The Galt and the Lamers 0
Froma Harrop considers the intellectual contortions of Rand Paul’s stance(s) on vaccination. A snippet:
A real libertarian wanting his party’s presidential nomination has only two choices:
- Come clean and acknowledge the cost side of your beliefs. If you think parents have the right not to vaccinate their children, agree that more Americans might come down with preventable diseases as a result. Provocative, perhaps, but honest.
- If you don’t want that controversy tied around your neck, say that you have changed your mind on vaccinations and now hold that they should be required. Not totally honest but at least coherent.
Put into practice, libertarianism can make a mess. If parents have the right to endanger others by not getting their children immunized, why can’t individuals decide whether they’re too drunk to drive?
The core belief of Libertarianism is summed up in the phrase, “because I want to, dammit.”