Ron Paul: Yes, Health Freedom Includes Vaccines

Vaccine Controversy Shows Why We Need Markets, Not Mandates

written by Ron Paul Sunday, February 8, 2015
If I were still a practicing ob-gyn and one of my patients said she was not going to vaccinate her child, I might try to persuade her to change her mind. But, if I were unsuccessful, I would respect her decision. I certainly would not lobby the government to pass a law mandating that children be vaccinated even if the children’s parents object. Sadly, the recent panic over the outbreak of measles has led many Americans, including some self-styled libertarians, to call for giving government new powers to force all children to be vaccinated.Those who are willing to make an “exception” to the principle that parents should make health care decisions for their children should ask themselves when in history has a “limited” infringement on individual liberty stayed limited. By ceding the principle that individuals have the right to make their own health care decisions, supporters of mandatory vaccines are opening the door for future infringements on health freedom.If government can mandate that children receive vaccines, then why shouldn’t the government mandate that adults receive certain types of vaccines? And if it is the law that individuals must be vaccinated, then why shouldn’t police officers be empowered to physically force resisters to receive a vaccine? If the fear of infections from the unvaccinated justifies mandatory vaccine laws, then why shouldn’t police offices fine or arrest people who don’t wash their hands or cover their noses or mouths when they cough or sneeze in public? Why not force people to eat right and take vitamins in order to lower their risk of contracting an infectious disease? These proposals may seem outlandish, but they are no different in principle from the proposal that government force children to be vaccinated.

By giving vaccine companies a captive market, mandates encourage these companies to use their political influence to expand the amount of vaccine mandates. An example of how vaccine mandates may have led politics to override sound science is from my home state of Texas. In 2007, the then-Texas governor signed an executive order forcing eleven and twelve year old girls to receive the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine, even though most young girls are not at risk of HPV. The Texas legislature passed legislation undoing the order following a massive public outcry, fueled by revelations that the governor’s former chief of staff was a top lobbyist for the company that manufactured the HPV vaccine.

The same principles that protect the right to refuse vaccines also protect the right of individuals to refuse to associate with the unvaccinated. Private property owners have the right to forbid those who reject vaccines from entering their property. This right extends to private businesses concerned that unvaccinated individuals could pose a risk to their employees and customers. Consistent application of the principles of private property, freedom of association, and individual responsibility is the best way to address concerns that those who refuse vaccines could infect others with disease.

Giving the government the power to override parental decisions regarding vaccines will inevitably lead to further restrictions on liberties. After all, if government can override parental or personal health care decisions, then what area of our lives is off-limits to government interference? Concerns about infection from the unvaccinated can be addressed by consistent application of the principles of private property and freedom of association. Instead of justifying new government intrusion into our lives, the vaccine debate provides more evidence of the need to restore respect for private property and individual liberty.

From The Ron Paul Institute, here.

Jewish Action Magazine Interviews on Studying Tanach

Mining Tanach

Professor Nechama Leibowitz was perhaps the pivotal figure in a Tanach revolution that began a century ago and continues to this day. Many of the early secular Zionists promoted Tanach study as a counterpart to their efforts to settle the Biblical land. Religious Zionists took Tanach study as a doubly sacred venture: Torah study in itself and also as an element of their devotion to the flourishing of the land. Professor Leibowitz, or Nechama as she preferred to be called, spearheaded in her modest way a new approach to studying Tanach. While she was not alone in this effort to reinvigorate and revolutionize the study of Tanach, she personally inspired thousands of students to take a fresh and serious look at the sacred text.

Just like Reb Chaim Brisker’s students adapted his revolutionary approach to Talmud into different new methods of their own, Nechama’s students have developed their own approaches. There is now a wide variety of Religious Zionist methodologies of Tanach study—some emphasize medieval commentaries; others focus on Israeli geography or botany; still others address the psychology of the Biblical characters; and much more. These exciting and different new approaches have yielded vibrant journals, ground-breaking books and heavily attended conferences. Particularly remarkable about this phenomenon is that it is not limited to scholars. While professors and rabbis participate in Tanach conferences, the vast majority of attendees are laypeople—men and women, young and old, across all occupations. Over the past decade or two, this excitement has spilled over into the United States and Israel, where new books, lectures and conferences have attracted increasing numbers of attendees.

In the pages ahead, we include interviews with a sample of prominent Tanach teachers from across the spectrum, in the US and in Israel.

—Rabbi Gil Student

 

Queen of Questions: Nechama Leibowitz by Shira Leibowitz Schmidt

The First and Last Time I Saw Nechama by Shira Leibowitz Schmidt

Up Close with Rabbi David Fohrman by Dovid Bashevkin

A New-Old Approach to the Study of Tanach: Meet Dr. Yael Ziegler by Alex Maged

The Case for a Traditional Approach in the Study of Tanach: Talking with Rabbi Nosson Scherman by Dovid Bashevkin

Tanach for Our Generation: Rabbi Yaakov Ariel on Tanach Study, translation by Gil Student

Why Isn’t Tanach Studied More? by Eliyahu Krakowski

The Limits of Interpretation by Netanel Wiederblank

This article was featured in Jewish Action Winter 2018.

The ‘Elu Va’elu’ Nonsense Collapses Under Its Own Contradictions

Not unlike Popper’s “Paradox of Tolerance”…

The illogical “Elu Va’elu” doctrine has nothing to do with the Gemara, else what’s so crazy about Trinitarianism. It just means both sides are wrong in thinking the interlocutor wrong because neither are exclusively right, while both sides are “right” in the limited sense, referring to their own respective views.

Once again, both speakers are very right about themselves being right. But both speakers are also very wrong about the other speaker’s wrongness. “These and those are the words of the Living God“, since “These and Those” are not mutually exclusive. Must I use the notation of symbolic logic?

Such is the dispute what was Esther’s reason for inviting the king and Haman for two meals, and in the Nefesh Hachaim’s example of Gittin Daf Vav, זה וזה גרם, obviously, since these are historical questions: what would an observer in a time machine actually see? And so on.

Or they both are almost right, see Rashi Kesubos 57a. Now, it’s clear from Rashi, both sides cannot be right.

Here’s the Rashi:

הא קמ”ל, דהיכא דאשכחן אמוראי דפליגי אהדדי כל חד אליבא דנפשיה ותרי אמוראי אחריני דפליגי בפלוגתא דהנך אמוראי ואית לן לפרושי מילתא בתרי לישני חדא מינייהו מיפלגי תרי אמוראי אליבא דנפשייהו שכל אחד אומר סברא שלו כגון רבי יוחנן ורבי יהושע ואינך תרי אמוראי אליבא דחד לא מיפלגי אלא אמרי חדא מלתא וחדא מן לישנא מיפלגי תרי אמוראי אליבא דחד כגון רב דימי ורבין ומשויא מלתא דתרי אמוראי קמאי חדא מלתא שבקינן ההיא לישנא דמיפלגי תרי אמוראי אליבא דחד ונקטינן ההיא דמיפלגי תרי אמוראי אליבא דנפשייהו דכי פליגי תרי אליבא דחד מר אמר הכי אמר פלוני ומר אמר הכי אמר פלוני חד מינייהו משקר אבל כי פליגי תרי אמוראי בדין או באיסור והיתר כל חד אמר הכי מיסתבר טעמא אין כאן שקר כל חד וחד סברא דידיה קאמר מר יהיב טעמא להיתירא ומר יהיב טעמא לאיסורא מר מדמי מילתא למילתא הכי ומר מדמי ליה בעניינא אחרינא ואיכא למימר אלו ואלו דברי אלהים חיים הם זימנין דשייך האי טעמא וזימנין דשייך האי טעמא שהטעם מתהפך לפי שינוי הדברים בשינוי מועט.

So… If hypnotized by “Elu Va’elu”, you accept (as you must) that Rashi is also right, then Rashi is surely right, and he says you’re wrong, so now, if you are right about Rashi, you’re just plain wrong concerning Elu Va’elu (like how the sectarians accept the written Torah — which in turn destroys the sectarians!). Q.E.D/Game Over.

Truth is singular.

But what do you do with the famous Medrash? Ritva Eruvin 13b is representative:

אלו ואלו דברי אלהים חיים, שאלו רבני צרפת ז”ל האיך אפשר שיהו אלו ואלו דברי אלהים חיים וזה אוסר וזה מתיר ותרצו כי כשעלה משה למרום לקבל התורה הראו לו על כל דבר ודבר מ”ט פנים לאיסור ומ”ט פנים להיתר ושאל להקב”ה על זה ואמר שיהא זה מסור לחכמי ישראל שבכל דור ודור ויהיה הכרעה כמותם ונכון הוא לפי הדרש ובדרך האמת יש טעם סוד בדבר.

Yes, a few Rishonim quote this homily (or similar examples). But did you notice they only do so on Eruvin 13?!

OK, why is that?

Because that’s the only Gemara in Shas that doesn’t match simple logic, Ayen Sham! The rest of Shas neither demands nor de facto manages with this bit of Derash/mysticism. It is only certain Achronim who wish to paint everything with this Medrash!

And “שבעים פנים לתורה” only was only ever stated regarding Kabbalah, not Halacha (The Gra).

Appeal to the Simplest Explanation: Economics

You don’t need psychology if you have something better.

Why is discord greater among more similar groups? Freud (inspired by Ernest Crawley) called this “Narcissism of small differences”. I call it “Product differentiation”.

I win!