Louis CK has this great bit that he does-….
(Okay. Okay. I know I always reference him, but bear with me – ‘cause you’ll like this one….)
So, he has this bit where he plays an appallingly delightful devil’s advocate about serious issues. And it’s appalling for the same reason it’s delightful and funny: ‘cause it’s true. It starts with an “Of course ABC should happen – because it’s morally correct and we’d be monsters otherwise…” And then there’s a pause. And a follow up of “but MAYBE…” which is an honesty bomb about things like, oh I dunno, how maybe kids aren’t meant to live if they’ve got a, ya know, preposterous allergy in the first place that makes them captain Darwin’s last pick in gym class.
This is particularly fun if you consider a couple hot topic issues going on right now – like that nut thing for instance.
After reading recently that there may be an imminent cure for peanut allergies, I immediately thought of Louis’s popular standup routine. But my erratic brain never stays in one place for too long. Especially since the manner in which science aims to nix the nut allergy is not terribly dissimilar from the way vaccines work, when you think about it. Vaccines use the causative agent to build immunity – and this process uses incrementally increasing the peanut protein in conjunction with a probiotic to basically do the same. Both ultimately impart immunity by using some component of the thing that makes us sick. So, my follow up thought was, “Gee, I wonder how long will it take before mothers who bred before their brains were done developing will say this causes autism too?”
Naturally, my brain train thusly carried on to the trending topic station called “measles outbreak.”
Right before coming full circle back to a Sir C.K. application of my own:
“Of course… Of course we should protect children via vaccines from diseases that can potentially kill them. But… maybe… Maybe…if your parents were born with an IQ of boxed mashed potato… Maybe your genetic line was not meant to endure.”
It’d be nice if that was all there is to it.
Like – just your kid dies. And you learn life lessons the hard way.
Sadly, though, it’s not. Because your shitty unvaccinated sentient snot nosed petri dish can totally make hot-off-the-press infant humans – with every intention of getting pin cushioned in however many months – sick (‘cause they’re not allowed to get vaccinated straight away). At a daycare. At Disneyland. In the pediatrician’s waiting room. Thus, my brain train finally ends its dark comic journey:
“Of course getting autism is bad. I mean, we don’t know that vaccines do that. In fact, science says they probably almost certainly definitely 100% don’t; but if you believe they do… of course that’s bad….
…but maybe….
Just maybe … dying of and murdering other people with contagious disease is worse…”
Of course everyone’s rights and freedoms should be respected.
But maybe people who don’t get this are the kid killing nuts we really need to worry about.