Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Which mandate is worse?

First of all, I must say that it is a little entertaining to hear people get all excited about Mr. Perry and Mr. Huntsman. They might be serious candidates (what ever that mean,) but so far, they each have less support than Mr. Santorum (great guy, but not a first or second tier candidate.) Nevertheless, the political landscape can and does shift and thus Mr. Perry might become a person worth taking a look at. So far, most of the arguments against Mr. Perry by Romneyites as well as others have struck me as hilarious to be honest.

Most of those who are against Mr. Perry have three main themes. Some say he is a religious extremist. While, I for one have no clue what Mr. Perry’s personal religiosity is, the bottom line is that Texas is not becoming a religious State like Iran. Religious freedom is still at least as much in tact than any other state. Another agreement some use is that Texas is a backwards states full of sick people, lazy illegal immigrants and what not all. Yes, like a few other states, Texas does have some issues, but these issues did not come up over night and they are certainly not the fault Mr. Perry. If some drunk driver comes out of the blue and crashes into me tonight, I am not going to blame Mr. Kasich. So to blame Mr. Perry for irrelevant non sense is a waste of time. It did not work for Mr. Gore against Mr. Bush. In fact, while immigrants in Texas might be illegal, their work ethic is at least as good as immigrants living in the other 49 states. Most of them are there to work, not collect welfare. And why are they there to work in Texas and not one of the other 49 states? Because unlike most of the rest of the country, Texas is booming. If Texas is so backwards, why is it that it is such a nice place to do business?

Finally, the argument that Mr. Perry is a Secessionist is born of nothing less than paranoia. Yes, some people are a little sensitive because Secession helped cause a bloody civil war in this country, not to mention the break up of Yugoslavia (which was actually a good thing in the end.) But, seriously, talk of secession does not make it so. Kurdistan is still part of Iraq. Wales and Scotland are still part of the of the UK. Limburg is still part of The Netherlands, Western Australia is still part of Australia and our neighbor to the North is still one country. Take a chill pill everybody; as long as the Federal government does not do something too stupid (I know that is a lot to ask for these days) there is no need for rational people to fear that Mr. Perry will take Texas away from the country.

So what is the issue with Mr. Perry? In a word, MANDATE! As every Blogger now knows, Mr. Perry (who took money from a drug company,) mandated that every teenage girl get a certain vaccine. The Pro-Vaccine crowd argues that it is because of vaccines that Americans do not get as many diseases and have a longer life expectancy. On the other hand, mental health issues have gone up in America since Vaccines were introduced on a large scale. The Pro-Vaccine crowd claim, that this is just a coincidence or if it was the case, modern vaccines are tested and are not as dangerous. The bottom line is that while, many vaccines are basically safe, they are not fool proof. Vaccines can certainly make people temporarily sick and a percentage of people however small do suffer long tern negative effects from Vaccines. Further, there is also the risk due to the fact that some of these new Vaccines have not thoroughly been tested. While mandates in and of themselves can be a bad thing, it is even worse to mandate that an innocent person do something to their body that just might harm them. On the positive side, at least Mr. Perry allows people to opt out of the Vaccine for religious reasons. While it is very nice for Mr. Perry to respect religious freedom, people should not have to jump through hoops to opt out of a mandate that could potentially harm them. In Massachusetts, there does not appear to be a way out of MAcare without financial penalty. On ideological grounds, I oppose economic coercion to force consumers to buy specific products. However, it certainly is no better to mandate that people do something to their body that can potentially harm them. It is not the government’s business to mandate vaccines.

While Mr. Perry has done many great things for the great state of Texas, the fact that he favored such a mandate is no feather in his cap.

17 comments:

BOSMAN said...

I'm not 100% positive on this, but if I'm not mistaken, Perry mandated this vaccine BEFORE it was recommended by health agencies to vaccinate all teenage girls.

He was king of RECKLESS in this by jumping the gun, and that is aside from the fact that parents should have a say in what is injected into their child's body.

Making affordable insurance available to everyone in a state and forcing those FREERIDERS to purchase it rather than put extra cost on tax payers, is a totally different issue.

Ohio JOE said...

I agree the issue are totally different on one hand, but neither mandate is good. It is worse to tell parents what to put in their child's body apart from what a health agency is. The opt out clause might be a saving grace for Mr. Perry, but from what I gather, it was difficult for parents to opt out thus making the mandate real.

Anonymous said...

Good job here, OJ!

I agree with you, Bosman. Perry's vaccine mandate really fried me when I heard about it years ago. You are exactly right. Perry signed the order before enough testing had been done to certify the vaccine's safety. Now, after 4 years, we know the vaccine has some problems. Too bad for all those girls whose parents were duped.

Why did Perry do this? Was it out of concern for thousands of Texan girls? Call me skeptical. I don't know all the particulars of the case, but I do know that Perry had financial connections to Merck. Why else was he hell-bent on ramming it through without the legislature?

I'm against most vaccines. I've actually signed my states opt out for some. We don't have one for HPV, but I did opt out of the HB for my daughters.

OJ, this is only a small problem I have with Perry. So far, he fails to impress me. Like you, I'm not shaking in my boots about him, or Huntsman.

-Martha

Anonymous said...

I meant we don't have a mandate for HPV.

Whether or not, the CDC has recommended the vaccine before Perry signed the order, was beside the point for me. The vaccine was too new, and there was too much controversy surrounding it's safety too give a blanket order for every girl.

-Martha

Ohio JOE said...

"OJ, this is only a small problem I have with Perry." Haha, I have to probably disagree with you on both counts. On the one hand, I do not see that he has many other problems, on the other, this could be a very very serious problem if he does not explain himself fast.

Ohio JOE said...

"Whether or not, the CDC has recommended the vaccine before Perry signed the order, was beside the point for me." BINGO!

Anonymous said...

Isn't the HPV vaccine "necessary" by assuming girls will be sexually active with someone else who has been sexually active?

Revolution 2012 said...

To answer your question OJ, Perry's mandating the vaccine on all teenage girls is worse.

NO ONE should have the right to take away a parents choice to opt out of this, until the vaccine proves to be 100% effective and 100% no chance or side affects. So that day, will never come.

Noelle said...

Here's my opinion on mandates. In a perfect world, we wouldn't need mandates to do the right thing. We currently live in a culture that has nurtured an entitlement mentality, and many people try (and succeed) to "game the system" and get benefits even when they don't qualify. I personally approve of requiring people to pay for services they receive. Not necessarily a mandate to purchase insurance, but yes, a mandate to pay for medical services received. I would have preferred Romney's idea of providing proof of ability to pay. If a rich person does not want to purchase insurance, and can pay their own way, that's fine by me. I am not opposed to providing assistance to those of limited means to purchase insurance, thereby facilitating their ability to seek preventive care.

There is a big difference, in my opinion, between a mandate to pay for services, and a mandate to receive a medical treatment, even if you don't want it.

To be honest, I don't know a lot about Perry, and of what I have seen so far, he does nothing to inspire me to chose him over my current preferred candidate, Mitt Romney.

Ohio JOE said...

"I personally approve of requiring people to pay for services they receive." For the record, I and most others have no problem with that aspect of the mandate. I have no problem being mandated to pay for the stuff I buy. That is different than being told what to buy.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I heard about this mandate, as well. I believed that Perry was "jumping the gun" (a Texas comparison) on this one. While researchers have been working long and hard on the vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, I was not anxious to vaccinate my daughter immediately. I wanted to give it some time to determine how effective and safe the vaccine is. Parents really should be the ones who decide these issues.

Young people who are sexually active are at a much higher risk of exposure, and the HPV vaccine does not guarantee perfect immunity, either. The assumption that blankets all teenagers as sexually active is unfortunate. This is always the argument the libs use for "sex ed" classes in public schools; seemingly more passionate about teaching them how to indulge themselves than on how to read, write, do math, or even basic economics like, "if you take money away from people who work, they will stop working."

AZ

Anonymous said...

You are wrong OJ about secession. This is a deal breaker to a lot of folks. The mandate may not be but secession will and ought to be.

Over 600,000 Americans lost their lives to preserve our nation as a union. Its not a joke to me for a dissatified Southern governor to casually suggest secession as Perry did. Nothing funny about Civil War.

Lori*

Anonymous said...

Amen, Lori.

-Martha

zeke said...

Double Amen, Lori.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Lori, Martha, and Zeke, secession is not and never should be a joke. This will be a big deal for Perry if he runs.

In Arizona, our big fear isn't secession, it's becoming Mexico de facto. With illegal immigration, powerful Mexican drug cartels, human smuggling, and leaking borders, that is a very real scenario to many Arizonans.

AZ

Robin from Indiana said...

My problems with a Perry run for president include at least these two thoughts: (1)Requiring all teenage girls to receive a vaccine that prevents sexually acquired cervical cancer makes the assumption that the preponderance of teenage girls are sexually active. (2) I don't believe that Governor Perry would truly seek secession for his state. However, his theatrical threatenings are evidence enough for me that he would be likely to let slip just this type of nonsense into the deadly serious arena of world politics.

Ohio JOE said...

"Nothing funny about Civil War." True, but Texas does not find it funny that the Federal government does not care about the 10th Amendment. It is easy to keep the counrty together if you do the right thing.