I have a simple question: why the hell are americans like this? What's wrong with you? How on Earth do you live in the 21st century by rejecting vaccines and having gun vending machines on Walmart? Do you power your generators with the bodies of dead children or something? I literally cannot comprehend it
Religion, plain and simple. Religious zealots turning their back on science.
And Christian Nationalist lobbying pushing anti intellectual legislation and measures.
This is entirely too simplistic of an answer.
Religion is part of it for some people, but on the whole, this trend is the result of multiple issues with our culture, our education, our media, and a whole host of other things big and small. All of which have been exacerbated in recent years by bad actors.
It's really satisfying to say things like "religious zealots" but the world is not that simple.
Religion is a root cause, or at the very least (on a good day) a root enabler
All religion is a borderline cult and with that you can control: Peoples sex habits, Peoples tastes, Peoples beliefs and from there you can control their very core behaviors and moral definitions (What's right and wrong)
Read up on how brainwashing happens and then read up on what most religions control and teach and you'll notice a lot of similarities to bonafide cults. The only difference is Catholicism makes you not eat meat on Fridays and wears you down through indoctrination little be little, a bonafide cults will idk throw you in a small room to starve until you believe the leader is God reborn or something.
I'm not saying the world would be united and there would be no evil, but maybe if religion was never a thing we would default to logic and reasoning instead of defaulting "to a higher being"
...... Bad actors who all have ties to american religious institutions.
Education slashed by religious politicians backed by religious pundits and think tanks.
Media run by religious big wigs who push puritan religious values on their channels.
Culture pushes driven by religious talking heads who repeat religious talking points about religious traditions and beliefs on all topics from science to gender to race to politics.
Its still religion, youre just pointing at both of its arms and claiming its two people.
With all due respect, my friend, you've given an unintentional answer to OP's question. Americans have become so convinced that there are only two sides of every issue and all of life's problems are caused by the people on the side opposite me. This is a false dillema and plays directly into the hands of people who are most powerful. "United we stand, divided we fall", indeed...
In truth, there are many reasons why people don't vaccinate their kids and I'd be willing to bet that religion isn't at the top of the list. Many parents are simply negligent. Either they're too busy or stressed or incompetent or so unaffected by the issue that they simply can't make it a priority to commit to the regular procedure of vaccination. Or they simply don't trust the government or institutional authorities who promote vaccination. I imagine a lot of people are simply "natural health" fanatics. At least that's what I've seen in California.
Anyway, I think it's not very helpful to reduce complex issues affecting the world's largest diverse population to mere frustrated axiom.
We've politicized everything. Seemingly at random, but we seem to have decided science is left wing lies. Send help.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/mmr-vaccination-rates-in-us-states.html
Missouri's vaccination coverage is statistically the lowest among US states at only 85.8%
Massachusetts has the highest rate of vaccinations of all US states at 98.3%
The United States was among the first countries in the world to be declared free of measles as early as the year 2000.
Florida is ranked 25 among states, right in the middle, with 91.9% vaccinated against measles.
The problem is when the exceptions group together such as in a school with a reputation for allowing any exception, and become a huge risk cluster. Clearly that many unvaccinated kids are not normal
I didn’t find a ranking by country but at least one map grouped US as “purple” in the most vaccinated group. I think we basically had a success and called it a day. The crazies came out, they got together, they built on their craziness, and created their own high risk areas that brought measles back. Meanwhile we’re complacent, thinking it’s a solved problem
Unfortunately, the antivax crowd is not unique to America, but has spread worldwide
Unfortunately that is not a US only thing. MMR vaccination rates have fallen in quite a few countries.
It isn't just the USA. There are anti-vaxxers all over the world.
But you are seeing a transition from a relatively stable and prosperous time to one less so and people are freaking out as to why. One of the seen solutions is to reject modernity and embrace tradition.
You also have a lot of mothers who have hinged their entire self worth on being good mothers. They've been sold an idea that vaccines cause autism and there hasn't been an outbreak of these diseases within their lifetime, so they don't understand the benefits in this cost-benefit scenario.
The way it was explained to me, or at least the way that made me really comprehend the underlying why… is that this is a direct and foreseeable consequence of our for-profit medical system and the systemic abuse of trust it’s bloomed.
Say, for instance, you suddenly feel ill.
You have to avoid calling an ambulance because the ride alone with bankrupt you.
So you learn to mistrust emergency responders.
You se the doctor and learn your ailment is uncovered.
So you learn to mistrust medical insurance.
You go to the pharmacy and your medication costs almost as much as your beaten down used car. And to boot, it’s full of ingredients you can’t even spell. Who knows what it does?
So you mistrust medicine.
But hey, there’s this Organic all natural snake oil, it’s only $10. You take this placebo, and hey (by complete coincidence) You feel better, and more importantly, you’re not bankrupt!
So the masses have been taught, at every stage of medical care, that ‘the system’ causes more harm than good. So now you’re subconsciously looking for any reason to reject it.
Enter Trump and the Pandemic.
The man didn’t just light the oil spill that was the American distrust of the medical system, he took an industrial flamethrower to it.
It’s easy, and even justified, to blame Trump for the embarrassing and deadly rejection of modern medicine we’re afflicted with, but it wouldn’t have gained traction in the first place if capitalism hadn’t gotten so beyond out of control.
Conservatism. That's why.
While I have plenty of issues with modern American ‘conservatism’; a good chunk of the anti-vax movement was initially driven by some of the ‘crunchier’ members of the left (ie. alternate/natural medicine, crystal healing mom-type people)..
Freedom for everything also includes freedom to be stupid. And some are taking that seriously.
A few years ago the UK let their population vote to secede from the EU. The vote was barely 50/50 and the government changed everything based on a single vote. They are now measurably worse off than before, while still continuing on their path even though nobody wants to. Literally no one even wants it anymore and they can't go back. That's stupid.
Americans vote for guns and against vaccines all the time. They get what they want. The people are stupid but the system accurately reflects what people vote for.
“The system accurately reflects what people vote for.” …Boy I have this fun American institution called the electoral college that begs to differ. Trump lost the popular vote but he sure did become president. Further examples? Majority support for the right to abortion in poll after poll but guess what? SCOTIS repudiated decades of precedent and decided it doesn’t exist as a constitutional right, at which point multiple states severely limited the right, often against clearly expressed public sentiment. America is not a democracy and it’s national politics so not serve its people.
Hey guys, thanks to anti-vax grifter podcasts we now have diseases we had almost defeated circulating again! Humans are so cool!
I fucking hate this place
I feel such deep and powerful hatred because it's not just a sudden illness that goes away. People don't realize that not only will some of these children die but some of them will develop lifelong debilitating illness such as central nervous system diseases including SSPE as well as a type of AIDs. Viruses cause permanent damage.
In the same way that Polio can cripple people, Chickenpox can cause shingles, and the Spanish Flu lead to a worldwide outbreak of Encephalitis Lethargica characterized by a chronic loss of consciousness trapping you inside your own body like a prison.
Those people are subjecting this to children. If I wrote the laws, this would be a crime punished on the same level as murder.
Right?!
The solution to this problem isn't just "within your reach" IT'S IN YOUR FUCKING HAND!!!!
Sad the children have to suffer for their idiot parents.
It's worse than that. Vaccines are not 100% effective and some people have legitimate reasons why they can't get a vaccine...and those kids are getting fucked by other parents' poor decisions.
Non medical exemptions need to go.
Vaccines are not 100% effective
Ah ha, so vaccines aren't effective! /s
Failing to vaccinate a kid (unless there are legit medical reasons) should be a chargeable offence in the same way that letting them sit in the backseat of a car without a booster / seatbelt is. These parents, as stupid and credulous as they are, have endangered their kids and some of them might suffer life altering injuries or death from that.
This is Florida, best you'll get is each kid getting a gun to defend from measles.
Manatee Bay in Weston Florida. I saved you a click.
It's a very affluent neighborhood in a very affluent city. Homes start at $1 Million in the entire city. Feel bad for the kids.
Great. They just had a huge soccer tournament there this past weekend, with kids (and parents) travelling from all of Florida and out of State. This is going to be 👍
Yes, but they don’t have autism, and their DNA hasnt been changed and they can’t get Covid from the 5G towers. /s
Measles coming back might finally cow those susceptible to antivaxxer propaganda. But it will have to be widespread. People will have to die horrifically before we beat back antivaxxers to a small percentage of the population once again.
People are too fucking stupid to just get their vaccines unless there is a stick. Carrots don't work well enough, apparently. Over a disease once considered eliminated, too. I'm salty that people can't do literally anything for the greater good one a year, or even once every 10 years.
Over 500k people died of COVID-19 and yet anti-vaxx still exists and they are still growing in numbers.
Measles and chicken pox has been coming back for years, they will not change their minds. Unless it happens to them of course.
If this continues for a couple of generations we will have weeded out the idiots, fucking bullshit it comes at the cost of innocent children.
Ironically, this is also the pro-life crowd, too. Weird how they don't care about the lives of children.
Any parent of a kid that is unvaccinated should be charged with abuse and child endangerment IMO.
It really is the roaring twenties all over again
Though now we're roaring out of frustration.
(Except for the suit for breakfast it really is pretty close.)
If I had a time machine, I'd abduct antivaxxers and take them back in time before vaccines existed and ask them to explain their position to someone who lost half a dozen children to now-preventable illnesses.
Wow, who could’ve ever precicted not vaccinating your kids because you saw your neighborhood drunk stay at home mom who believes in healing crystals “explain” why scientists are wrong was a dumb decision that would lead to this ?
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