(07-21-2021, 02:16 PM)Bob Schroeck Wrote: Remember how we said, a year or so ago, that vaccine denial was a self-solving problem?
Fox News (along with at least a few Republican politicians) has noticed that the newest surge of COVID-19 cases is disproportionately affecting conservative-leaning areas and their key audience demographics, and have decided this isn't a coincidence. They have started changing their tune on the vaccine and are encouraging viewers to get it. You have to wonder how many of their viewers are going to listen to them after being indoctrinated for more than a year, and how many are going to decide that FOX has finally been subverted by the damnliberalmainstreammedia.
Now, I probably come off as the most conservative guy here (I admit sympathy for their positions in many regards, but I remain absolutely liberal on the right of anyone to do whatever these please so long as it's not inherently criminal and does not infringe on the rights of anyone else by its mere exercise), but I figured COVID was dire enough I even got vaccinated for it, even have a card in my wallet proving it.
That said, I look at anti-vaxxing dialogue this way. Denying them their opinion would be wrong, but in the interests of public health, if their opinions start harming others (because their refusal to vaccinate provably causes the disease to spread), then the action provably culpable based on giving the practical application of said speech to IRL should be punished, not the speech.
I see it the same way I do neo-Nazism. You can say "Hitler did nothing wrong and I agree with him", and while I think the party who says this is an idiot, they have committed no crime. They cross the line when they start committing crimes against Jews and anyone else said creed deems less than human. For the latter, throw the book at them, but mere opinion that does not entail criminal action by its utterance alone should not be punished.