically becomes white noise. Just because people have become accustomed to a certain amount of noise is not a credible argument for continuing to emit noise pollution needlessly. And no, I am not at all concerned about blind or inattentive pedestrians crossing the road in front of me. It's MY responsibility as a driver to drive carefully and watch out for possible road hazards. It is also their responsibility to watch out when crossing the road. Hell, people get hit by trains while walking and they make a huge racket and are 100% avoidable by staying off the tracks.
So you're saying that the IRS unilaterally went out and made changes to the tax law without direction from POTUS or Congress?
EVERY government agency does this. Neither Congress nor POTUS would ever get anything done if they had to approve every action of every government agency. Congress and POTUS and the judiciary set the framework but the agencies generally see to the fine details and have significant leeway in deciding how to best carry out those regulations.
Here's how it works. Legislatures write statutes which usually outline what is to be done but often leaves the finer details up to the agencies tasked with carrying out the statute. Agencies interpret these statutes with regulations which are another form of law making. The president can order an agency to do something with an executive order to direct agencies but once again unless the president is very specific the details are left to the agency so long as they remain within the bounds of the executive order. The judiciary also interprets statutes and regulations with case law which is yet another form of law making and case law sometimes overrides regulations and less frequently overrides statutes. The judiciary and legislature can override a regulation if they choose but every branch of government plays a role in writing laws.
Since when does the IRS decide what the Federal Tax laws are?
Since forever within limits. The IRS gets to interpret the law like any executive branch agency and issue regulations and delegated legislation. Legislatures issue statutes and those statutes are further interpreted with regulations by executive agencies and in case law by the judicial branch. ALL government agencies regardless of branch get a say in what the laws are and yes the IRS decides what significant portions of the tax law will be. The legislature or judiciary may override an IRS regulation if they choose but the IRS definitely gets a big say in deciding what the tax laws are.
We should base policy on what the majority of 'the people' (read voters without regard for what internationally other people want) wish to do, after they have been made aware of the risk a large number of scientists believe to exist.
You don't let someone else drive you over a cliff just because they don't understand or care about the consequences of their actions. The electorate in general has not looked carefully at the evidence and many of them clearly do not understand it or are apparently ignoring the good of the many in favor of their own short term interests. It is VERY apparent that the electorate is not well informed on this issue and it is equally clear that short term economic self interest is very likely to result in long term harm.
What exactly should we base that policy on, if not for our current best scientific understanding ?
Generally the answer to this is short term economic self interest. Most of the arguments I see against stuff like curbing CO2 emissions are basically arguments for economic self interest. Economic interests often collide with scientific evidence, at least in the short run.
Does that mean we can ALSO expect Global Warming folks to stop spouting the phrase "an overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree on..." Or is it ok for one side, but not the other?
The climate scientist consensus argument is stupid if you think it is an argument to prove that global warming is occurring. That is NOT what the consensus argument is about. Instead it is an argument from authority to establish that the people who actually have seriously looked into this and have weighed the available evidence keep coming to the same conclusion.
Here's the thing. Very few individuals who claim that global warming is not real are actually well informed on the available evidence and scientific models. They are arguing based on personal desires or opinions or preconceptions but they are not arguing based on known evidence. Conversely the vast majority of scientists who are researching climate and do actually understand the currently available evidence are almost universally coming to the conclusion that the evidence weighs heavily in favor of the conclusion that average temperatures are increasing and that humans are most probably the proximate cause of that change.
So on one hand we have people arguing from ignorance against climate change while those on the other side of the debate who are fully informed on the topic are almost universally coming to the exact opposite conclusion. Who should you believe? Do you believe the doctor who recommends a medicine that has been shown effective in double blind studies or would you believe the guy trying to sell you a homeopathic remedy which has no supporting evidence whatsoever? When you have a consensus among fully informed scientists on a particular topic, odds are pretty good that they are correct in what they are saying. Scientists have strong incentives to be correct and their work is available (more or less) for all to see and double check. If they are wrong then it is up to those who disagree to prove it. But since those who disagree, almost universally have no actual idea what they are talking about, we have to listen to a bunch of uneducated nonsense from people who lack the good graces to shut up about things they don't understand.
If those who disagree with the consensus want to do so then all they have to do is find objective evidence of a source for the measured temperature increases other than human sources. That temperatures have gone up on average globally is not in dispute. The evidence for a cause of that warming appears to strongly point towards human activity. To disprove this thesis all someone would have to do is show how a volcano or some other natural phenomena is a better explanation for what we observe.
You see, that's the great thing about science. It's true, they can't just vote it away
Just because something is factually true doesn't mean our leaders can't choose to ignore it. Science can point out what a rational policy might look like but it's up to the folks we put in office to decide whether or not to actually match policy to those scientific findings.
Used to be that in a democracy we will weight the facts and then vote on a decision.
What country have you been living in? The actual "facts" are very frequently irrelevant to the voting process. People vote based on what someone tells them the bible says. People vote based on racial prejudices completely unsupported by fact. People vote directly against their own self interest because they believe lies someone else told them. People vote on soundbites over deciding issues they don't even remotely comprehend. People vote in virtually every election on things where their understanding of the facts is wrong, misinformed, disingenuous, etc.
Weigh the facts? Sometimes but it's hardly the norm. Now had you said people vote on perceptions of the facts I might actually agree.
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Personal and/or religious preferences as exemptions.
I don't really give a shit about your personal or religious preferences if it affects public health.
I don't want the government mandating what we stick into our bodies.
The government isn't mandating what you put in your body. It is however telling you that if you want a government funded education then you need to be vaccinated so you do not present a risk to others. You do have the right to opt out but there are (and should be) consequences.
However, with schools, it's best to allow unvaccinated children to attend with the understanding they won't be able to attend in an outbreak.
I could not disagree more. If you want to home school your children or send them to a private school, then that is your right. If they want to attend a public school then they should be vaccinated against common illnesses or provide that they cannot get the vaccine for provable medical conditions. I do not care at all about personal or religious preferences in this matter. Viruses do not notify people ahead of time when there will be an outbreak so by the time there is an outbreak it is already too late. The entire point of vaccines is prevent the outbreak in the first place.
Good luck finding an IT job that doesn't require testing. All of mine have required it so far. I fail to see how I have the right to decline when every fucking employer requires me to get a test done.
Who said you had to work in IT? I have had numerous jobs where no drug test was required and I don't work in IT.
Even McDonalds and all the other shitty retail jobs require it.
That's because a LOT of people fail the drug tests and remember that many of them are working registers and handling cash. Would you trust someone with a drug habit to handle cash or safely work a grill? I hire a lot of temps at my company and I'm not kidding when I tell you over 50% of applicants fail the drug test. Why would I hire that person when I can hire someone who doesn't give me the safety and liability concerns of a drug habit?
No vaccine is close to 100% effective.
Demonstrably untrue. Many vaccines are well over 99% effective.
The protection is provides is on the herd level and NOT the individual.
Wrong again. If vaccines did not work on an individual level then there would be no herd immunity. Vaccines don't have to be 100% effective to create herd immunity but they do have to be effective on an individual level in a substantial portion of the population. Herd immunity protects those who cannot (or will not) get vaccinated for whatever reason.
Look up herd immunity to understand how this works.
You first since you clearly have no idea how herd immunity works.
i consider myself a libertarian, but at the same point i believe that what one does on their own time is of no concern to an employer. as such, one should be judged on the merits of their work, not their recreation
I have no quarrel with that. Problem is that I, as an employer (which I am), cannot be certain that your recreational (and probably illegal) drug habit will not present a safety or liability problem for me on the job. I have no problem ethically with an adult getting high on their own time provided it doesn't harm someone else. That last bit is the key though. As an employer I cannot afford to take avoidable risks of people getting harmed. If I don't test for drug use and someone gets injured with drugs as a contributing factor then I have several problems now. First, someone was needlessly injured due to my negligence. Second, there will be a lawsuit that follows and the lawyer is going to ask me "why did you hire someone with a drug problem?" And they will be right and I will lose and very likely have to pay a large settlement. Third, I run a company which operates heavy machinery and someone who is impaired runs a higher than normal risk of getting injured or causing injuries to others.
I cannot make these safety and liability concerns go away just because I want to respect what people do on their own time. Some people probably can manage a drug habit safely and without problems but many more cannot. I genuinely do not care if someone wants to smoke weed or do some other drug on their own time. None of my business. But what IS my business is the risk that potentially presents to me and my employees and I can't waive that away, like it or not.
forcing someone to prove their innocence by taking a drug test without any reason to assume so (pre employment and random testing) I have no issue with say a truck driver getting in an accident and being administered a test however
So you think it is a better plan to hire a truck driver who is taking substances that impair judgement/performance, wait for an accident which has a good chance of people getting killed, wait for the inevitable lawsuit that will follow asking why you didn't test a drug problem, and only then bother to see if the person was impaired? I don't think you have a future in risk management or insurance. How about you just pee in a cup and we prevent the accident in the first place saving a lot of pain, suffering and money in the process.
If I'm testing you for drugs I'm not assuming you are doing anything but I'm also would be stupid if I didn't confirm that fact. No, your word does not mean anything. People lie all the time. The problem is that I KNOW for a fact that some percentage of people will do drugs and I do not know which ones they are. Literally over half the temps who apply for work at my company fail a drug test. (Yes I can prove it) Many drugs demonstrably impair judgement and/or coordination. Someone who uses recreational drugs also is indirectly telling me something about their mental state and lifestyle which may present a problem for me as an employer.
I run a business that requires operation of dangerous machinery and uses hazardous chemicals. If I didn't check for drug use and someone was injured with drugs as a contributing factor, the very first thing a lawyer will ask in the lawsuit that follows and accident is "why did you hire someone who used drugs?" And they would be right and I would lose. Judgement for the plaintiff... [/gavel] It's no different than doing a background check to find out if someone has a conviction for embezzlement before hiring them for an accounting job. If you want to use drugs there are jobs that will not test you or you can work for yourself.
I genuinely do not care if you want to get high and I'm not making any moral judgment. I also respect the position that you do not want to be tested but understand that doesn't obligate me to hire you. I'm just not willing to take needless risks on your behalf or risk the safety of others so you can get high. That's your problem, don't make it mine.
But it's still no defense for armed robbery. "I asked him for his money or his life. He had the free choice and gave me the money voluntarily"....
Way to go straight to the absurd and irrelevant extreme.
So, how much harm is done by a "or else find yourself a new job" depends on the given individual. To some it's only a "...or else switch to another employer" but for some it's "...or else become homeless and die on the street like a dog"
Spare me. Nobody applying for a job at Disney is in a position where they have to get a job there or they will become homeless and die. There are plenty of other jobs out there and even if there aren't (finding work can be hard sometimes) there are other social safety nets for almost everyone. Yes some people are in better circumstances than others. Opportunity is not equal for everyone and never will be. Welcome to the real world. We all make choices that open some doors and close others. If you want to choose to not get a vaccine and you are an adult then that is your choice. But do not expect your decision to come without consequences. Possibly quite serious consequences.
So? The main reason are bacteria ... the guy claims he has health like an Ox.
While the most common cause is usually bacterial, that doesn't rule out other causes. You claimed quite wrongly that pneumonia is solely caused by bacteria which is demonstrably untrue.
The english wikipedia article is btw. simplifying and misleading,I suggest to google for pneumonia and get your own idea via medical papers/sites what the "science" behind it is.
Since the only thing I'm seeking to establish is that bacteria are not the only cause of pneumonia, the Wikipedia article is as accurate is we need right here and now. If you want to prove that with a different source, knock yourself out but the answer will be the same.
Furthermore I just shouted down the hall to my wife who is a MD and asked her if she thought it was "misleading". She declared it to be fine. Since she is a physician and more informed than you and me put together on this topic, I'll just go ahead trust her opinion if it is all the same to you.
The flu vaccinations are for the very young and the very old.
The CDC reccomends everyone over 6 months get the vaccine with certain exceptions. They are better informed on this subject than you are.
I do not get the flu. I have never had it. I have never had a flu vaccine and don't plan on getting one until my body is so frail that the common flu is a threat to me.
Consider yourself lucky. The flu can be quite unpleasant. In fact it sometimes can be so unpleasant that it kills young and healthy people. Your choice to get vaccinated or not but the notion that the flu only affects the weak and frail is demonstrably nonsense.
Pneumonia is caused by bacteria, the flu by a virus.
Pneumonia is a description of symptoms relating to inflammation of the lung and can be caused by bacteria, viruses, other micro-organisms, drug reactions and autoimmune conditions. It is an inflammatory condition, not an infection by a specific type of organism.
I've got a WAIS 3 combined cognitive function test score of over 180 (that's all you need to know), and I am against vaccinations where they are not necessary.
Ok, I don't get what the needless bragging about your IQ score is about but most health care professionals would agree with you on this point. If you aren't going to Africa there probably isn't a need to get some of the more exotic vaccines out there since vaccines can have unfortunate side effects. Perfectly reasonable.
Influenza mutates every ten days, rendering vaccinations useless before they're even distributed. My wife got a flu shot in October, she had influenza over xmas. I've not even had so much as a cold since the last time I had a seasonal shot back in 1993 which resulted in me developing pneumonia thanks to influenza. Eight months it took me to recover from that.
You may be smart but you are quite ignorant on this point. Influenza isn't a single virus. It is a family of viruses and yes they mutate fairly often. Every year the CDC looks at the strains of flu viruses out there and how they are spreading and determines the 5 or so most likely strains to be a problem in the US. They then develop a vaccine to cover these strains. This vaccine does NOT make you immune against all strains of flu and you still might catch a strain not covered by the vaccine. And the CDC is often wrong about which strains actually prove to be most problematic since they are really just making an educated guess. If you get the flu vaccine you are more likely to be protected than if you don't against a few strains of flu but it does not and never did mean that you won't get the flu.
Furthermore if you choose not to get the vaccine you might actually encounter the virus but not become symptomatic but still carry it and infect others. The more people that get the vaccine the stronger the herd immunity benefit.
Finally it is highly unlikely that the vaccine caused you to get pneumonia. You seem to be unfamiliar with the latin phrase post hoc ergo propter hoc. Just because the pneumonia followed the vaccine doesn't mean the vaccine caused the pneumonia.
Rule of thumb: It's not a free choice, if there is a big "or else...." attached.
Free choice does not mean choice without consequences. I am free to speak my mind but that does not mean I shouldn't expect consequences for doing so. I can choose not to vaccinate my children or myself but that doesn't mean I should be allowed to endanger other people by making that choice. I can choose not to be tested for drugs for philosophical reasons but that might mean that certain jobs are closed to me.
Choice almost never comes without consequence.
Employers should not be put in a position where they are giving medical advice or direction. If there is a reason that large, public centered facilities or parks should have required vaccinations, then that needs to be public policy, not corporate policy.
Hospitals require testing and proof of vaccination as a condition of employment. I've worked in one in the past and they wanted proof of certain vaccinations, a TB test, and provided any needed vaccinations free of charge. (I got a booster for MMR and tetanus) I think if a place like a hospital it would be insane not to require the employees to be reasonably secure against likely communicable diseases. At a place like Disney where they have to deal with the general public I wouldn't have a problem with public health policy mandating vaccination as a condition of employment. I don't think people should be forced to accept a vaccine if they are adults and really don't want to (and of course if they cannot due to allergies etc) but I have no problem with certain jobs being closed to them if they are not vaccinated. I think all children should be vaccinated or have proof that they cannot safely be vaccinated before attending any public school.
drug tests should not even exist let alone be mandatory. what happened to innocent until proven guilty?
Innocent until proven guilty only applies to the State regarding criminal proceedings. It has nothing at all to do with private sector employers. You are free to decline to be tested so nobody's rights are being infringed. Yes, there may be consequences to that decision including not being hired. If a private sector employer determines that use of illegal drugs could cause the company problems (liability and safety in particularly), why shouldn't they have the right to require a drug test as a condition of employment? Use of many illegal drugs can demonstrably impair judgement and coordination in ways that are not always immediately obvious and have demonstrably caused injuries in many a work place. In my company we work with multi-ton presses and other dangerous equipment and we would be idiots to hire someone without taking reasonable precautions to ensure safety and to reduce liability.
There are plenty of employers who do not test for drug use. If you think a drug test is a problem for you (even philosophically) then seek out employment where they don't test. Plenty of companies don't care enough to bother.
Tires are almost silent on paved roads
The hell they are. Tire noise accounts for 70-90% of overall noise energy when travelling over 50mph.
Have someone put their car in neutral and turn the engine off as they roll down a hill toward you.
I will notice the car getting louder and louder as its speed increases. What's your point?
Quiet (or as quiet as possible) is one aesthetic that may be desirable. For other people (or perhaps cars), a good rumble (as long as it not excessively load and obnoxious) is equally a desirable aesthetic. It's not so different, as you note, than choice of paint job.
The problem is that silent is never obnoxious but the "good rumble" often is. I can comprehend that some people enjoy a loud car (I do not) but I think the default should be silence. Make them quiet and people who make them loud should have to pay extra for the noise pollution they create.
Same for the Ecoboost. It purrs at idle, but put your foot in it and you hear the horsepower.
No you hear audio engineering. I had a Mercedes SLK230 some time ago. Supercharged 4 cylinder. Growled deeply like an old V8 because the Mercedes engineers tuned it to do that, not because it needed to. Now they are actually using the speaker system to emit sounds because some people (not me) for whatever reason like obnoxious noises. (Harley riders I'm looking right at you) They could make even relatively high horsepower cars much quieter than they do. They purposefully choose not to and they even try to make cars sound louder and more "impressive" than they really are.
That mandated noise IS entirely a safety issue
It is a perceived safety issue and I don't buy the arguments in favor of mandating noise pollution. If it really were a problem we should expect to see cars that are quieter than average involved in proportionally more collisions that cars that are more noisy. I've not seen one speck of evidence that quiet cars get in more accidents due to their sound levels. It is to my mind a completely nonsensical argument with no evidence to support it.
There is nothing ridiculous about mandating some amount of noise in the meantime.
I completely disagree. If you mandate noise you will never get silence. Plus once you get enough cars close together you almost can't distinguish them anyway because it basically becomes white noise. Just because people have become accustomed to a certain amount of noise is not a credible argument for continuing to emit noise pollution needlessly. And no, I am not at all concerned about blind or inattentive pedestrians crossing the road in front of me. It's MY responsibility as a driver to drive carefully and watch out for possible road hazards. It is also their responsibility to watch out when crossing the road. Hell, people get hit by trains while walking and they make a huge racket and are 100% avoidable by staying off the tracks.
So you're saying that the IRS unilaterally went out and made changes to the tax law without direction from POTUS or Congress?
EVERY government agency does this. Neither Congress nor POTUS would ever get anything done if they had to approve every action of every government agency. Congress and POTUS and the judiciary set the framework but the agencies generally see to the fine details and have significant leeway in deciding how to best carry out those regulations.
Here's how it works. Legislatures write statutes which usually outline what is to be done but often leaves the finer details up to the agencies tasked with carrying out the statute. Agencies interpret these statutes with regulations which are another form of law making. The president can order an agency to do something with an executive order to direct agencies but once again unless the president is very specific the details are left to the agency so long as they remain within the bounds of the executive order. The judiciary also interprets statutes and regulations with case law which is yet another form of law making and case law sometimes overrides regulations and less frequently overrides statutes. The judiciary and legislature can override a regulation if they choose but every branch of government plays a role in writing laws.
Since when does the IRS decide what the Federal Tax laws are?
Since forever within limits. The IRS gets to interpret the law like any executive branch agency and issue regulations and delegated legislation. Legislatures issue statutes and those statutes are further interpreted with regulations by executive agencies and in case law by the judicial branch. ALL government agencies regardless of branch get a say in what the laws are and yes the IRS decides what significant portions of the tax law will be. The legislature or judiciary may override an IRS regulation if they choose but the IRS definitely gets a big say in deciding what the tax laws are.
We should base policy on what the majority of 'the people' (read voters without regard for what internationally other people want) wish to do, after they have been made aware of the risk a large number of scientists believe to exist.
You don't let someone else drive you over a cliff just because they don't understand or care about the consequences of their actions. The electorate in general has not looked carefully at the evidence and many of them clearly do not understand it or are apparently ignoring the good of the many in favor of their own short term interests. It is VERY apparent that the electorate is not well informed on this issue and it is equally clear that short term economic self interest is very likely to result in long term harm.
What exactly should we base that policy on, if not for our current best scientific understanding ?
Generally the answer to this is short term economic self interest. Most of the arguments I see against stuff like curbing CO2 emissions are basically arguments for economic self interest. Economic interests often collide with scientific evidence, at least in the short run.
Does that mean we can ALSO expect Global Warming folks to stop spouting the phrase "an overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree on..."
Or is it ok for one side, but not the other?
The climate scientist consensus argument is stupid if you think it is an argument to prove that global warming is occurring. That is NOT what the consensus argument is about. Instead it is an argument from authority to establish that the people who actually have seriously looked into this and have weighed the available evidence keep coming to the same conclusion.
Here's the thing. Very few individuals who claim that global warming is not real are actually well informed on the available evidence and scientific models. They are arguing based on personal desires or opinions or preconceptions but they are not arguing based on known evidence. Conversely the vast majority of scientists who are researching climate and do actually understand the currently available evidence are almost universally coming to the conclusion that the evidence weighs heavily in favor of the conclusion that average temperatures are increasing and that humans are most probably the proximate cause of that change.
So on one hand we have people arguing from ignorance against climate change while those on the other side of the debate who are fully informed on the topic are almost universally coming to the exact opposite conclusion. Who should you believe? Do you believe the doctor who recommends a medicine that has been shown effective in double blind studies or would you believe the guy trying to sell you a homeopathic remedy which has no supporting evidence whatsoever? When you have a consensus among fully informed scientists on a particular topic, odds are pretty good that they are correct in what they are saying. Scientists have strong incentives to be correct and their work is available (more or less) for all to see and double check. If they are wrong then it is up to those who disagree to prove it. But since those who disagree, almost universally have no actual idea what they are talking about, we have to listen to a bunch of uneducated nonsense from people who lack the good graces to shut up about things they don't understand.
If those who disagree with the consensus want to do so then all they have to do is find objective evidence of a source for the measured temperature increases other than human sources. That temperatures have gone up on average globally is not in dispute. The evidence for a cause of that warming appears to strongly point towards human activity. To disprove this thesis all someone would have to do is show how a volcano or some other natural phenomena is a better explanation for what we observe.
You see, that's the great thing about science. It's true, they can't just vote it away
Just because something is factually true doesn't mean our leaders can't choose to ignore it. Science can point out what a rational policy might look like but it's up to the folks we put in office to decide whether or not to actually match policy to those scientific findings.
Used to be that in a democracy we will weight the facts and then vote on a decision.
What country have you been living in? The actual "facts" are very frequently irrelevant to the voting process. People vote based on what someone tells them the bible says. People vote based on racial prejudices completely unsupported by fact. People vote directly against their own self interest because they believe lies someone else told them. People vote on soundbites over deciding issues they don't even remotely comprehend. People vote in virtually every election on things where their understanding of the facts is wrong, misinformed, disingenuous, etc.
Weigh the facts? Sometimes but it's hardly the norm. Now had you said people vote on perceptions of the facts I might actually agree.