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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On May 05 2026 03:37 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 02:59 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 02:43 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 01:56 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 00:03 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 21:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 21:45 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 18:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 13:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
The United States's anti-vaxxer problem is much bigger than that. I can't speak to Canada's situation, but in the United States, Republican leaders and activists (including Donald Trump and RFK Jr.) have actively made concerted efforts to spread anti-vaxxer bullshit and vaccine misinformation. They are absolutely contributing to vaccine hesitancy and enabling these outbreaks. Their words and actions are literally pro-disease, whether it's pro-covid or pro-flu or pro-measles. They have been contradicting the health experts and medical communities. I'm glad that Canada's leadership apparently isn't this devastatingly dangerous, but in the United States it's not *only* the Mennonite community being hit hard. That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Can you please provide your source that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive communities? Should be "insular," but yeah. The pattern should be well known by now. 2018 New York outbreak by the insular orthodox jewish community . The modern record-shattering 2025 Canadian outbreak was among Mennonites in New Brunswick. This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community". Ukraine itself had a well-publicized vaccine death case in 2008 that led to low measles/MMR vaccinations in Ukraine, and part of this health response was "translat[ing] measles fact sheets and vaccine information into Ukrainian and Russian". So when I read into this case late last year, the details in the news made sense. On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:
That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive insular communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Yeah I understand you meant "insular"  Some of those links are irrelevant to my question, and the two that are relevant seem to be paywalled ("This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community".") Would you mind copy/pasting the relevant info from those two links that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive/insular communities? I don't know the website rules here for the clever use of dodging paywalls or copyright infringement by posting articles in full. The internet has many wonderful and powerful tools. On May 04 2026 23:08 Billyboy wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 13:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 13:37 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 10:42 Razyda wrote:
[quote]
I think you by accident omitted this part of article:
"The couple, members of a Mennonite community in Gaines County with traditionally low vaccination rates" It's always been about very inclusive communities, which is sometimes lost in the rush to blame Republicans (which can be criticized independently). Canada didn't have a sudden influx of Republican illegal immigrants in 2025 when Canada's measles cases dwarfed America's. Nor was Canada's healthcare system run by some right-wing prime minister. They just had their own mennonite community hit hard. The United States's anti-vaxxer problem is much bigger than that. I can't speak to Canada's situation, but in the United States, Republican leaders and activists (including Donald Trump and RFK Jr.) have actively made concerted efforts to spread anti-vaxxer bullshit and vaccine misinformation. They are absolutely contributing to vaccine hesitancy and enabling these outbreaks. Their words and actions are literally pro-disease, whether it's pro-covid or pro-flu or pro-measles. They have been contradicting the health experts and medical communities. I'm glad that Canada's leadership apparently isn't this devastatingly dangerous, but in the United States it's not *only* the Mennonite community being hit hard. That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Sorry, your Canada point does not hold water. The places in Canada, such as exactly where I live and work, are the few MAGA hot beds in Canada. We did always have the religious sects that were low vaccination rates, however we even had some success increasing uptake in those communities before MAGA. The thing is that you can have some outliers that don’t and it doesn’t impact the system until the tipping point is reached. Which happened here when all the MAGA sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. The silver lining is between Epstein, drastically rising fuel costs and insane fertilizer costs, Trumps popularity is at all time low around here. Outside of one place that looks like a MAGA circus, I have not seen Trump merch in a while. The scary part is all these people’s thoughts are so easily manipulated by whoever they think is cool that who knows who they will latch onto next. And I really doubt it’s an evidence based decision maker. I'm sure you can mash it all up into a MAGA story about MAGA sheeple in MAGA Canada if that's your particular axe to grind. I brought it up because the partisanship-influenced monocausal narrative misses an important story on past major outbreaks and this South Carolina one that is just ending. It points to the sort of outreach that is necessary, and focused on saving lives rather than settling political grudges and assigning blame. When I read "the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower" ... I don't immediately go This story doesn't hold water, because where I live and work in Canada is a MAGA hot bed and those sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. If we're all grumbling at the bar about RFK Jr and conspiracies and irresponsible parents, sure I'll be partially on board, but I'm not under any misapprehensions on the actual level of engagement with the topic. The article just isn’t that accurate. The mennonites are a small portion, there is Hutterites and other religious sects which tons of people confuse or think are the same thing but they are really quite different. The Hutterites live on colonies where all the power is held between the minister and general manager where as the Mennonite’s live as family units in their own places. The Mennonites here are also mostly from Mexico, where as the Hutterites have been here for generations. And the colonies are super wealthy (like worth 30-100s of millions) even though very few in the colony have access to that wealth and the Mennonites for the most part are quite poor and generally work as labour in farms. That aside, the reason why MAGA gets the blame is those people have existed in the same proportions for a long time. And until the MAGA people joined them it did not impact the system as a whole because of how herd immunity works. Now with the MAGA joined in, herd immunity fails and we get all the out breaks. And the issues are not just those who die from it, but just the pressure it puts on the system because where it is happening isn’t in cities or anywhere close. So an outbreak puts huge pressure on these small town emergent health care facilities as well as the smaller cities hospitals for the more severe cases. This is all compounded because we have a real shortage of doctors that are willing to work in these remote areas to begin with. And even for recruiting Im sure you can imagine that for highly educated doctors it’s not super fun to have people calling horrible things because of a stupid YouTube video they watched. Or even not being horrible and just taking the advice of some self interested YouTuber over the doctor. My issue is that even if MAGA goes away, these people have learned nothing and they will just latch onto what ever the next stupid populist trend is. And it will likely continue the same problems or create new ones with what ever is the new crazy take that sucks in these people. Do you have some original research of your own on how the 2025 Canada measles outbreak was reported as central to Mennonite communities, but in reality the Hutterites were just as involved? I'm failing to find anything on the matter as you state it. For the Mennonites, articles had Canadian health workers that specifically work with Mennonites and the Low German language difficulties. I find it difficult to believe that such a story was missed by Canadian media, if true, and international media. It sounds like you're making a specious argument that a historically low-vaccinated group would not have had a measles outbreak but for the modern Canadian MAGA movement. I think you're giving Maple MAGA a little too much credit. How about a historically low-vaccinated group was bound to have an outbreak with or without a modern trend in vaccine hesitancy, and stay in sane avenues like it's wider spread was made worse post-COVID19 vaccine skepticism, some of which is surely political. Hutterites also speak low German and most people. including those like 4 hours away by driving, just lump them all into the same category. You also can't tell until you ask if someone is Mexican Mennonite or has been here for generations. Accent won't help you because both groups have the low German accent and equally as white. I thought one of their distinguishing characteristics is that Hutterites speak Upper German and Mennonites speak Low German? Please explain. Show nested quote +Take AI for what its worth but when I asked if Mennonites and Hutterites are grouped together for medical studies it said. Yes, Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amish are frequently grouped together in medical and genetic studies under the collective term "Anabaptist" or "Plain People" populations.While they are separate cultural and religious groups, they are combined in research because they share characteristics that make them ideal for genetic studies: I don't know what you're on about with this. I'm reading primary source interviews with people working directly with Mennonites. Since I want to know what happened and why. Show nested quote +Just a fluke the matter of time ended up happening exactly at the same time as all the MAGA crew stopped vaccinating.
The reality is this area always had low vaccination rates compared to most places in Canada. So we worked really hard on getting all those without "religious" reasons for not vaccinating to do so. What changed was people starting taking their medical advice online from "influencers" instead of doctors and that has fucked us over. And huge percentage of those people are MAGA. Let's leave the "Quite the coincidence" and "Just asking questions" for the groups we're describing, not gorging ourselves on it ourselves. I'm not a fan. The uncertainty is not open season to assign our own preferred outcast group to the primary culprit. For example, if you look at the purported patient zero, a Canadian woman traveling in Thailand returning to a wedding, she said "I always thought, ‘Oh, most of those diseases are not really around anymore. It never really crossed my mind that I would get something that was actually serious." ( Globe and Mail) Maybe a closeted Maple MAGA or just genuine lack of knowledge on deadly and contagious disease? I'd say a hundred different reasons could be proposed. You're simply leading with your prejudice. Humans are still more complicated that the political simplifications that are about a dozen per page in these parts.
If you think the biggest difference is the language you clearly have not spent any time with either group. The groups are wildly different.
Yes, that a whole bunch of people who vaccinated before, and are not vaccinating now being the cause of outbreaks is totally just prejudice.
You looking at something that quacks, walks, flys, and shits like a duck and saying no it is not a duck, is the prejudice mate.
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On May 05 2026 03:37 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 02:59 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 02:43 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 01:56 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 00:03 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 21:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 21:45 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 18:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 13:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
The United States's anti-vaxxer problem is much bigger than that. I can't speak to Canada's situation, but in the United States, Republican leaders and activists (including Donald Trump and RFK Jr.) have actively made concerted efforts to spread anti-vaxxer bullshit and vaccine misinformation. They are absolutely contributing to vaccine hesitancy and enabling these outbreaks. Their words and actions are literally pro-disease, whether it's pro-covid or pro-flu or pro-measles. They have been contradicting the health experts and medical communities. I'm glad that Canada's leadership apparently isn't this devastatingly dangerous, but in the United States it's not *only* the Mennonite community being hit hard. That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Can you please provide your source that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive communities? Should be "insular," but yeah. The pattern should be well known by now. 2018 New York outbreak by the insular orthodox jewish community . The modern record-shattering 2025 Canadian outbreak was among Mennonites in New Brunswick. This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community". Ukraine itself had a well-publicized vaccine death case in 2008 that led to low measles/MMR vaccinations in Ukraine, and part of this health response was "translat[ing] measles fact sheets and vaccine information into Ukrainian and Russian". So when I read into this case late last year, the details in the news made sense. On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:
That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive insular communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Yeah I understand you meant "insular" Some of those links are irrelevant to my question, and the two that are relevant seem to be paywalled ("This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community".") Would you mind copy/pasting the relevant info from those two links that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive/insular communities? I don't know the website rules here for the clever use of dodging paywalls or copyright infringement by posting articles in full. The internet has many wonderful and powerful tools. On May 04 2026 23:08 Billyboy wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 13:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 13:37 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 10:42 Razyda wrote:
[quote]
I think you by accident omitted this part of article:
"The couple, members of a Mennonite community in Gaines County with traditionally low vaccination rates" It's always been about very inclusive communities, which is sometimes lost in the rush to blame Republicans (which can be criticized independently). Canada didn't have a sudden influx of Republican illegal immigrants in 2025 when Canada's measles cases dwarfed America's. Nor was Canada's healthcare system run by some right-wing prime minister. They just had their own mennonite community hit hard. The United States's anti-vaxxer problem is much bigger than that. I can't speak to Canada's situation, but in the United States, Republican leaders and activists (including Donald Trump and RFK Jr.) have actively made concerted efforts to spread anti-vaxxer bullshit and vaccine misinformation. They are absolutely contributing to vaccine hesitancy and enabling these outbreaks. Their words and actions are literally pro-disease, whether it's pro-covid or pro-flu or pro-measles. They have been contradicting the health experts and medical communities. I'm glad that Canada's leadership apparently isn't this devastatingly dangerous, but in the United States it's not *only* the Mennonite community being hit hard. That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Sorry, your Canada point does not hold water. The places in Canada, such as exactly where I live and work, are the few MAGA hot beds in Canada. We did always have the religious sects that were low vaccination rates, however we even had some success increasing uptake in those communities before MAGA. The thing is that you can have some outliers that don’t and it doesn’t impact the system until the tipping point is reached. Which happened here when all the MAGA sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. The silver lining is between Epstein, drastically rising fuel costs and insane fertilizer costs, Trumps popularity is at all time low around here. Outside of one place that looks like a MAGA circus, I have not seen Trump merch in a while. The scary part is all these people’s thoughts are so easily manipulated by whoever they think is cool that who knows who they will latch onto next. And I really doubt it’s an evidence based decision maker. I'm sure you can mash it all up into a MAGA story about MAGA sheeple in MAGA Canada if that's your particular axe to grind. I brought it up because the partisanship-influenced monocausal narrative misses an important story on past major outbreaks and this South Carolina one that is just ending. It points to the sort of outreach that is necessary, and focused on saving lives rather than settling political grudges and assigning blame. When I read "the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower" ... I don't immediately go This story doesn't hold water, because where I live and work in Canada is a MAGA hot bed and those sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. If we're all grumbling at the bar about RFK Jr and conspiracies and irresponsible parents, sure I'll be partially on board, but I'm not under any misapprehensions on the actual level of engagement with the topic. The article just isn’t that accurate. The mennonites are a small portion, there is Hutterites and other religious sects which tons of people confuse or think are the same thing but they are really quite different. The Hutterites live on colonies where all the power is held between the minister and general manager where as the Mennonite’s live as family units in their own places. The Mennonites here are also mostly from Mexico, where as the Hutterites have been here for generations. And the colonies are super wealthy (like worth 30-100s of millions) even though very few in the colony have access to that wealth and the Mennonites for the most part are quite poor and generally work as labour in farms. That aside, the reason why MAGA gets the blame is those people have existed in the same proportions for a long time. And until the MAGA people joined them it did not impact the system as a whole because of how herd immunity works. Now with the MAGA joined in, herd immunity fails and we get all the out breaks. And the issues are not just those who die from it, but just the pressure it puts on the system because where it is happening isn’t in cities or anywhere close. So an outbreak puts huge pressure on these small town emergent health care facilities as well as the smaller cities hospitals for the more severe cases. This is all compounded because we have a real shortage of doctors that are willing to work in these remote areas to begin with. And even for recruiting Im sure you can imagine that for highly educated doctors it’s not super fun to have people calling horrible things because of a stupid YouTube video they watched. Or even not being horrible and just taking the advice of some self interested YouTuber over the doctor. My issue is that even if MAGA goes away, these people have learned nothing and they will just latch onto what ever the next stupid populist trend is. And it will likely continue the same problems or create new ones with what ever is the new crazy take that sucks in these people. Do you have some original research of your own on how the 2025 Canada measles outbreak was reported as central to Mennonite communities, but in reality the Hutterites were just as involved? I'm failing to find anything on the matter as you state it. For the Mennonites, articles had Canadian health workers that specifically work with Mennonites and the Low German language difficulties. I find it difficult to believe that such a story was missed by Canadian media, if true, and international media. It sounds like you're making a specious argument that a historically low-vaccinated group would not have had a measles outbreak but for the modern Canadian MAGA movement. I think you're giving Maple MAGA a little too much credit. How about a historically low-vaccinated group was bound to have an outbreak with or without a modern trend in vaccine hesitancy, and stay in sane avenues like it's wider spread was made worse post-COVID19 vaccine skepticism, some of which is surely political. Hutterites also speak low German and most people. including those like 4 hours away by driving, just lump them all into the same category. You also can't tell until you ask if someone is Mexican Mennonite or has been here for generations. Accent won't help you because both groups have the low German accent and equally as white. I thought one of their distinguishing characteristics is that Hutterites speak Upper German and Mennonites speak Low German? Please explain. Show nested quote +Take AI for what its worth but when I asked if Mennonites and Hutterites are grouped together for medical studies it said. Yes, Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amish are frequently grouped together in medical and genetic studies under the collective term "Anabaptist" or "Plain People" populations.While they are separate cultural and religious groups, they are combined in research because they share characteristics that make them ideal for genetic studies: I don't know what you're on about with this. I'm reading primary source interviews with people working directly with Mennonites. Since I want to know what happened and why. Show nested quote +Just a fluke the matter of time ended up happening exactly at the same time as all the MAGA crew stopped vaccinating.
The reality is this area always had low vaccination rates compared to most places in Canada. So we worked really hard on getting all those without "religious" reasons for not vaccinating to do so. What changed was people starting taking their medical advice online from "influencers" instead of doctors and that has fucked us over. And huge percentage of those people are MAGA. Let's leave the "Quite the coincidence" and "Just asking questions" for the groups we're describing, not gorging ourselves on it ourselves. I'm not a fan. The uncertainty is not open season to assign our own preferred outcast group to the primary culprit. For example, if you look at the purported patient zero, a Canadian woman traveling in Thailand returning to a wedding, she said "I always thought, ‘Oh, most of those diseases are not really around anymore. It never really crossed my mind that I would get something that was actually serious." ( Globe and Mail) Maybe a closeted Maple MAGA or just genuine lack of knowledge on deadly and contagious disease? I'd say a hundred different reasons could be proposed. You're simply leading with your prejudice. Humans are still more complicated that the political simplifications that are about a dozen per page in these parts.
In summary, your point at large seems to be "MAGA didn't invent antivaxxing. Sure, they made/make it worse, but you're trying to blame the straw that broke the camel's back for the whole weight of the load" if I don't misunderstand you?
I don't find that difficult at all to agree with.
There's probably an argument to make that my framing of a metaphorical 'straw' undervalues maga's contributions, but I like the imagery nonetheless.
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Forget needing to look at measles rate per capita to be objective (as the US is a country 10x the population of Canada). Canada's measles cases in the last 5 years are simply double the US's in absolute numbers. You can say MAGA caused measles in Canada but you need separate gymnastics to account for why Make America Great Again didn't cause measles to anywhere near the same degree in... America. Canada had 5000+ cases, you'd expect the US to have at least 50k hinging on MAGA being an equal catalyst.
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On May 05 2026 02:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 01:27 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On May 04 2026 23:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 23:18 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On May 04 2026 18:41 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 14:33 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On May 04 2026 08:10 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 01:23 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On May 03 2026 23:23 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 03 2026 23:20 EnDeR_ wrote:
So you're saying that people need to personally face the obvious consequences of their actions to change their mind?
We are in the shit then. Unfortunately, a lot of the cases were unvaccinated children, which means their negligent parents contributed to them becoming sick. Those parents should definitely face some consequences, but I'm not sure if that'll happen. (In reference to: "Of the 997 cases during the outbreak, 932 were among unvaccinated individuals who were mostly under the age of 17, state data shows.") Not to be like that but for the vast majority of parents (even in the demographic that doesn't vaccinate their kids) your child being severly sick is a consequence. Often it feels worse than you being sick. + "She is still sad that her kid died." You're right that feeling sad is an emotional consequence / response when a loved one is ill or dies. Maybe "punishment" is a better term for what I'm asking about? Do you think a parent who refuses to vaccinate their child should be punished for their negligence and willingness to needlessly jeopardize their child's health and possibly life? (This is assuming, of course, that we're setting aside the rare situation where the child can't be vaccinated due to being immunocompromised or some other scenario where the parent is actually behaving in a medically responsible manner. Most unvaccinated children are unvaccinated because their parents are stubbornly and ignorantly jeopardizing their children, even if they don't believe they are.) I think there should be punishments for failure to accept, provide or seek active care, and for not using mandatory health-checks. I don't think there should be any punishment for not using preventive care. Note that for some at risk patientents preventive care can be part of their active plan. Also my view on what is an an active health problem probably is a bit different from the norm. Say if a kid is morbidly obese then nutrional advise, a diet and exercise is no longer preventive since it's treating an active condition. But generally I don't think parents should be punished for not vaccinating their kids. Thanks for clarifying by drawing a line between preventative (proactive) care and active (reactive) care, and using nutrition / diet / exercise as another example to help illustrate your point. Here's another example that I'm curious about: Do you feel the same way when it comes to carseats for babies and seatbelts for children? Those would be "preventative/proactive care", just like vaccines, so do you think parents shouldn't be punished if they decline to use them? Driving a car is not a human right. And in most countries in order to do so you need a drivers licence. That licence is like a contract between you and the government which allows you to operarate a complex heavy machine at high speed. It also requires you to follow certain rules, amongst them being requirements for seatbelts, car seats and baby carriers. If you don't want to follow these rules for whatever reason seek alternative transportation. Having a child is a human right that I don't think the government has a right to restrict (but they can give incentives for and against). As long as the child is healthy and developing as it should I don't think the goverment should require any mandatory preventive care beyond regular check-ups. Opt out programs are fine. The child is also a citizen that the goverment should protect but as long as it's healthy, safe and developing normally I find it extremly questionable to start requiring (or banning) things as a prevention. It might seem like a good idea for vaccines but it's an extremely slippery slope and humans aren't exactly one size fits all either. So it's not really about preventative/proactive vs. active/reactive, but rather about restrictions on human rights vs. restrictions on privileges? I didn't think of "parent having a child" vs. "parent being able to drive" as a key distinction here, since my perspective was more child-focused: I think it's "child is reasonably safer than in the alternative scenario" when looking at wearing a seatbelt, being in a carseat, and being vaccinated. I'm approaching this from the child's right to health and safety in all these cases, not the parent's privilege to drive a car vs. the parent's right to have a kid, which might be our primary source of disagreement. While I disagree with your premise of comparing parental rights vs. parental privileges in this scenario that I think ought to be about child safety, I'm still interested in your "rights vs. privileges" distinction and I'm happy to accept that axiom for the purpose of this conversation. There are absolutely laws and mandatory regulations related to raising healthy and safe children, and there are certain child endangerment / neglect / abuse rules in place that parents need to follow... which leads to your sensible caveat of "as long as the child is healthy and developing". I worry that that caveat begs the question though. I think when you qualify raising children with "as long as the child is healthy and developing [the government shouldn't intervene]", that would be equivalent to saying "as long as the child is safe in the car [the government shouldn't intervene]", which kind of assumes that the parent is already acting responsibly. But anti-vaxxers aren't acting responsibly, which is the problem I have in the first place. (In other words, if parents were already using carseats for babies, seatbelts for children, and vaccines for their kids all the time, then I agree we wouldn't need government stepping in, regardless of whether the situation was a right or a privilege. But unfortunately, that's not the case... anti-vaxxer parents are not acting in a medically responsible manner, by definition. I think they have the right to endanger their own lives, but I don't think they have the right to endanger their children's / others' lives.) Nah dude. It goes like this: Having children is a human right that shouldn't be infringed upon. Once there is a child - the child has a right to both be safe and taken care off but also to some extent to have it's own parents - the parents have an obligation to take care of it, raise it and keep it safe. - the government also has an obligation to children on its territory and citizens in particular. If a child is harmed, or kept in obviously unsafe conditions that can include taking the child from the parents. Totally agree. I also think we agree on most of the other examples we've discussed, like seatbelts and carseats and diets, just not specifically on vaccinations. That may stem from the wiggle room / subjectivity involved when talking about the decisions that parents are allowed to make for their children. To me, not vaccinating a child creates an " obviously unsafe" risk to a child's safety and health, even if the negative outcome doesn't immediately happen or never happens (similar to not wearing a seatbelt, but I understand that that example falls into a different category for you - privileges vs. rights). Show nested quote +When the government looks at the child's current situation judgment is often easy. If it's sick and the parents are refusing necessary healthcare that's bad, if it's healthy but the parents refuse to let it go to school or have any friends that's bad etc.
When it comes to the child being unsafe it's harder. Many things (like car seats) are regulated by other laws that the parents have to follow. Some other situations are obvious (don't use the local crackhouse as a kindergarten while you take drugs).
But pretty soon you come to situations that are much harder to judge. A single parent leaves their kid alone watching a bit to much TV and the neighbour then puts the kid to be for her because she needs to go to her second job so they can pay for rent and food (or maybe to nursing school so she can get a better job if we want a feel good story?) . Is she neglecting the kid? Quite probably. Is the kid better off in foster care? I would think not.
There is a cute video of a dad taking his toddler mountain biking down mountain trails. I personally feel that's unsafe as fuck but the journey that kid has in the 5 minutes of video until he's a teen still running trails with dad is something many would deem to be well worth the not inconsiderable risk. And don't get me started on horses.
Next, on to diets. There are kids that have died because their parents feed them a vegan diet. There are many more that have been malnourished. Does that mean we should stop all children from being vegans? Obviously not, because many vegans can absolutely give their children nutritious food. But if the child is malnourished at check ups or not growing as expected.
Again, it's easy to judge in the now, it's almost impossible to judge preemptively. I completely agree with you that some situations are easy to judge, and others are a lot more nuanced. I think that vaccinating children ought to be a very easy decision and therefore a very easy situation to judge, provided we're not looking at a rare complication where a child is immunocompromised / can't have the vaccine (which is separate from the anti-vaxxer conversation). Show nested quote +Finally vaccinations.
First of all vaccination schedules are (usually) based on current consensus. That changes over time. New vaccines are introduced, some are discontinued. It's often, but not always right. There are (very minor) risks. And for many of the things we vaccinate against the risk for the child if they get the disease is often low. They can die, but they usually don't. While it's true that the vaccination schedule for children may slightly change over time, that doesn't mean it should be thrown out altogether. It means we should be aware of what the best medical practices are, look at the current scientific consensus, and consult with experts. That's precisely why pediatricians exist, and it's also why there exist many pediatricians' offices who won't accept anti-vaxxer parents (because they not only endanger their own children, but they also endanger other sick patients who might be in the waiting room at the same time, especially babies who aren't old enough yet to receive certain vaccines). Show nested quote +And the use of vaccines have to be weighed against things like cultural and religious factors and how that will affect the family. This may be a significant point of disagreement between us, but while I believe in the freedom of religion and cultural expression, I don't believe those freedoms extend to endangering others. If an anti-vaxxer parent said that the reason they refuse to vaccinate their child is because of the parent's religion or culture, then I would say that's not a good justification. I think if a person wants to risk their own health or safety based on their beliefs, then that's their prerogative, but I don't think they should be allowed to risk the health or safety of others, including their own children, even if it's for religious or cultural reasons. Show nested quote +So who gets to decide which vaccines the child has to take? Someone has to make the choice. The child is healthy and safe, and the risks for not taking the vaccines are fairly low.
If we decide that person can decide which vaccines children has to take, should they also decide on other pre-emptive measures? Diet? Maybe health camp?
Should we just preemptively stop some people from having children (very common historically)?
For me the answer is very obvious.
Parents have an obligation to take care of their child, and they make the decisions the best they can. The are governed by some laws but often they come from regulating other things which does not violate this principle. The decision making process is complex and governed by a multitude of things that the government can't account for which makes the parents the sole reasonable entity to make these decisions. Further the parents have both the right to their child, and the child has a right to its parents.
The government steps in when something goes wrong, but not before. Many countries already have varying levels of vaccine mandates, with certain negative consequences and penalties if they're not followed (including in the United States, where children need certain vaccines like MMR in order to attend public school, because the risk of not being vaccinated can actually be pretty dangerous in a group setting if herd immunity isn't reached). Would you consider this MMR vaccine mandate for public schools to be an example of the government stepping in before something goes wrong? Do you agree or disagree with this mandate? I think we should look to medical experts when deciding which vaccines ought to be mandatory as opposed to just recommended or optional. I don't think that following vaccination schedules will lead to the slippery slope of mandating universal diets or forcing people to not have children. I do agree with you that parents have an obligation to take care of their children, and I understand that parents take care of their children in many different ways. I'd like to think I'm pretty flexible with most parenting approaches, but not vaccinating children is definitely an exception for me. I believe the parental obligation is not being met if they're anti-vaxxers, because then they're necessarily not "making the decisions the best they can".
I fully agree with a vaccine mandate that requires vaccination to attend public school (or work in certain fields). I think it's both logical and fair.
I'm also extremely pro vaccination and think the government should spend significant resources in order to insure vaccination. A well run vaccination program is essential for any country.
The government and the medical field should absolutely try to convince parents to vaccinate their kids, and not doing so might limit some options for the family.
I just don't think the government should force that decision on the parents. You feel very strongly about vaccination. But you have to admit that forcing parents to do something to their child that isn't immediately required for it's well being even when the child is healthy and well taken care of and even if the family is very much against it is not a small thing. In fact it's pretty huge. Exactly what you are forcing them to do is less of an issue.
I also don't think you have worked enough with small children in a medical setting to appreciate how traumatizing things could get. If the family is truly anti-vax at the end of the day you are using police to haul in a 5 year old to get a shot which the poor kid thinks will kill them. End result a traumatised child and a family which will never trust the government or healthcare ever again.
Most anti-vaxers will reconsider given enough support/information and if it meaningfully impacts their life in any way. "What do you mean I have to drive 20 miles to this school, I want him to go to the local school with his cousins!".
The die hard ones I'm not sure it's worth to force into it even if I wasn't against it on a principal level.
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On May 05 2026 03:47 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 03:37 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 02:59 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 02:43 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 01:56 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 00:03 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 21:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 21:45 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 18:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:
[quote]That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Can you please provide your source that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive communities? Should be "insular," but yeah. The pattern should be well known by now. 2018 New York outbreak by the insular orthodox jewish community . The modern record-shattering 2025 Canadian outbreak was among Mennonites in New Brunswick. This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community". Ukraine itself had a well-publicized vaccine death case in 2008 that led to low measles/MMR vaccinations in Ukraine, and part of this health response was "translat[ing] measles fact sheets and vaccine information into Ukrainian and Russian". So when I read into this case late last year, the details in the news made sense. On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:
That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive insular communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Yeah I understand you meant "insular" Some of those links are irrelevant to my question, and the two that are relevant seem to be paywalled ("This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community".") Would you mind copy/pasting the relevant info from those two links that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive/insular communities? I don't know the website rules here for the clever use of dodging paywalls or copyright infringement by posting articles in full. The internet has many wonderful and powerful tools. On May 04 2026 23:08 Billyboy wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 13:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 13:37 dyhb wrote:
[quote]It's always been about very inclusive communities, which is sometimes lost in the rush to blame Republicans (which can be criticized independently). Canada didn't have a sudden influx of Republican illegal immigrants in 2025 when Canada's measles cases dwarfed America's. Nor was Canada's healthcare system run by some right-wing prime minister. They just had their own mennonite community hit hard. The United States's anti-vaxxer problem is much bigger than that. I can't speak to Canada's situation, but in the United States, Republican leaders and activists (including Donald Trump and RFK Jr.) have actively made concerted efforts to spread anti-vaxxer bullshit and vaccine misinformation. They are absolutely contributing to vaccine hesitancy and enabling these outbreaks. Their words and actions are literally pro-disease, whether it's pro-covid or pro-flu or pro-measles. They have been contradicting the health experts and medical communities. I'm glad that Canada's leadership apparently isn't this devastatingly dangerous, but in the United States it's not *only* the Mennonite community being hit hard. That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Sorry, your Canada point does not hold water. The places in Canada, such as exactly where I live and work, are the few MAGA hot beds in Canada. We did always have the religious sects that were low vaccination rates, however we even had some success increasing uptake in those communities before MAGA. The thing is that you can have some outliers that don’t and it doesn’t impact the system until the tipping point is reached. Which happened here when all the MAGA sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. The silver lining is between Epstein, drastically rising fuel costs and insane fertilizer costs, Trumps popularity is at all time low around here. Outside of one place that looks like a MAGA circus, I have not seen Trump merch in a while. The scary part is all these people’s thoughts are so easily manipulated by whoever they think is cool that who knows who they will latch onto next. And I really doubt it’s an evidence based decision maker. I'm sure you can mash it all up into a MAGA story about MAGA sheeple in MAGA Canada if that's your particular axe to grind. I brought it up because the partisanship-influenced monocausal narrative misses an important story on past major outbreaks and this South Carolina one that is just ending. It points to the sort of outreach that is necessary, and focused on saving lives rather than settling political grudges and assigning blame. When I read "the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower" ... I don't immediately go This story doesn't hold water, because where I live and work in Canada is a MAGA hot bed and those sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. If we're all grumbling at the bar about RFK Jr and conspiracies and irresponsible parents, sure I'll be partially on board, but I'm not under any misapprehensions on the actual level of engagement with the topic. The article just isn’t that accurate. The mennonites are a small portion, there is Hutterites and other religious sects which tons of people confuse or think are the same thing but they are really quite different. The Hutterites live on colonies where all the power is held between the minister and general manager where as the Mennonite’s live as family units in their own places. The Mennonites here are also mostly from Mexico, where as the Hutterites have been here for generations. And the colonies are super wealthy (like worth 30-100s of millions) even though very few in the colony have access to that wealth and the Mennonites for the most part are quite poor and generally work as labour in farms. That aside, the reason why MAGA gets the blame is those people have existed in the same proportions for a long time. And until the MAGA people joined them it did not impact the system as a whole because of how herd immunity works. Now with the MAGA joined in, herd immunity fails and we get all the out breaks. And the issues are not just those who die from it, but just the pressure it puts on the system because where it is happening isn’t in cities or anywhere close. So an outbreak puts huge pressure on these small town emergent health care facilities as well as the smaller cities hospitals for the more severe cases. This is all compounded because we have a real shortage of doctors that are willing to work in these remote areas to begin with. And even for recruiting Im sure you can imagine that for highly educated doctors it’s not super fun to have people calling horrible things because of a stupid YouTube video they watched. Or even not being horrible and just taking the advice of some self interested YouTuber over the doctor. My issue is that even if MAGA goes away, these people have learned nothing and they will just latch onto what ever the next stupid populist trend is. And it will likely continue the same problems or create new ones with what ever is the new crazy take that sucks in these people. Do you have some original research of your own on how the 2025 Canada measles outbreak was reported as central to Mennonite communities, but in reality the Hutterites were just as involved? I'm failing to find anything on the matter as you state it. For the Mennonites, articles had Canadian health workers that specifically work with Mennonites and the Low German language difficulties. I find it difficult to believe that such a story was missed by Canadian media, if true, and international media. It sounds like you're making a specious argument that a historically low-vaccinated group would not have had a measles outbreak but for the modern Canadian MAGA movement. I think you're giving Maple MAGA a little too much credit. How about a historically low-vaccinated group was bound to have an outbreak with or without a modern trend in vaccine hesitancy, and stay in sane avenues like it's wider spread was made worse post-COVID19 vaccine skepticism, some of which is surely political. Hutterites also speak low German and most people. including those like 4 hours away by driving, just lump them all into the same category. You also can't tell until you ask if someone is Mexican Mennonite or has been here for generations. Accent won't help you because both groups have the low German accent and equally as white. I thought one of their distinguishing characteristics is that Hutterites speak Upper German and Mennonites speak Low German? Please explain. Take AI for what its worth but when I asked if Mennonites and Hutterites are grouped together for medical studies it said. Yes, Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amish are frequently grouped together in medical and genetic studies under the collective term "Anabaptist" or "Plain People" populations.While they are separate cultural and religious groups, they are combined in research because they share characteristics that make them ideal for genetic studies: I don't know what you're on about with this. I'm reading primary source interviews with people working directly with Mennonites. Since I want to know what happened and why. Just a fluke the matter of time ended up happening exactly at the same time as all the MAGA crew stopped vaccinating.
The reality is this area always had low vaccination rates compared to most places in Canada. So we worked really hard on getting all those without "religious" reasons for not vaccinating to do so. What changed was people starting taking their medical advice online from "influencers" instead of doctors and that has fucked us over. And huge percentage of those people are MAGA. Let's leave the "Quite the coincidence" and "Just asking questions" for the groups we're describing, not gorging ourselves on it ourselves. I'm not a fan. The uncertainty is not open season to assign our own preferred outcast group to the primary culprit. For example, if you look at the purported patient zero, a Canadian woman traveling in Thailand returning to a wedding, she said "I always thought, ‘Oh, most of those diseases are not really around anymore. It never really crossed my mind that I would get something that was actually serious." ( Globe and Mail) Maybe a closeted Maple MAGA or just genuine lack of knowledge on deadly and contagious disease? I'd say a hundred different reasons could be proposed. You're simply leading with your prejudice. Humans are still more complicated that the political simplifications that are about a dozen per page in these parts. If you think the biggest difference is the language you clearly have not spent any time with either group. The groups are wildly different. Yes, that a whole bunch of people who vaccinated before, and are not vaccinating now being the cause of outbreaks is totally just prejudice. You looking at something that quacks, walks, flys, and shits like a duck and saying no it is not a duck, is the prejudice mate. I don't know what you're on, but "one of their distinguishing characteristics" is not "the biggest difference is their language." So I'll just have to repeat: When you said "Hutterites also speak low German" did you mean to say something different?
I'm still not on board with the dealer's choice theory of explanations that you adopt. The best you have, at least the sanest you have, is that Maple MAGA didn't help matters. What you're trying to meander yourself towards is the same conspiracist's playpen of "quite the coincidence" and "just asking questions."
On May 05 2026 03:52 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 03:37 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 02:59 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 02:43 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 01:56 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 00:03 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 21:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 21:45 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 18:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:
[quote]That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Can you please provide your source that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive communities? Should be "insular," but yeah. The pattern should be well known by now. 2018 New York outbreak by the insular orthodox jewish community . The modern record-shattering 2025 Canadian outbreak was among Mennonites in New Brunswick. This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community". Ukraine itself had a well-publicized vaccine death case in 2008 that led to low measles/MMR vaccinations in Ukraine, and part of this health response was "translat[ing] measles fact sheets and vaccine information into Ukrainian and Russian". So when I read into this case late last year, the details in the news made sense. On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:
That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive insular communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Yeah I understand you meant "insular" Some of those links are irrelevant to my question, and the two that are relevant seem to be paywalled ("This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community".") Would you mind copy/pasting the relevant info from those two links that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive/insular communities? I don't know the website rules here for the clever use of dodging paywalls or copyright infringement by posting articles in full. The internet has many wonderful and powerful tools. On May 04 2026 23:08 Billyboy wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 13:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 13:37 dyhb wrote:
[quote]It's always been about very inclusive communities, which is sometimes lost in the rush to blame Republicans (which can be criticized independently). Canada didn't have a sudden influx of Republican illegal immigrants in 2025 when Canada's measles cases dwarfed America's. Nor was Canada's healthcare system run by some right-wing prime minister. They just had their own mennonite community hit hard. The United States's anti-vaxxer problem is much bigger than that. I can't speak to Canada's situation, but in the United States, Republican leaders and activists (including Donald Trump and RFK Jr.) have actively made concerted efforts to spread anti-vaxxer bullshit and vaccine misinformation. They are absolutely contributing to vaccine hesitancy and enabling these outbreaks. Their words and actions are literally pro-disease, whether it's pro-covid or pro-flu or pro-measles. They have been contradicting the health experts and medical communities. I'm glad that Canada's leadership apparently isn't this devastatingly dangerous, but in the United States it's not *only* the Mennonite community being hit hard. That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Sorry, your Canada point does not hold water. The places in Canada, such as exactly where I live and work, are the few MAGA hot beds in Canada. We did always have the religious sects that were low vaccination rates, however we even had some success increasing uptake in those communities before MAGA. The thing is that you can have some outliers that don’t and it doesn’t impact the system until the tipping point is reached. Which happened here when all the MAGA sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. The silver lining is between Epstein, drastically rising fuel costs and insane fertilizer costs, Trumps popularity is at all time low around here. Outside of one place that looks like a MAGA circus, I have not seen Trump merch in a while. The scary part is all these people’s thoughts are so easily manipulated by whoever they think is cool that who knows who they will latch onto next. And I really doubt it’s an evidence based decision maker. I'm sure you can mash it all up into a MAGA story about MAGA sheeple in MAGA Canada if that's your particular axe to grind. I brought it up because the partisanship-influenced monocausal narrative misses an important story on past major outbreaks and this South Carolina one that is just ending. It points to the sort of outreach that is necessary, and focused on saving lives rather than settling political grudges and assigning blame. When I read "the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower" ... I don't immediately go This story doesn't hold water, because where I live and work in Canada is a MAGA hot bed and those sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. If we're all grumbling at the bar about RFK Jr and conspiracies and irresponsible parents, sure I'll be partially on board, but I'm not under any misapprehensions on the actual level of engagement with the topic. The article just isn’t that accurate. The mennonites are a small portion, there is Hutterites and other religious sects which tons of people confuse or think are the same thing but they are really quite different. The Hutterites live on colonies where all the power is held between the minister and general manager where as the Mennonite’s live as family units in their own places. The Mennonites here are also mostly from Mexico, where as the Hutterites have been here for generations. And the colonies are super wealthy (like worth 30-100s of millions) even though very few in the colony have access to that wealth and the Mennonites for the most part are quite poor and generally work as labour in farms. That aside, the reason why MAGA gets the blame is those people have existed in the same proportions for a long time. And until the MAGA people joined them it did not impact the system as a whole because of how herd immunity works. Now with the MAGA joined in, herd immunity fails and we get all the out breaks. And the issues are not just those who die from it, but just the pressure it puts on the system because where it is happening isn’t in cities or anywhere close. So an outbreak puts huge pressure on these small town emergent health care facilities as well as the smaller cities hospitals for the more severe cases. This is all compounded because we have a real shortage of doctors that are willing to work in these remote areas to begin with. And even for recruiting Im sure you can imagine that for highly educated doctors it’s not super fun to have people calling horrible things because of a stupid YouTube video they watched. Or even not being horrible and just taking the advice of some self interested YouTuber over the doctor. My issue is that even if MAGA goes away, these people have learned nothing and they will just latch onto what ever the next stupid populist trend is. And it will likely continue the same problems or create new ones with what ever is the new crazy take that sucks in these people. Do you have some original research of your own on how the 2025 Canada measles outbreak was reported as central to Mennonite communities, but in reality the Hutterites were just as involved? I'm failing to find anything on the matter as you state it. For the Mennonites, articles had Canadian health workers that specifically work with Mennonites and the Low German language difficulties. I find it difficult to believe that such a story was missed by Canadian media, if true, and international media. It sounds like you're making a specious argument that a historically low-vaccinated group would not have had a measles outbreak but for the modern Canadian MAGA movement. I think you're giving Maple MAGA a little too much credit. How about a historically low-vaccinated group was bound to have an outbreak with or without a modern trend in vaccine hesitancy, and stay in sane avenues like it's wider spread was made worse post-COVID19 vaccine skepticism, some of which is surely political. Hutterites also speak low German and most people. including those like 4 hours away by driving, just lump them all into the same category. You also can't tell until you ask if someone is Mexican Mennonite or has been here for generations. Accent won't help you because both groups have the low German accent and equally as white. I thought one of their distinguishing characteristics is that Hutterites speak Upper German and Mennonites speak Low German? Please explain. Take AI for what its worth but when I asked if Mennonites and Hutterites are grouped together for medical studies it said. Yes, Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amish are frequently grouped together in medical and genetic studies under the collective term "Anabaptist" or "Plain People" populations.While they are separate cultural and religious groups, they are combined in research because they share characteristics that make them ideal for genetic studies: I don't know what you're on about with this. I'm reading primary source interviews with people working directly with Mennonites. Since I want to know what happened and why. Just a fluke the matter of time ended up happening exactly at the same time as all the MAGA crew stopped vaccinating.
The reality is this area always had low vaccination rates compared to most places in Canada. So we worked really hard on getting all those without "religious" reasons for not vaccinating to do so. What changed was people starting taking their medical advice online from "influencers" instead of doctors and that has fucked us over. And huge percentage of those people are MAGA. Let's leave the "Quite the coincidence" and "Just asking questions" for the groups we're describing, not gorging ourselves on it ourselves. I'm not a fan. The uncertainty is not open season to assign our own preferred outcast group to the primary culprit. For example, if you look at the purported patient zero, a Canadian woman traveling in Thailand returning to a wedding, she said "I always thought, ‘Oh, most of those diseases are not really around anymore. It never really crossed my mind that I would get something that was actually serious." ( Globe and Mail) Maybe a closeted Maple MAGA or just genuine lack of knowledge on deadly and contagious disease? I'd say a hundred different reasons could be proposed. You're simply leading with your prejudice. Humans are still more complicated that the political simplifications that are about a dozen per page in these parts. In summary, your point at large seems to be "MAGA didn't invent antivaxxing. Sure, they made/make it worse, but you're trying to blame the straw that broke the camel's back for the whole weight of the load" if I don't misunderstand you? I don't find that difficult at all to agree with. There's probably an argument to make that my framing of a metaphorical 'straw' undervalues maga's contributions, but I like the imagery nonetheless. It's the same stuff from "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." We're humans, we like stories or "narratives", so we see X story that confirms all our political priors, and instantly it's this community lies dead, wounded, and crying because of the evil political people that I hate, example 100. The evidence I could find is that bland Canadian girl didn't think measles was still a thing, and the same insular communities you see regularly appear in contagious disease outbreaks are once again involved. But there could've been dozens or hundreds of trucker protest people that served as the vital link between dumb Canadian traveling abroad and mennonite communities in ontario and alberta. Maybe, but that sounds like a conclusion in search of evidence to support it instead of the other way around.
I approach it with skepticism. People are complicated and politics tries its damnedest to apply simple categories to vast swathes of humanity in order to uncomplicate them. The complicated topic is how to reach insular communities, often religiously insular communities, in order to vaccinate in a humane and effective manner. If you're willing to empathize with religious freedoms and people that aren't politically sophisticated or conform to modern society. But let's say you're willing to be skeptical about the high-dudgeon claims without tossing them out. That opens up the story to all kinds of interesting stories that aren't national two-party politics 24/7. How South Carolina could reach Ukrainian and Russian-speaking immigrant communities centered around churches before the next outbreak omg south carolina has a Republican governor so who knows what his appointees in the health department are potentially hiding. What impact travel among mennonites from US and Mexico and Canada has on spread, in 2025 and later (ex some Texas mennonites travel to rural Mexican communities). Potential future laws and outreach programs and guarding against intrusions on freedoms.
The skepticism comes in handy when equally-passionate right-wingers assign their pet cause to Negative Thing In The News with the same hallmarks of 1) what are you gonna call it a coincidence, you idiot? 2) you can't prove to me that it didn't have a significant impact! 3) After this, therefore because of this / hasty generalization (undistributed middle). I think we're a little too quick to rush into unwarranted political explanations, or putting the burden on the other person to prove that politics wasn't involved.
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On May 05 2026 03:52 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 03:37 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 02:59 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 02:43 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 01:56 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 00:03 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 21:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 21:45 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 18:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:
[quote]That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Can you please provide your source that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive communities? Should be "insular," but yeah. The pattern should be well known by now. 2018 New York outbreak by the insular orthodox jewish community . The modern record-shattering 2025 Canadian outbreak was among Mennonites in New Brunswick. This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community". Ukraine itself had a well-publicized vaccine death case in 2008 that led to low measles/MMR vaccinations in Ukraine, and part of this health response was "translat[ing] measles fact sheets and vaccine information into Ukrainian and Russian". So when I read into this case late last year, the details in the news made sense. On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:
That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive insular communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Yeah I understand you meant "insular" Some of those links are irrelevant to my question, and the two that are relevant seem to be paywalled ("This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community".") Would you mind copy/pasting the relevant info from those two links that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive/insular communities? I don't know the website rules here for the clever use of dodging paywalls or copyright infringement by posting articles in full. The internet has many wonderful and powerful tools. On May 04 2026 23:08 Billyboy wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 13:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 13:37 dyhb wrote:
[quote]It's always been about very inclusive communities, which is sometimes lost in the rush to blame Republicans (which can be criticized independently). Canada didn't have a sudden influx of Republican illegal immigrants in 2025 when Canada's measles cases dwarfed America's. Nor was Canada's healthcare system run by some right-wing prime minister. They just had their own mennonite community hit hard. The United States's anti-vaxxer problem is much bigger than that. I can't speak to Canada's situation, but in the United States, Republican leaders and activists (including Donald Trump and RFK Jr.) have actively made concerted efforts to spread anti-vaxxer bullshit and vaccine misinformation. They are absolutely contributing to vaccine hesitancy and enabling these outbreaks. Their words and actions are literally pro-disease, whether it's pro-covid or pro-flu or pro-measles. They have been contradicting the health experts and medical communities. I'm glad that Canada's leadership apparently isn't this devastatingly dangerous, but in the United States it's not *only* the Mennonite community being hit hard. That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Sorry, your Canada point does not hold water. The places in Canada, such as exactly where I live and work, are the few MAGA hot beds in Canada. We did always have the religious sects that were low vaccination rates, however we even had some success increasing uptake in those communities before MAGA. The thing is that you can have some outliers that don’t and it doesn’t impact the system until the tipping point is reached. Which happened here when all the MAGA sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. The silver lining is between Epstein, drastically rising fuel costs and insane fertilizer costs, Trumps popularity is at all time low around here. Outside of one place that looks like a MAGA circus, I have not seen Trump merch in a while. The scary part is all these people’s thoughts are so easily manipulated by whoever they think is cool that who knows who they will latch onto next. And I really doubt it’s an evidence based decision maker. I'm sure you can mash it all up into a MAGA story about MAGA sheeple in MAGA Canada if that's your particular axe to grind. I brought it up because the partisanship-influenced monocausal narrative misses an important story on past major outbreaks and this South Carolina one that is just ending. It points to the sort of outreach that is necessary, and focused on saving lives rather than settling political grudges and assigning blame. When I read "the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower" ... I don't immediately go This story doesn't hold water, because where I live and work in Canada is a MAGA hot bed and those sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. If we're all grumbling at the bar about RFK Jr and conspiracies and irresponsible parents, sure I'll be partially on board, but I'm not under any misapprehensions on the actual level of engagement with the topic. The article just isn’t that accurate. The mennonites are a small portion, there is Hutterites and other religious sects which tons of people confuse or think are the same thing but they are really quite different. The Hutterites live on colonies where all the power is held between the minister and general manager where as the Mennonite’s live as family units in their own places. The Mennonites here are also mostly from Mexico, where as the Hutterites have been here for generations. And the colonies are super wealthy (like worth 30-100s of millions) even though very few in the colony have access to that wealth and the Mennonites for the most part are quite poor and generally work as labour in farms. That aside, the reason why MAGA gets the blame is those people have existed in the same proportions for a long time. And until the MAGA people joined them it did not impact the system as a whole because of how herd immunity works. Now with the MAGA joined in, herd immunity fails and we get all the out breaks. And the issues are not just those who die from it, but just the pressure it puts on the system because where it is happening isn’t in cities or anywhere close. So an outbreak puts huge pressure on these small town emergent health care facilities as well as the smaller cities hospitals for the more severe cases. This is all compounded because we have a real shortage of doctors that are willing to work in these remote areas to begin with. And even for recruiting Im sure you can imagine that for highly educated doctors it’s not super fun to have people calling horrible things because of a stupid YouTube video they watched. Or even not being horrible and just taking the advice of some self interested YouTuber over the doctor. My issue is that even if MAGA goes away, these people have learned nothing and they will just latch onto what ever the next stupid populist trend is. And it will likely continue the same problems or create new ones with what ever is the new crazy take that sucks in these people. Do you have some original research of your own on how the 2025 Canada measles outbreak was reported as central to Mennonite communities, but in reality the Hutterites were just as involved? I'm failing to find anything on the matter as you state it. For the Mennonites, articles had Canadian health workers that specifically work with Mennonites and the Low German language difficulties. I find it difficult to believe that such a story was missed by Canadian media, if true, and international media. It sounds like you're making a specious argument that a historically low-vaccinated group would not have had a measles outbreak but for the modern Canadian MAGA movement. I think you're giving Maple MAGA a little too much credit. How about a historically low-vaccinated group was bound to have an outbreak with or without a modern trend in vaccine hesitancy, and stay in sane avenues like it's wider spread was made worse post-COVID19 vaccine skepticism, some of which is surely political. Hutterites also speak low German and most people. including those like 4 hours away by driving, just lump them all into the same category. You also can't tell until you ask if someone is Mexican Mennonite or has been here for generations. Accent won't help you because both groups have the low German accent and equally as white. I thought one of their distinguishing characteristics is that Hutterites speak Upper German and Mennonites speak Low German? Please explain. Take AI for what its worth but when I asked if Mennonites and Hutterites are grouped together for medical studies it said. Yes, Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amish are frequently grouped together in medical and genetic studies under the collective term "Anabaptist" or "Plain People" populations.While they are separate cultural and religious groups, they are combined in research because they share characteristics that make them ideal for genetic studies: I don't know what you're on about with this. I'm reading primary source interviews with people working directly with Mennonites. Since I want to know what happened and why. Just a fluke the matter of time ended up happening exactly at the same time as all the MAGA crew stopped vaccinating.
The reality is this area always had low vaccination rates compared to most places in Canada. So we worked really hard on getting all those without "religious" reasons for not vaccinating to do so. What changed was people starting taking their medical advice online from "influencers" instead of doctors and that has fucked us over. And huge percentage of those people are MAGA. Let's leave the "Quite the coincidence" and "Just asking questions" for the groups we're describing, not gorging ourselves on it ourselves. I'm not a fan. The uncertainty is not open season to assign our own preferred outcast group to the primary culprit. For example, if you look at the purported patient zero, a Canadian woman traveling in Thailand returning to a wedding, she said "I always thought, ‘Oh, most of those diseases are not really around anymore. It never really crossed my mind that I would get something that was actually serious." ( Globe and Mail) Maybe a closeted Maple MAGA or just genuine lack of knowledge on deadly and contagious disease? I'd say a hundred different reasons could be proposed. You're simply leading with your prejudice. Humans are still more complicated that the political simplifications that are about a dozen per page in these parts. In summary, your point at large seems to be "MAGA didn't invent antivaxxing. Sure, they made/make it worse, but you're trying to blame the straw that broke the camel's back for the whole weight of the load" if I don't misunderstand you? I don't find that difficult at all to agree with. There's probably an argument to make that my framing of a metaphorical 'straw' undervalues maga's contributions, but I like the imagery nonetheless.
I don’t hate your summary either, just that the straw is actually a giant log.
The reason MAGA takes more heat is because they are the new ones to the party and people have more sympathy for religious concerns than ones based on stupidity. There is also a lot more hope on being about to change their mind than those who have always been against it. I’m not sure that is true, very few seem to get out of the rabbit hole, and those that do seem to jump into another one.
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On May 05 2026 05:11 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 03:47 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 03:37 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 02:59 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 02:43 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 01:56 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 00:03 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 21:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 21:45 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 18:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
Can you please provide your source that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive communities? Should be "insular," but yeah. The pattern should be well known by now. 2018 New York outbreak by the insular orthodox jewish community . The modern record-shattering 2025 Canadian outbreak was among Mennonites in New Brunswick. This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community". Ukraine itself had a well-publicized vaccine death case in 2008 that led to low measles/MMR vaccinations in Ukraine, and part of this health response was "translat[ing] measles fact sheets and vaccine information into Ukrainian and Russian". So when I read into this case late last year, the details in the news made sense. On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:
That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive insular communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Yeah I understand you meant "insular" Some of those links are irrelevant to my question, and the two that are relevant seem to be paywalled ("This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community".") Would you mind copy/pasting the relevant info from those two links that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive/insular communities? I don't know the website rules here for the clever use of dodging paywalls or copyright infringement by posting articles in full. The internet has many wonderful and powerful tools. On May 04 2026 23:08 Billyboy wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 13:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
The United States's anti-vaxxer problem is much bigger than that. I can't speak to Canada's situation, but in the United States, Republican leaders and activists (including Donald Trump and RFK Jr.) have actively made concerted efforts to spread anti-vaxxer bullshit and vaccine misinformation. They are absolutely contributing to vaccine hesitancy and enabling these outbreaks. Their words and actions are literally pro-disease, whether it's pro-covid or pro-flu or pro-measles. They have been contradicting the health experts and medical communities. I'm glad that Canada's leadership apparently isn't this devastatingly dangerous, but in the United States it's not *only* the Mennonite community being hit hard. That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Sorry, your Canada point does not hold water. The places in Canada, such as exactly where I live and work, are the few MAGA hot beds in Canada. We did always have the religious sects that were low vaccination rates, however we even had some success increasing uptake in those communities before MAGA. The thing is that you can have some outliers that don’t and it doesn’t impact the system until the tipping point is reached. Which happened here when all the MAGA sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. The silver lining is between Epstein, drastically rising fuel costs and insane fertilizer costs, Trumps popularity is at all time low around here. Outside of one place that looks like a MAGA circus, I have not seen Trump merch in a while. The scary part is all these people’s thoughts are so easily manipulated by whoever they think is cool that who knows who they will latch onto next. And I really doubt it’s an evidence based decision maker. I'm sure you can mash it all up into a MAGA story about MAGA sheeple in MAGA Canada if that's your particular axe to grind. I brought it up because the partisanship-influenced monocausal narrative misses an important story on past major outbreaks and this South Carolina one that is just ending. It points to the sort of outreach that is necessary, and focused on saving lives rather than settling political grudges and assigning blame. When I read "the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower" ... I don't immediately go This story doesn't hold water, because where I live and work in Canada is a MAGA hot bed and those sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. If we're all grumbling at the bar about RFK Jr and conspiracies and irresponsible parents, sure I'll be partially on board, but I'm not under any misapprehensions on the actual level of engagement with the topic. The article just isn’t that accurate. The mennonites are a small portion, there is Hutterites and other religious sects which tons of people confuse or think are the same thing but they are really quite different. The Hutterites live on colonies where all the power is held between the minister and general manager where as the Mennonite’s live as family units in their own places. The Mennonites here are also mostly from Mexico, where as the Hutterites have been here for generations. And the colonies are super wealthy (like worth 30-100s of millions) even though very few in the colony have access to that wealth and the Mennonites for the most part are quite poor and generally work as labour in farms. That aside, the reason why MAGA gets the blame is those people have existed in the same proportions for a long time. And until the MAGA people joined them it did not impact the system as a whole because of how herd immunity works. Now with the MAGA joined in, herd immunity fails and we get all the out breaks. And the issues are not just those who die from it, but just the pressure it puts on the system because where it is happening isn’t in cities or anywhere close. So an outbreak puts huge pressure on these small town emergent health care facilities as well as the smaller cities hospitals for the more severe cases. This is all compounded because we have a real shortage of doctors that are willing to work in these remote areas to begin with. And even for recruiting Im sure you can imagine that for highly educated doctors it’s not super fun to have people calling horrible things because of a stupid YouTube video they watched. Or even not being horrible and just taking the advice of some self interested YouTuber over the doctor. My issue is that even if MAGA goes away, these people have learned nothing and they will just latch onto what ever the next stupid populist trend is. And it will likely continue the same problems or create new ones with what ever is the new crazy take that sucks in these people. Do you have some original research of your own on how the 2025 Canada measles outbreak was reported as central to Mennonite communities, but in reality the Hutterites were just as involved? I'm failing to find anything on the matter as you state it. For the Mennonites, articles had Canadian health workers that specifically work with Mennonites and the Low German language difficulties. I find it difficult to believe that such a story was missed by Canadian media, if true, and international media. It sounds like you're making a specious argument that a historically low-vaccinated group would not have had a measles outbreak but for the modern Canadian MAGA movement. I think you're giving Maple MAGA a little too much credit. How about a historically low-vaccinated group was bound to have an outbreak with or without a modern trend in vaccine hesitancy, and stay in sane avenues like it's wider spread was made worse post-COVID19 vaccine skepticism, some of which is surely political. Hutterites also speak low German and most people. including those like 4 hours away by driving, just lump them all into the same category. You also can't tell until you ask if someone is Mexican Mennonite or has been here for generations. Accent won't help you because both groups have the low German accent and equally as white. I thought one of their distinguishing characteristics is that Hutterites speak Upper German and Mennonites speak Low German? Please explain. Take AI for what its worth but when I asked if Mennonites and Hutterites are grouped together for medical studies it said. Yes, Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amish are frequently grouped together in medical and genetic studies under the collective term "Anabaptist" or "Plain People" populations.While they are separate cultural and religious groups, they are combined in research because they share characteristics that make them ideal for genetic studies: I don't know what you're on about with this. I'm reading primary source interviews with people working directly with Mennonites. Since I want to know what happened and why. Just a fluke the matter of time ended up happening exactly at the same time as all the MAGA crew stopped vaccinating.
The reality is this area always had low vaccination rates compared to most places in Canada. So we worked really hard on getting all those without "religious" reasons for not vaccinating to do so. What changed was people starting taking their medical advice online from "influencers" instead of doctors and that has fucked us over. And huge percentage of those people are MAGA. Let's leave the "Quite the coincidence" and "Just asking questions" for the groups we're describing, not gorging ourselves on it ourselves. I'm not a fan. The uncertainty is not open season to assign our own preferred outcast group to the primary culprit. For example, if you look at the purported patient zero, a Canadian woman traveling in Thailand returning to a wedding, she said "I always thought, ‘Oh, most of those diseases are not really around anymore. It never really crossed my mind that I would get something that was actually serious." ( Globe and Mail) Maybe a closeted Maple MAGA or just genuine lack of knowledge on deadly and contagious disease? I'd say a hundred different reasons could be proposed. You're simply leading with your prejudice. Humans are still more complicated that the political simplifications that are about a dozen per page in these parts. If you think the biggest difference is the language you clearly have not spent any time with either group. The groups are wildly different. Yes, that a whole bunch of people who vaccinated before, and are not vaccinating now being the cause of outbreaks is totally just prejudice. You looking at something that quacks, walks, flys, and shits like a duck and saying no it is not a duck, is the prejudice mate. I don't know what you're on, but "one of their distinguishing characteristics" is not "the biggest difference is their language." So I'll just have to repeat: When you said "Hutterites also speak low German" did you mean to say something different? I'm still not on board with the dealer's choice theory of explanations that you adopt. The best you have, at least the sanest you have, is that Maple MAGA didn't help matters. What you're trying to meander yourself towards is the same conspiracist's playpen of "quite the coincidence" and "just asking questions." Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 03:52 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 05 2026 03:37 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 02:59 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 02:43 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 01:56 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 00:03 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 21:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 21:45 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 18:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
Can you please provide your source that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive communities? Should be "insular," but yeah. The pattern should be well known by now. 2018 New York outbreak by the insular orthodox jewish community . The modern record-shattering 2025 Canadian outbreak was among Mennonites in New Brunswick. This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community". Ukraine itself had a well-publicized vaccine death case in 2008 that led to low measles/MMR vaccinations in Ukraine, and part of this health response was "translat[ing] measles fact sheets and vaccine information into Ukrainian and Russian". So when I read into this case late last year, the details in the news made sense. On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:
That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive insular communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Yeah I understand you meant "insular" Some of those links are irrelevant to my question, and the two that are relevant seem to be paywalled ("This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community".") Would you mind copy/pasting the relevant info from those two links that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive/insular communities? I don't know the website rules here for the clever use of dodging paywalls or copyright infringement by posting articles in full. The internet has many wonderful and powerful tools. On May 04 2026 23:08 Billyboy wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 13:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
The United States's anti-vaxxer problem is much bigger than that. I can't speak to Canada's situation, but in the United States, Republican leaders and activists (including Donald Trump and RFK Jr.) have actively made concerted efforts to spread anti-vaxxer bullshit and vaccine misinformation. They are absolutely contributing to vaccine hesitancy and enabling these outbreaks. Their words and actions are literally pro-disease, whether it's pro-covid or pro-flu or pro-measles. They have been contradicting the health experts and medical communities. I'm glad that Canada's leadership apparently isn't this devastatingly dangerous, but in the United States it's not *only* the Mennonite community being hit hard. That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Sorry, your Canada point does not hold water. The places in Canada, such as exactly where I live and work, are the few MAGA hot beds in Canada. We did always have the religious sects that were low vaccination rates, however we even had some success increasing uptake in those communities before MAGA. The thing is that you can have some outliers that don’t and it doesn’t impact the system until the tipping point is reached. Which happened here when all the MAGA sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. The silver lining is between Epstein, drastically rising fuel costs and insane fertilizer costs, Trumps popularity is at all time low around here. Outside of one place that looks like a MAGA circus, I have not seen Trump merch in a while. The scary part is all these people’s thoughts are so easily manipulated by whoever they think is cool that who knows who they will latch onto next. And I really doubt it’s an evidence based decision maker. I'm sure you can mash it all up into a MAGA story about MAGA sheeple in MAGA Canada if that's your particular axe to grind. I brought it up because the partisanship-influenced monocausal narrative misses an important story on past major outbreaks and this South Carolina one that is just ending. It points to the sort of outreach that is necessary, and focused on saving lives rather than settling political grudges and assigning blame. When I read "the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower" ... I don't immediately go This story doesn't hold water, because where I live and work in Canada is a MAGA hot bed and those sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. If we're all grumbling at the bar about RFK Jr and conspiracies and irresponsible parents, sure I'll be partially on board, but I'm not under any misapprehensions on the actual level of engagement with the topic. The article just isn’t that accurate. The mennonites are a small portion, there is Hutterites and other religious sects which tons of people confuse or think are the same thing but they are really quite different. The Hutterites live on colonies where all the power is held between the minister and general manager where as the Mennonite’s live as family units in their own places. The Mennonites here are also mostly from Mexico, where as the Hutterites have been here for generations. And the colonies are super wealthy (like worth 30-100s of millions) even though very few in the colony have access to that wealth and the Mennonites for the most part are quite poor and generally work as labour in farms. That aside, the reason why MAGA gets the blame is those people have existed in the same proportions for a long time. And until the MAGA people joined them it did not impact the system as a whole because of how herd immunity works. Now with the MAGA joined in, herd immunity fails and we get all the out breaks. And the issues are not just those who die from it, but just the pressure it puts on the system because where it is happening isn’t in cities or anywhere close. So an outbreak puts huge pressure on these small town emergent health care facilities as well as the smaller cities hospitals for the more severe cases. This is all compounded because we have a real shortage of doctors that are willing to work in these remote areas to begin with. And even for recruiting Im sure you can imagine that for highly educated doctors it’s not super fun to have people calling horrible things because of a stupid YouTube video they watched. Or even not being horrible and just taking the advice of some self interested YouTuber over the doctor. My issue is that even if MAGA goes away, these people have learned nothing and they will just latch onto what ever the next stupid populist trend is. And it will likely continue the same problems or create new ones with what ever is the new crazy take that sucks in these people. Do you have some original research of your own on how the 2025 Canada measles outbreak was reported as central to Mennonite communities, but in reality the Hutterites were just as involved? I'm failing to find anything on the matter as you state it. For the Mennonites, articles had Canadian health workers that specifically work with Mennonites and the Low German language difficulties. I find it difficult to believe that such a story was missed by Canadian media, if true, and international media. It sounds like you're making a specious argument that a historically low-vaccinated group would not have had a measles outbreak but for the modern Canadian MAGA movement. I think you're giving Maple MAGA a little too much credit. How about a historically low-vaccinated group was bound to have an outbreak with or without a modern trend in vaccine hesitancy, and stay in sane avenues like it's wider spread was made worse post-COVID19 vaccine skepticism, some of which is surely political. Hutterites also speak low German and most people. including those like 4 hours away by driving, just lump them all into the same category. You also can't tell until you ask if someone is Mexican Mennonite or has been here for generations. Accent won't help you because both groups have the low German accent and equally as white. I thought one of their distinguishing characteristics is that Hutterites speak Upper German and Mennonites speak Low German? Please explain. Take AI for what its worth but when I asked if Mennonites and Hutterites are grouped together for medical studies it said. Yes, Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amish are frequently grouped together in medical and genetic studies under the collective term "Anabaptist" or "Plain People" populations.While they are separate cultural and religious groups, they are combined in research because they share characteristics that make them ideal for genetic studies: I don't know what you're on about with this. I'm reading primary source interviews with people working directly with Mennonites. Since I want to know what happened and why. Just a fluke the matter of time ended up happening exactly at the same time as all the MAGA crew stopped vaccinating.
The reality is this area always had low vaccination rates compared to most places in Canada. So we worked really hard on getting all those without "religious" reasons for not vaccinating to do so. What changed was people starting taking their medical advice online from "influencers" instead of doctors and that has fucked us over. And huge percentage of those people are MAGA. Let's leave the "Quite the coincidence" and "Just asking questions" for the groups we're describing, not gorging ourselves on it ourselves. I'm not a fan. The uncertainty is not open season to assign our own preferred outcast group to the primary culprit. For example, if you look at the purported patient zero, a Canadian woman traveling in Thailand returning to a wedding, she said "I always thought, ‘Oh, most of those diseases are not really around anymore. It never really crossed my mind that I would get something that was actually serious." ( Globe and Mail) Maybe a closeted Maple MAGA or just genuine lack of knowledge on deadly and contagious disease? I'd say a hundred different reasons could be proposed. You're simply leading with your prejudice. Humans are still more complicated that the political simplifications that are about a dozen per page in these parts. In summary, your point at large seems to be "MAGA didn't invent antivaxxing. Sure, they made/make it worse, but you're trying to blame the straw that broke the camel's back for the whole weight of the load" if I don't misunderstand you? I don't find that difficult at all to agree with. There's probably an argument to make that my framing of a metaphorical 'straw' undervalues maga's contributions, but I like the imagery nonetheless. It's the same stuff from "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." We're humans, we like stories or "narratives", so we see X story that confirms all our political priors, and instantly it's this community lies dead, wounded, and crying because of the evil political people that I hate, example 100. The evidence I could find is that bland Canadian girl didn't think measles was still a thing, and the same insular communities you see regularly appear in contagious disease outbreaks are once again involved. But there could've been dozens or hundreds of trucker protest people that served as the vital link between dumb Canadian traveling abroad and mennonite communities in ontario and alberta. Maybe, but that sounds like a conclusion in search of evidence to support it instead of the other way around. I approach it with skepticism. People are complicated and politics tries its damnedest to apply simple categories to vast swathes of humanity in order to uncomplicate them. The complicated topic is how to reach insular communities, often religiously insular communities, in order to vaccinate in a humane and effective manner. If you're willing to empathize with religious freedoms and people that aren't politically sophisticated or conform to modern society. But let's say you're willing to be skeptical about the high-dudgeon claims without tossing them out. That opens up the story to all kinds of interesting stories that aren't national two-party politics 24/7. How South Carolina could reach Ukrainian and Russian-speaking immigrant communities centered around churches before the next outbreak omg south carolina has a Republican governor so who knows what his appointees in the health department are potentially hiding. What impact travel among mennonites from US and Mexico and Canada has on spread, in 2025 and later (ex some Texas mennonites travel to rural Mexican communities). Potential future laws and outreach programs and guarding against intrusions on freedoms. The skepticism comes in handy when equally-passionate right-wingers assign their pet cause to Negative Thing In The News with the same hallmarks of 1) what are you gonna call it a coincidence, you idiot? 2) you can't prove to me that it didn't have a significant impact! 3) After this, therefore because of this / hasty generalization (undistributed middle). I think we're a little too quick to rush into unwarranted political explanations, or putting the burden on the other person to prove that politics wasn't involved.
Just my lack of knowledge of the various dialects of German. But unlike you I’ll freely admit my mistakes. You clearly know nothing about these people other than what your article and chat gpt told you and now you think you’re an expert.
And no, you are wrong. If you change a system inputs and the results change. The first place everyone without bias looks is at the change. That you think it was a magic coincidence is your bias not mine.
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On May 05 2026 04:30 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 02:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 05 2026 01:27 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On May 04 2026 23:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 23:18 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On May 04 2026 18:41 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 14:33 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On May 04 2026 08:10 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 01:23 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On May 03 2026 23:23 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
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Unfortunately, a lot of the cases were unvaccinated children, which means their negligent parents contributed to them becoming sick. Those parents should definitely face some consequences, but I'm not sure if that'll happen. (In reference to: "Of the 997 cases during the outbreak, 932 were among unvaccinated individuals who were mostly under the age of 17, state data shows.") Not to be like that but for the vast majority of parents (even in the demographic that doesn't vaccinate their kids) your child being severly sick is a consequence. Often it feels worse than you being sick. + "She is still sad that her kid died." You're right that feeling sad is an emotional consequence / response when a loved one is ill or dies. Maybe "punishment" is a better term for what I'm asking about? Do you think a parent who refuses to vaccinate their child should be punished for their negligence and willingness to needlessly jeopardize their child's health and possibly life? (This is assuming, of course, that we're setting aside the rare situation where the child can't be vaccinated due to being immunocompromised or some other scenario where the parent is actually behaving in a medically responsible manner. Most unvaccinated children are unvaccinated because their parents are stubbornly and ignorantly jeopardizing their children, even if they don't believe they are.) I think there should be punishments for failure to accept, provide or seek active care, and for not using mandatory health-checks. I don't think there should be any punishment for not using preventive care. Note that for some at risk patientents preventive care can be part of their active plan. Also my view on what is an an active health problem probably is a bit different from the norm. Say if a kid is morbidly obese then nutrional advise, a diet and exercise is no longer preventive since it's treating an active condition. But generally I don't think parents should be punished for not vaccinating their kids. Thanks for clarifying by drawing a line between preventative (proactive) care and active (reactive) care, and using nutrition / diet / exercise as another example to help illustrate your point. Here's another example that I'm curious about: Do you feel the same way when it comes to carseats for babies and seatbelts for children? Those would be "preventative/proactive care", just like vaccines, so do you think parents shouldn't be punished if they decline to use them? Driving a car is not a human right. And in most countries in order to do so you need a drivers licence. That licence is like a contract between you and the government which allows you to operarate a complex heavy machine at high speed. It also requires you to follow certain rules, amongst them being requirements for seatbelts, car seats and baby carriers. If you don't want to follow these rules for whatever reason seek alternative transportation. Having a child is a human right that I don't think the government has a right to restrict (but they can give incentives for and against). As long as the child is healthy and developing as it should I don't think the goverment should require any mandatory preventive care beyond regular check-ups. Opt out programs are fine. The child is also a citizen that the goverment should protect but as long as it's healthy, safe and developing normally I find it extremly questionable to start requiring (or banning) things as a prevention. It might seem like a good idea for vaccines but it's an extremely slippery slope and humans aren't exactly one size fits all either. So it's not really about preventative/proactive vs. active/reactive, but rather about restrictions on human rights vs. restrictions on privileges? I didn't think of "parent having a child" vs. "parent being able to drive" as a key distinction here, since my perspective was more child-focused: I think it's "child is reasonably safer than in the alternative scenario" when looking at wearing a seatbelt, being in a carseat, and being vaccinated. I'm approaching this from the child's right to health and safety in all these cases, not the parent's privilege to drive a car vs. the parent's right to have a kid, which might be our primary source of disagreement. While I disagree with your premise of comparing parental rights vs. parental privileges in this scenario that I think ought to be about child safety, I'm still interested in your "rights vs. privileges" distinction and I'm happy to accept that axiom for the purpose of this conversation. There are absolutely laws and mandatory regulations related to raising healthy and safe children, and there are certain child endangerment / neglect / abuse rules in place that parents need to follow... which leads to your sensible caveat of "as long as the child is healthy and developing". I worry that that caveat begs the question though. I think when you qualify raising children with "as long as the child is healthy and developing [the government shouldn't intervene]", that would be equivalent to saying "as long as the child is safe in the car [the government shouldn't intervene]", which kind of assumes that the parent is already acting responsibly. But anti-vaxxers aren't acting responsibly, which is the problem I have in the first place. (In other words, if parents were already using carseats for babies, seatbelts for children, and vaccines for their kids all the time, then I agree we wouldn't need government stepping in, regardless of whether the situation was a right or a privilege. But unfortunately, that's not the case... anti-vaxxer parents are not acting in a medically responsible manner, by definition. I think they have the right to endanger their own lives, but I don't think they have the right to endanger their children's / others' lives.) Nah dude. It goes like this: Having children is a human right that shouldn't be infringed upon. Once there is a child - the child has a right to both be safe and taken care off but also to some extent to have it's own parents - the parents have an obligation to take care of it, raise it and keep it safe. - the government also has an obligation to children on its territory and citizens in particular. If a child is harmed, or kept in obviously unsafe conditions that can include taking the child from the parents. Totally agree. I also think we agree on most of the other examples we've discussed, like seatbelts and carseats and diets, just not specifically on vaccinations. That may stem from the wiggle room / subjectivity involved when talking about the decisions that parents are allowed to make for their children. To me, not vaccinating a child creates an " obviously unsafe" risk to a child's safety and health, even if the negative outcome doesn't immediately happen or never happens (similar to not wearing a seatbelt, but I understand that that example falls into a different category for you - privileges vs. rights). When the government looks at the child's current situation judgment is often easy. If it's sick and the parents are refusing necessary healthcare that's bad, if it's healthy but the parents refuse to let it go to school or have any friends that's bad etc.
When it comes to the child being unsafe it's harder. Many things (like car seats) are regulated by other laws that the parents have to follow. Some other situations are obvious (don't use the local crackhouse as a kindergarten while you take drugs).
But pretty soon you come to situations that are much harder to judge. A single parent leaves their kid alone watching a bit to much TV and the neighbour then puts the kid to be for her because she needs to go to her second job so they can pay for rent and food (or maybe to nursing school so she can get a better job if we want a feel good story?) . Is she neglecting the kid? Quite probably. Is the kid better off in foster care? I would think not.
There is a cute video of a dad taking his toddler mountain biking down mountain trails. I personally feel that's unsafe as fuck but the journey that kid has in the 5 minutes of video until he's a teen still running trails with dad is something many would deem to be well worth the not inconsiderable risk. And don't get me started on horses.
Next, on to diets. There are kids that have died because their parents feed them a vegan diet. There are many more that have been malnourished. Does that mean we should stop all children from being vegans? Obviously not, because many vegans can absolutely give their children nutritious food. But if the child is malnourished at check ups or not growing as expected.
Again, it's easy to judge in the now, it's almost impossible to judge preemptively. I completely agree with you that some situations are easy to judge, and others are a lot more nuanced. I think that vaccinating children ought to be a very easy decision and therefore a very easy situation to judge, provided we're not looking at a rare complication where a child is immunocompromised / can't have the vaccine (which is separate from the anti-vaxxer conversation). Finally vaccinations.
First of all vaccination schedules are (usually) based on current consensus. That changes over time. New vaccines are introduced, some are discontinued. It's often, but not always right. There are (very minor) risks. And for many of the things we vaccinate against the risk for the child if they get the disease is often low. They can die, but they usually don't. While it's true that the vaccination schedule for children may slightly change over time, that doesn't mean it should be thrown out altogether. It means we should be aware of what the best medical practices are, look at the current scientific consensus, and consult with experts. That's precisely why pediatricians exist, and it's also why there exist many pediatricians' offices who won't accept anti-vaxxer parents (because they not only endanger their own children, but they also endanger other sick patients who might be in the waiting room at the same time, especially babies who aren't old enough yet to receive certain vaccines). And the use of vaccines have to be weighed against things like cultural and religious factors and how that will affect the family. This may be a significant point of disagreement between us, but while I believe in the freedom of religion and cultural expression, I don't believe those freedoms extend to endangering others. If an anti-vaxxer parent said that the reason they refuse to vaccinate their child is because of the parent's religion or culture, then I would say that's not a good justification. I think if a person wants to risk their own health or safety based on their beliefs, then that's their prerogative, but I don't think they should be allowed to risk the health or safety of others, including their own children, even if it's for religious or cultural reasons. So who gets to decide which vaccines the child has to take? Someone has to make the choice. The child is healthy and safe, and the risks for not taking the vaccines are fairly low.
If we decide that person can decide which vaccines children has to take, should they also decide on other pre-emptive measures? Diet? Maybe health camp?
Should we just preemptively stop some people from having children (very common historically)?
For me the answer is very obvious.
Parents have an obligation to take care of their child, and they make the decisions the best they can. The are governed by some laws but often they come from regulating other things which does not violate this principle. The decision making process is complex and governed by a multitude of things that the government can't account for which makes the parents the sole reasonable entity to make these decisions. Further the parents have both the right to their child, and the child has a right to its parents.
The government steps in when something goes wrong, but not before. Many countries already have varying levels of vaccine mandates, with certain negative consequences and penalties if they're not followed (including in the United States, where children need certain vaccines like MMR in order to attend public school, because the risk of not being vaccinated can actually be pretty dangerous in a group setting if herd immunity isn't reached). Would you consider this MMR vaccine mandate for public schools to be an example of the government stepping in before something goes wrong? Do you agree or disagree with this mandate? I think we should look to medical experts when deciding which vaccines ought to be mandatory as opposed to just recommended or optional. I don't think that following vaccination schedules will lead to the slippery slope of mandating universal diets or forcing people to not have children. I do agree with you that parents have an obligation to take care of their children, and I understand that parents take care of their children in many different ways. I'd like to think I'm pretty flexible with most parenting approaches, but not vaccinating children is definitely an exception for me. I believe the parental obligation is not being met if they're anti-vaxxers, because then they're necessarily not "making the decisions the best they can". I fully agree with a vaccine mandate that requires vaccination to attend public school (or work in certain fields). I think it's both logical and fair. I'm also extremely pro vaccination and think the government should spend significant resources in order to insure vaccination. A well run vaccination program is essential for any country. The government and the medical field should absolutely try to convince parents to vaccinate their kids, and not doing so might limit some options for the family. I just don't think the government should force that decision on the parents. You feel very strongly about vaccination. But you have to admit that forcing parents to do something to their child that isn't immediately required for it's well being even when the child is healthy and well taken care of and even if the family is very much against it is not a small thing. In fact it's pretty huge. Exactly what you are forcing them to do is less of an issue. I also don't think you have worked enough with small children in a medical setting to appreciate how traumatizing things could get. If the family is truly anti-vax at the end of the day you are using police to haul in a 5 year old to get a shot which the poor kid thinks will kill them. End result a traumatised child and a family which will never trust the government or healthcare ever again. Most anti-vaxers will reconsider given enough support/information and if it meaningfully impacts their life in any way. "What do you mean I have to drive 20 miles to this school, I want him to go to the local school with his cousins!". The die hard ones I'm not sure it's worth to force into it even if I wasn't against it on a principal level.
I'm glad we agree on another point - public school vaccine mandates. And even though we're disagreeing on some of the bigger points, reading your perspective is helping me to learn more about this subject and different opinions reasonable people might have, so thank you for that.
Just a reminder that my original question was whether or not anti-vaxxer parents should experience any sort of consequences for their inaction, not insisting that police officers need to kidnap unvaccinated children. Unvaccinated children sadly have to experience negative consequences even though it's not their fault (like being limited to where they can go to school), so I find it unfair if the actual people creating the problem - the anti-vaxxer parents - don't have to experience any sort of punishment too. A tax perhaps? Maybe a mandatory learning session on the efficacy of vaccines? I don't know exactly, but anti-vaxxer parents getting away with their inaction without even the slightest pushback, slap on the wrist, or educational opportunity just doesn't sit right with me.
I guess it's worth adding that if a child is worried that a vaccine is going to kill them, that's not the fault of the child or a police officer or a pediatrician or a government mandate; it's the sole fault of whoever brainwashed the child (which would probably be the anti-vaxxer parent). The brainwasher is responsible for enabling that trauma.
I agree with you that persuading or forcing the "die hard" anti-vaxxers would be the most difficult thing to do, and I can only gauge whether or not it's worth it by figuring out how close we are to the required herd immunity thresholds for protecting the population from certain diseases. We need to at least reach those percentages. If herd immunity from a certain preventable, communicable disease is 80%, but only 70% of the population is currently willing to take that vaccine, something must be done to get another 10% on board. I'm all for starting with the most gentle, positive, and educational approaches first (carrots before sticks), and I'm not suggesting we kidnap unvaccinated people or permanently remove kids from anti-vaxxer households, but we can't just sit idly by and wait for people to inevitably get hurt, just so we can characterize our eventual action as a response instead of a preventative measure.
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On May 05 2026 05:44 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 03:52 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 05 2026 03:37 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 02:59 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 02:43 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 01:56 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 00:03 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 21:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 04 2026 21:45 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 18:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
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Can you please provide your source that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive communities? Should be "insular," but yeah. The pattern should be well known by now. 2018 New York outbreak by the insular orthodox jewish community . The modern record-shattering 2025 Canadian outbreak was among Mennonites in New Brunswick. This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community". Ukraine itself had a well-publicized vaccine death case in 2008 that led to low measles/MMR vaccinations in Ukraine, and part of this health response was "translat[ing] measles fact sheets and vaccine information into Ukrainian and Russian". So when I read into this case late last year, the details in the news made sense. On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:
That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive insular communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Yeah I understand you meant "insular" Some of those links are irrelevant to my question, and the two that are relevant seem to be paywalled ("This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community".") Would you mind copy/pasting the relevant info from those two links that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive/insular communities? I don't know the website rules here for the clever use of dodging paywalls or copyright infringement by posting articles in full. The internet has many wonderful and powerful tools. On May 04 2026 23:08 Billyboy wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 13:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
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The United States's anti-vaxxer problem is much bigger than that. I can't speak to Canada's situation, but in the United States, Republican leaders and activists (including Donald Trump and RFK Jr.) have actively made concerted efforts to spread anti-vaxxer bullshit and vaccine misinformation. They are absolutely contributing to vaccine hesitancy and enabling these outbreaks. Their words and actions are literally pro-disease, whether it's pro-covid or pro-flu or pro-measles. They have been contradicting the health experts and medical communities. I'm glad that Canada's leadership apparently isn't this devastatingly dangerous, but in the United States it's not *only* the Mennonite community being hit hard. That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Sorry, your Canada point does not hold water. The places in Canada, such as exactly where I live and work, are the few MAGA hot beds in Canada. We did always have the religious sects that were low vaccination rates, however we even had some success increasing uptake in those communities before MAGA. The thing is that you can have some outliers that don’t and it doesn’t impact the system until the tipping point is reached. Which happened here when all the MAGA sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. The silver lining is between Epstein, drastically rising fuel costs and insane fertilizer costs, Trumps popularity is at all time low around here. Outside of one place that looks like a MAGA circus, I have not seen Trump merch in a while. The scary part is all these people’s thoughts are so easily manipulated by whoever they think is cool that who knows who they will latch onto next. And I really doubt it’s an evidence based decision maker. I'm sure you can mash it all up into a MAGA story about MAGA sheeple in MAGA Canada if that's your particular axe to grind. I brought it up because the partisanship-influenced monocausal narrative misses an important story on past major outbreaks and this South Carolina one that is just ending. It points to the sort of outreach that is necessary, and focused on saving lives rather than settling political grudges and assigning blame. When I read "the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower" ... I don't immediately go This story doesn't hold water, because where I live and work in Canada is a MAGA hot bed and those sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. If we're all grumbling at the bar about RFK Jr and conspiracies and irresponsible parents, sure I'll be partially on board, but I'm not under any misapprehensions on the actual level of engagement with the topic. The article just isn’t that accurate. The mennonites are a small portion, there is Hutterites and other religious sects which tons of people confuse or think are the same thing but they are really quite different. The Hutterites live on colonies where all the power is held between the minister and general manager where as the Mennonite’s live as family units in their own places. The Mennonites here are also mostly from Mexico, where as the Hutterites have been here for generations. And the colonies are super wealthy (like worth 30-100s of millions) even though very few in the colony have access to that wealth and the Mennonites for the most part are quite poor and generally work as labour in farms. That aside, the reason why MAGA gets the blame is those people have existed in the same proportions for a long time. And until the MAGA people joined them it did not impact the system as a whole because of how herd immunity works. Now with the MAGA joined in, herd immunity fails and we get all the out breaks. And the issues are not just those who die from it, but just the pressure it puts on the system because where it is happening isn’t in cities or anywhere close. So an outbreak puts huge pressure on these small town emergent health care facilities as well as the smaller cities hospitals for the more severe cases. This is all compounded because we have a real shortage of doctors that are willing to work in these remote areas to begin with. And even for recruiting Im sure you can imagine that for highly educated doctors it’s not super fun to have people calling horrible things because of a stupid YouTube video they watched. Or even not being horrible and just taking the advice of some self interested YouTuber over the doctor. My issue is that even if MAGA goes away, these people have learned nothing and they will just latch onto what ever the next stupid populist trend is. And it will likely continue the same problems or create new ones with what ever is the new crazy take that sucks in these people. Do you have some original research of your own on how the 2025 Canada measles outbreak was reported as central to Mennonite communities, but in reality the Hutterites were just as involved? I'm failing to find anything on the matter as you state it. For the Mennonites, articles had Canadian health workers that specifically work with Mennonites and the Low German language difficulties. I find it difficult to believe that such a story was missed by Canadian media, if true, and international media. It sounds like you're making a specious argument that a historically low-vaccinated group would not have had a measles outbreak but for the modern Canadian MAGA movement. I think you're giving Maple MAGA a little too much credit. How about a historically low-vaccinated group was bound to have an outbreak with or without a modern trend in vaccine hesitancy, and stay in sane avenues like it's wider spread was made worse post-COVID19 vaccine skepticism, some of which is surely political. Hutterites also speak low German and most people. including those like 4 hours away by driving, just lump them all into the same category. You also can't tell until you ask if someone is Mexican Mennonite or has been here for generations. Accent won't help you because both groups have the low German accent and equally as white. I thought one of their distinguishing characteristics is that Hutterites speak Upper German and Mennonites speak Low German? Please explain. Take AI for what its worth but when I asked if Mennonites and Hutterites are grouped together for medical studies it said. Yes, Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amish are frequently grouped together in medical and genetic studies under the collective term "Anabaptist" or "Plain People" populations.While they are separate cultural and religious groups, they are combined in research because they share characteristics that make them ideal for genetic studies: I don't know what you're on about with this. I'm reading primary source interviews with people working directly with Mennonites. Since I want to know what happened and why. Just a fluke the matter of time ended up happening exactly at the same time as all the MAGA crew stopped vaccinating.
The reality is this area always had low vaccination rates compared to most places in Canada. So we worked really hard on getting all those without "religious" reasons for not vaccinating to do so. What changed was people starting taking their medical advice online from "influencers" instead of doctors and that has fucked us over. And huge percentage of those people are MAGA. Let's leave the "Quite the coincidence" and "Just asking questions" for the groups we're describing, not gorging ourselves on it ourselves. I'm not a fan. The uncertainty is not open season to assign our own preferred outcast group to the primary culprit. For example, if you look at the purported patient zero, a Canadian woman traveling in Thailand returning to a wedding, she said "I always thought, ‘Oh, most of those diseases are not really around anymore. It never really crossed my mind that I would get something that was actually serious." ( Globe and Mail) Maybe a closeted Maple MAGA or just genuine lack of knowledge on deadly and contagious disease? I'd say a hundred different reasons could be proposed. You're simply leading with your prejudice. Humans are still more complicated that the political simplifications that are about a dozen per page in these parts. In summary, your point at large seems to be "MAGA didn't invent antivaxxing. Sure, they made/make it worse, but you're trying to blame the straw that broke the camel's back for the whole weight of the load" if I don't misunderstand you? I don't find that difficult at all to agree with. There's probably an argument to make that my framing of a metaphorical 'straw' undervalues maga's contributions, but I like the imagery nonetheless. I don’t hate your summary either, just that the straw is actually a giant log. The reason MAGA takes more heat is because they are the new ones to the party and people have more sympathy for religious concerns than ones based on stupidity. There is also a lot more hope on being about to change their mind than those who have always been against it. I’m not sure that is true, very few seem to get out of the rabbit hole, and those that do seem to jump into another one.
Yeah, I think the point you two are at in the discussion is dyhb asking you to 'quantify the log' so to speak, and you (seemingly?) only being able to allude to personal anecdote.
Which is fine, it's just not a particularly compelling argument. MAGA promotes and endorses stupidity a ton. You and dyhb agree on that point. Where you seem to disagree is that dyhb is saying "Maybe MAGA only added to the stupidity already present here, and blaming MAGA outright feels politically motivated" and you replying "No its definitely MAGA's fault".
'quantify the log' seems like where the discussion is at.
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On May 05 2026 05:48 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 05:11 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 03:47 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 03:37 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 02:59 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 02:43 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 01:56 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 00:03 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 21:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Yeah I understand you meant "insular" Some of those links are irrelevant to my question, and the two that are relevant seem to be paywalled ("This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community".") Would you mind copy/pasting the relevant info from those two links that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive/insular communities? I don't know the website rules here for the clever use of dodging paywalls or copyright infringement by posting articles in full. The internet has many wonderful and powerful tools. On May 04 2026 23:08 Billyboy wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:
[quote]That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Sorry, your Canada point does not hold water. The places in Canada, such as exactly where I live and work, are the few MAGA hot beds in Canada. We did always have the religious sects that were low vaccination rates, however we even had some success increasing uptake in those communities before MAGA. The thing is that you can have some outliers that don’t and it doesn’t impact the system until the tipping point is reached. Which happened here when all the MAGA sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. The silver lining is between Epstein, drastically rising fuel costs and insane fertilizer costs, Trumps popularity is at all time low around here. Outside of one place that looks like a MAGA circus, I have not seen Trump merch in a while. The scary part is all these people’s thoughts are so easily manipulated by whoever they think is cool that who knows who they will latch onto next. And I really doubt it’s an evidence based decision maker. I'm sure you can mash it all up into a MAGA story about MAGA sheeple in MAGA Canada if that's your particular axe to grind. I brought it up because the partisanship-influenced monocausal narrative misses an important story on past major outbreaks and this South Carolina one that is just ending. It points to the sort of outreach that is necessary, and focused on saving lives rather than settling political grudges and assigning blame. When I read "the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower" ... I don't immediately go This story doesn't hold water, because where I live and work in Canada is a MAGA hot bed and those sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. If we're all grumbling at the bar about RFK Jr and conspiracies and irresponsible parents, sure I'll be partially on board, but I'm not under any misapprehensions on the actual level of engagement with the topic. The article just isn’t that accurate. The mennonites are a small portion, there is Hutterites and other religious sects which tons of people confuse or think are the same thing but they are really quite different. The Hutterites live on colonies where all the power is held between the minister and general manager where as the Mennonite’s live as family units in their own places. The Mennonites here are also mostly from Mexico, where as the Hutterites have been here for generations. And the colonies are super wealthy (like worth 30-100s of millions) even though very few in the colony have access to that wealth and the Mennonites for the most part are quite poor and generally work as labour in farms. That aside, the reason why MAGA gets the blame is those people have existed in the same proportions for a long time. And until the MAGA people joined them it did not impact the system as a whole because of how herd immunity works. Now with the MAGA joined in, herd immunity fails and we get all the out breaks. And the issues are not just those who die from it, but just the pressure it puts on the system because where it is happening isn’t in cities or anywhere close. So an outbreak puts huge pressure on these small town emergent health care facilities as well as the smaller cities hospitals for the more severe cases. This is all compounded because we have a real shortage of doctors that are willing to work in these remote areas to begin with. And even for recruiting Im sure you can imagine that for highly educated doctors it’s not super fun to have people calling horrible things because of a stupid YouTube video they watched. Or even not being horrible and just taking the advice of some self interested YouTuber over the doctor. My issue is that even if MAGA goes away, these people have learned nothing and they will just latch onto what ever the next stupid populist trend is. And it will likely continue the same problems or create new ones with what ever is the new crazy take that sucks in these people. Do you have some original research of your own on how the 2025 Canada measles outbreak was reported as central to Mennonite communities, but in reality the Hutterites were just as involved? I'm failing to find anything on the matter as you state it. For the Mennonites, articles had Canadian health workers that specifically work with Mennonites and the Low German language difficulties. I find it difficult to believe that such a story was missed by Canadian media, if true, and international media. It sounds like you're making a specious argument that a historically low-vaccinated group would not have had a measles outbreak but for the modern Canadian MAGA movement. I think you're giving Maple MAGA a little too much credit. How about a historically low-vaccinated group was bound to have an outbreak with or without a modern trend in vaccine hesitancy, and stay in sane avenues like it's wider spread was made worse post-COVID19 vaccine skepticism, some of which is surely political. Hutterites also speak low German and most people. including those like 4 hours away by driving, just lump them all into the same category. You also can't tell until you ask if someone is Mexican Mennonite or has been here for generations. Accent won't help you because both groups have the low German accent and equally as white. I thought one of their distinguishing characteristics is that Hutterites speak Upper German and Mennonites speak Low German? Please explain. Take AI for what its worth but when I asked if Mennonites and Hutterites are grouped together for medical studies it said. Yes, Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amish are frequently grouped together in medical and genetic studies under the collective term "Anabaptist" or "Plain People" populations.While they are separate cultural and religious groups, they are combined in research because they share characteristics that make them ideal for genetic studies: I don't know what you're on about with this. I'm reading primary source interviews with people working directly with Mennonites. Since I want to know what happened and why. Just a fluke the matter of time ended up happening exactly at the same time as all the MAGA crew stopped vaccinating.
The reality is this area always had low vaccination rates compared to most places in Canada. So we worked really hard on getting all those without "religious" reasons for not vaccinating to do so. What changed was people starting taking their medical advice online from "influencers" instead of doctors and that has fucked us over. And huge percentage of those people are MAGA. Let's leave the "Quite the coincidence" and "Just asking questions" for the groups we're describing, not gorging ourselves on it ourselves. I'm not a fan. The uncertainty is not open season to assign our own preferred outcast group to the primary culprit. For example, if you look at the purported patient zero, a Canadian woman traveling in Thailand returning to a wedding, she said "I always thought, ‘Oh, most of those diseases are not really around anymore. It never really crossed my mind that I would get something that was actually serious." ( Globe and Mail) Maybe a closeted Maple MAGA or just genuine lack of knowledge on deadly and contagious disease? I'd say a hundred different reasons could be proposed. You're simply leading with your prejudice. Humans are still more complicated that the political simplifications that are about a dozen per page in these parts. If you think the biggest difference is the language you clearly have not spent any time with either group. The groups are wildly different. Yes, that a whole bunch of people who vaccinated before, and are not vaccinating now being the cause of outbreaks is totally just prejudice. You looking at something that quacks, walks, flys, and shits like a duck and saying no it is not a duck, is the prejudice mate. I don't know what you're on, but "one of their distinguishing characteristics" is not "the biggest difference is their language." So I'll just have to repeat: When you said "Hutterites also speak low German" did you mean to say something different? I'm still not on board with the dealer's choice theory of explanations that you adopt. The best you have, at least the sanest you have, is that Maple MAGA didn't help matters. What you're trying to meander yourself towards is the same conspiracist's playpen of "quite the coincidence" and "just asking questions." On May 05 2026 03:52 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 05 2026 03:37 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 02:59 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 02:43 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 01:56 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 00:03 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 21:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Yeah I understand you meant "insular" Some of those links are irrelevant to my question, and the two that are relevant seem to be paywalled ("This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community".") Would you mind copy/pasting the relevant info from those two links that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive/insular communities? I don't know the website rules here for the clever use of dodging paywalls or copyright infringement by posting articles in full. The internet has many wonderful and powerful tools. On May 04 2026 23:08 Billyboy wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:
[quote]That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Sorry, your Canada point does not hold water. The places in Canada, such as exactly where I live and work, are the few MAGA hot beds in Canada. We did always have the religious sects that were low vaccination rates, however we even had some success increasing uptake in those communities before MAGA. The thing is that you can have some outliers that don’t and it doesn’t impact the system until the tipping point is reached. Which happened here when all the MAGA sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. The silver lining is between Epstein, drastically rising fuel costs and insane fertilizer costs, Trumps popularity is at all time low around here. Outside of one place that looks like a MAGA circus, I have not seen Trump merch in a while. The scary part is all these people’s thoughts are so easily manipulated by whoever they think is cool that who knows who they will latch onto next. And I really doubt it’s an evidence based decision maker. I'm sure you can mash it all up into a MAGA story about MAGA sheeple in MAGA Canada if that's your particular axe to grind. I brought it up because the partisanship-influenced monocausal narrative misses an important story on past major outbreaks and this South Carolina one that is just ending. It points to the sort of outreach that is necessary, and focused on saving lives rather than settling political grudges and assigning blame. When I read "the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower" ... I don't immediately go This story doesn't hold water, because where I live and work in Canada is a MAGA hot bed and those sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. If we're all grumbling at the bar about RFK Jr and conspiracies and irresponsible parents, sure I'll be partially on board, but I'm not under any misapprehensions on the actual level of engagement with the topic. The article just isn’t that accurate. The mennonites are a small portion, there is Hutterites and other religious sects which tons of people confuse or think are the same thing but they are really quite different. The Hutterites live on colonies where all the power is held between the minister and general manager where as the Mennonite’s live as family units in their own places. The Mennonites here are also mostly from Mexico, where as the Hutterites have been here for generations. And the colonies are super wealthy (like worth 30-100s of millions) even though very few in the colony have access to that wealth and the Mennonites for the most part are quite poor and generally work as labour in farms. That aside, the reason why MAGA gets the blame is those people have existed in the same proportions for a long time. And until the MAGA people joined them it did not impact the system as a whole because of how herd immunity works. Now with the MAGA joined in, herd immunity fails and we get all the out breaks. And the issues are not just those who die from it, but just the pressure it puts on the system because where it is happening isn’t in cities or anywhere close. So an outbreak puts huge pressure on these small town emergent health care facilities as well as the smaller cities hospitals for the more severe cases. This is all compounded because we have a real shortage of doctors that are willing to work in these remote areas to begin with. And even for recruiting Im sure you can imagine that for highly educated doctors it’s not super fun to have people calling horrible things because of a stupid YouTube video they watched. Or even not being horrible and just taking the advice of some self interested YouTuber over the doctor. My issue is that even if MAGA goes away, these people have learned nothing and they will just latch onto what ever the next stupid populist trend is. And it will likely continue the same problems or create new ones with what ever is the new crazy take that sucks in these people. Do you have some original research of your own on how the 2025 Canada measles outbreak was reported as central to Mennonite communities, but in reality the Hutterites were just as involved? I'm failing to find anything on the matter as you state it. For the Mennonites, articles had Canadian health workers that specifically work with Mennonites and the Low German language difficulties. I find it difficult to believe that such a story was missed by Canadian media, if true, and international media. It sounds like you're making a specious argument that a historically low-vaccinated group would not have had a measles outbreak but for the modern Canadian MAGA movement. I think you're giving Maple MAGA a little too much credit. How about a historically low-vaccinated group was bound to have an outbreak with or without a modern trend in vaccine hesitancy, and stay in sane avenues like it's wider spread was made worse post-COVID19 vaccine skepticism, some of which is surely political. Hutterites also speak low German and most people. including those like 4 hours away by driving, just lump them all into the same category. You also can't tell until you ask if someone is Mexican Mennonite or has been here for generations. Accent won't help you because both groups have the low German accent and equally as white. I thought one of their distinguishing characteristics is that Hutterites speak Upper German and Mennonites speak Low German? Please explain. Take AI for what its worth but when I asked if Mennonites and Hutterites are grouped together for medical studies it said. Yes, Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amish are frequently grouped together in medical and genetic studies under the collective term "Anabaptist" or "Plain People" populations.While they are separate cultural and religious groups, they are combined in research because they share characteristics that make them ideal for genetic studies: I don't know what you're on about with this. I'm reading primary source interviews with people working directly with Mennonites. Since I want to know what happened and why. Just a fluke the matter of time ended up happening exactly at the same time as all the MAGA crew stopped vaccinating.
The reality is this area always had low vaccination rates compared to most places in Canada. So we worked really hard on getting all those without "religious" reasons for not vaccinating to do so. What changed was people starting taking their medical advice online from "influencers" instead of doctors and that has fucked us over. And huge percentage of those people are MAGA. Let's leave the "Quite the coincidence" and "Just asking questions" for the groups we're describing, not gorging ourselves on it ourselves. I'm not a fan. The uncertainty is not open season to assign our own preferred outcast group to the primary culprit. For example, if you look at the purported patient zero, a Canadian woman traveling in Thailand returning to a wedding, she said "I always thought, ‘Oh, most of those diseases are not really around anymore. It never really crossed my mind that I would get something that was actually serious." ( Globe and Mail) Maybe a closeted Maple MAGA or just genuine lack of knowledge on deadly and contagious disease? I'd say a hundred different reasons could be proposed. You're simply leading with your prejudice. Humans are still more complicated that the political simplifications that are about a dozen per page in these parts. In summary, your point at large seems to be "MAGA didn't invent antivaxxing. Sure, they made/make it worse, but you're trying to blame the straw that broke the camel's back for the whole weight of the load" if I don't misunderstand you? I don't find that difficult at all to agree with. There's probably an argument to make that my framing of a metaphorical 'straw' undervalues maga's contributions, but I like the imagery nonetheless. It's the same stuff from "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." We're humans, we like stories or "narratives", so we see X story that confirms all our political priors, and instantly it's this community lies dead, wounded, and crying because of the evil political people that I hate, example 100. The evidence I could find is that bland Canadian girl didn't think measles was still a thing, and the same insular communities you see regularly appear in contagious disease outbreaks are once again involved. But there could've been dozens or hundreds of trucker protest people that served as the vital link between dumb Canadian traveling abroad and mennonite communities in ontario and alberta. Maybe, but that sounds like a conclusion in search of evidence to support it instead of the other way around. I approach it with skepticism. People are complicated and politics tries its damnedest to apply simple categories to vast swathes of humanity in order to uncomplicate them. The complicated topic is how to reach insular communities, often religiously insular communities, in order to vaccinate in a humane and effective manner. If you're willing to empathize with religious freedoms and people that aren't politically sophisticated or conform to modern society. But let's say you're willing to be skeptical about the high-dudgeon claims without tossing them out. That opens up the story to all kinds of interesting stories that aren't national two-party politics 24/7. How South Carolina could reach Ukrainian and Russian-speaking immigrant communities centered around churches before the next outbreak omg south carolina has a Republican governor so who knows what his appointees in the health department are potentially hiding. What impact travel among mennonites from US and Mexico and Canada has on spread, in 2025 and later (ex some Texas mennonites travel to rural Mexican communities). Potential future laws and outreach programs and guarding against intrusions on freedoms. The skepticism comes in handy when equally-passionate right-wingers assign their pet cause to Negative Thing In The News with the same hallmarks of 1) what are you gonna call it a coincidence, you idiot? 2) you can't prove to me that it didn't have a significant impact! 3) After this, therefore because of this / hasty generalization (undistributed middle). I think we're a little too quick to rush into unwarranted political explanations, or putting the burden on the other person to prove that politics wasn't involved. Just my lack of knowledge of the various dialects of German. But unlike you I’ll freely admit my mistakes. You clearly know nothing about these people other than what your article and chat gpt told you and now you think you’re an expert. And no, you are wrong. If you change a system inputs and the results change. The first place everyone without bias looks is at the change. That you think it was a magic coincidence is your bias not mine. I stuck pretty close to what we knew and what we didn't know and relied on news articles that I didn't think were in error, but could've been. What I didn't know, I searched for and read more. I don't personally know your familiarity with the history involved.
You have been speculating heavily about things you don't know, so I don't really have anything to add beyond what I said already. I'm sure you are close to people that don't believe, as you do, that Maple MAGA is a malign influence in Canada, and are clearly arguing with them instead of me.
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On May 05 2026 06:19 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 05:44 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 03:52 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 05 2026 03:37 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 02:59 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 02:43 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 01:56 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 00:03 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 21:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Yeah I understand you meant "insular" Some of those links are irrelevant to my question, and the two that are relevant seem to be paywalled ("This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community".") Would you mind copy/pasting the relevant info from those two links that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive/insular communities? I don't know the website rules here for the clever use of dodging paywalls or copyright infringement by posting articles in full. The internet has many wonderful and powerful tools. On May 04 2026 23:08 Billyboy wrote:On May 04 2026 15:12 dyhb wrote:
[quote]That’s why I said that it’s fine to independently criticize Republicans for their contributions while also acknowledging that the specific outbreaks in question are rooted in inclusive communities. I’m also critical of such figures as RFK Jr in their words and actions (they aren’t helping). I bring up Canada to hopefully wean you off of pointing out “bigger problems” in an absolute sense, since 5,000 cases to 2,200 cases would mean a lot of Republicans migrating north prior to 2025. If you’re so sure of major causes, then Canada’s leadership was much inferior to the US last year, which should lead to some humility in assigning the relative important of causes. Sorry, your Canada point does not hold water. The places in Canada, such as exactly where I live and work, are the few MAGA hot beds in Canada. We did always have the religious sects that were low vaccination rates, however we even had some success increasing uptake in those communities before MAGA. The thing is that you can have some outliers that don’t and it doesn’t impact the system until the tipping point is reached. Which happened here when all the MAGA sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. The silver lining is between Epstein, drastically rising fuel costs and insane fertilizer costs, Trumps popularity is at all time low around here. Outside of one place that looks like a MAGA circus, I have not seen Trump merch in a while. The scary part is all these people’s thoughts are so easily manipulated by whoever they think is cool that who knows who they will latch onto next. And I really doubt it’s an evidence based decision maker. I'm sure you can mash it all up into a MAGA story about MAGA sheeple in MAGA Canada if that's your particular axe to grind. I brought it up because the partisanship-influenced monocausal narrative misses an important story on past major outbreaks and this South Carolina one that is just ending. It points to the sort of outreach that is necessary, and focused on saving lives rather than settling political grudges and assigning blame. When I read "the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower" ... I don't immediately go This story doesn't hold water, because where I live and work in Canada is a MAGA hot bed and those sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. If we're all grumbling at the bar about RFK Jr and conspiracies and irresponsible parents, sure I'll be partially on board, but I'm not under any misapprehensions on the actual level of engagement with the topic. The article just isn’t that accurate. The mennonites are a small portion, there is Hutterites and other religious sects which tons of people confuse or think are the same thing but they are really quite different. The Hutterites live on colonies where all the power is held between the minister and general manager where as the Mennonite’s live as family units in their own places. The Mennonites here are also mostly from Mexico, where as the Hutterites have been here for generations. And the colonies are super wealthy (like worth 30-100s of millions) even though very few in the colony have access to that wealth and the Mennonites for the most part are quite poor and generally work as labour in farms. That aside, the reason why MAGA gets the blame is those people have existed in the same proportions for a long time. And until the MAGA people joined them it did not impact the system as a whole because of how herd immunity works. Now with the MAGA joined in, herd immunity fails and we get all the out breaks. And the issues are not just those who die from it, but just the pressure it puts on the system because where it is happening isn’t in cities or anywhere close. So an outbreak puts huge pressure on these small town emergent health care facilities as well as the smaller cities hospitals for the more severe cases. This is all compounded because we have a real shortage of doctors that are willing to work in these remote areas to begin with. And even for recruiting Im sure you can imagine that for highly educated doctors it’s not super fun to have people calling horrible things because of a stupid YouTube video they watched. Or even not being horrible and just taking the advice of some self interested YouTuber over the doctor. My issue is that even if MAGA goes away, these people have learned nothing and they will just latch onto what ever the next stupid populist trend is. And it will likely continue the same problems or create new ones with what ever is the new crazy take that sucks in these people. Do you have some original research of your own on how the 2025 Canada measles outbreak was reported as central to Mennonite communities, but in reality the Hutterites were just as involved? I'm failing to find anything on the matter as you state it. For the Mennonites, articles had Canadian health workers that specifically work with Mennonites and the Low German language difficulties. I find it difficult to believe that such a story was missed by Canadian media, if true, and international media. It sounds like you're making a specious argument that a historically low-vaccinated group would not have had a measles outbreak but for the modern Canadian MAGA movement. I think you're giving Maple MAGA a little too much credit. How about a historically low-vaccinated group was bound to have an outbreak with or without a modern trend in vaccine hesitancy, and stay in sane avenues like it's wider spread was made worse post-COVID19 vaccine skepticism, some of which is surely political. Hutterites also speak low German and most people. including those like 4 hours away by driving, just lump them all into the same category. You also can't tell until you ask if someone is Mexican Mennonite or has been here for generations. Accent won't help you because both groups have the low German accent and equally as white. I thought one of their distinguishing characteristics is that Hutterites speak Upper German and Mennonites speak Low German? Please explain. Take AI for what its worth but when I asked if Mennonites and Hutterites are grouped together for medical studies it said. Yes, Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amish are frequently grouped together in medical and genetic studies under the collective term "Anabaptist" or "Plain People" populations.While they are separate cultural and religious groups, they are combined in research because they share characteristics that make them ideal for genetic studies: I don't know what you're on about with this. I'm reading primary source interviews with people working directly with Mennonites. Since I want to know what happened and why. Just a fluke the matter of time ended up happening exactly at the same time as all the MAGA crew stopped vaccinating.
The reality is this area always had low vaccination rates compared to most places in Canada. So we worked really hard on getting all those without "religious" reasons for not vaccinating to do so. What changed was people starting taking their medical advice online from "influencers" instead of doctors and that has fucked us over. And huge percentage of those people are MAGA. Let's leave the "Quite the coincidence" and "Just asking questions" for the groups we're describing, not gorging ourselves on it ourselves. I'm not a fan. The uncertainty is not open season to assign our own preferred outcast group to the primary culprit. For example, if you look at the purported patient zero, a Canadian woman traveling in Thailand returning to a wedding, she said "I always thought, ‘Oh, most of those diseases are not really around anymore. It never really crossed my mind that I would get something that was actually serious." ( Globe and Mail) Maybe a closeted Maple MAGA or just genuine lack of knowledge on deadly and contagious disease? I'd say a hundred different reasons could be proposed. You're simply leading with your prejudice. Humans are still more complicated that the political simplifications that are about a dozen per page in these parts. In summary, your point at large seems to be "MAGA didn't invent antivaxxing. Sure, they made/make it worse, but you're trying to blame the straw that broke the camel's back for the whole weight of the load" if I don't misunderstand you? I don't find that difficult at all to agree with. There's probably an argument to make that my framing of a metaphorical 'straw' undervalues maga's contributions, but I like the imagery nonetheless. I don’t hate your summary either, just that the straw is actually a giant log. The reason MAGA takes more heat is because they are the new ones to the party and people have more sympathy for religious concerns than ones based on stupidity. There is also a lot more hope on being about to change their mind than those who have always been against it. I’m not sure that is true, very few seem to get out of the rabbit hole, and those that do seem to jump into another one. Yeah, I think the point you two are at in the discussion is dyhb asking you to 'quantify the log' so to speak, and you (seemingly?) only being able to allude to personal anecdote. Which is fine, it's just not a particularly compelling argument. MAGA promotes and endorses stupidity a ton. You and dyhb agree on that point. Where you seem to disagree is that dyhb is saying "Maybe MAGA only added to the stupidity already present here, and blaming MAGA outright feels politically motivated" and you replying "No its definitely MAGA's fault". 'quantify the log' seems like where the discussion is at.
In the south zone of Alberta where the outbreaks are kids getting their second dose was 89% with a target of 90% by 2024 we were down to 71.6%.
The good news is all the efforts around it since the outbreaks we have a 72% increase in doses given. Which should bring us back up.
No one from the health services is going to directly blame MAGA and even stay away from talking about online misinformation. Since the goal is to not make it political. But to quote Don Cherry, it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out what’s going on here.
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On May 05 2026 02:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
This may be a significant point of disagreement between us, but while I believe in the freedom of religion and cultural expression, I don't believe those freedoms extend to endangering others. If an anti-vaxxer parent said that the reason they refuse to vaccinate their child is because of the parent's religion or culture, then I would say that's not a good justification. I think if a person wants to risk their own health or safety based on their beliefs, then that's their prerogative, but I don't think they should be allowed to risk the health or safety of others, including their own children, even if it's for religious or cultural reasons.
You seem to believe in freedom of religion and cultural expression, only as long, as they adhere to your specific worldview.
As for "endangering others" nonsense - you do realise that if you are so much against endangering others, you wouldnt be able to visit a doctor (let alone hospital), or even accept home visit with, lets say viral infection, because you literally endanger every single passerby.
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On May 05 2026 09:12 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 02:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
This may be a significant point of disagreement between us, but while I believe in the freedom of religion and cultural expression, I don't believe those freedoms extend to endangering others. If an anti-vaxxer parent said that the reason they refuse to vaccinate their child is because of the parent's religion or culture, then I would say that's not a good justification. I think if a person wants to risk their own health or safety based on their beliefs, then that's their prerogative, but I don't think they should be allowed to risk the health or safety of others, including their own children, even if it's for religious or cultural reasons.
You seem to believe in freedom of religion and cultural expression, only as long, as they adhere to your specific worldview. As for "endangering others" nonsense - you do realise that if you are so much against endangering others, you wouldnt be able to visit a doctor (let alone hospital), or even accept home visit with, lets say viral infection, because you literally endanger every single passerby.
Being sick with a viral infection isn't a religious belief, but thanks for playing. You tried.
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On May 05 2026 09:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 09:12 Razyda wrote:On May 05 2026 02:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
This may be a significant point of disagreement between us, but while I believe in the freedom of religion and cultural expression, I don't believe those freedoms extend to endangering others. If an anti-vaxxer parent said that the reason they refuse to vaccinate their child is because of the parent's religion or culture, then I would say that's not a good justification. I think if a person wants to risk their own health or safety based on their beliefs, then that's their prerogative, but I don't think they should be allowed to risk the health or safety of others, including their own children, even if it's for religious or cultural reasons.
You seem to believe in freedom of religion and cultural expression, only as long, as they adhere to your specific worldview. As for "endangering others" nonsense - you do realise that if you are so much against endangering others, you wouldnt be able to visit a doctor (let alone hospital), or even accept home visit with, lets say viral infection, because you literally endanger every single passerby. Being sick with a viral infection isn't a religious belief, but thanks for playing. You tried.
Doesn't it still endanger people??
Edit: Because it seems to me that DPB concerns about endangering other people ends when DPB gets flu.
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On May 05 2026 09:53 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 09:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 05 2026 09:12 Razyda wrote:On May 05 2026 02:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
This may be a significant point of disagreement between us, but while I believe in the freedom of religion and cultural expression, I don't believe those freedoms extend to endangering others. If an anti-vaxxer parent said that the reason they refuse to vaccinate their child is because of the parent's religion or culture, then I would say that's not a good justification. I think if a person wants to risk their own health or safety based on their beliefs, then that's their prerogative, but I don't think they should be allowed to risk the health or safety of others, including their own children, even if it's for religious or cultural reasons.
You seem to believe in freedom of religion and cultural expression, only as long, as they adhere to your specific worldview. As for "endangering others" nonsense - you do realise that if you are so much against endangering others, you wouldnt be able to visit a doctor (let alone hospital), or even accept home visit with, lets say viral infection, because you literally endanger every single passerby. Being sick with a viral infection isn't a religious belief, but thanks for playing. You tried. Doesn't it still endanger people?? Edit: Because it seems to me that DPB concerns about endangering other people ends when DPB gets flu.
You had plenty of time to change this second consecutive dumb post. Now it's immortalized in my post.
Have a good night 
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On May 05 2026 07:05 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 06:19 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 05 2026 05:44 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 03:52 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 05 2026 03:37 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 02:59 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 02:43 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 01:56 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 00:03 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 21:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:[quote] Yeah I understand you meant "insular" Some of those links are irrelevant to my question, and the two that are relevant seem to be paywalled ("This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community".") Would you mind copy/pasting the relevant info from those two links that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive/insular communities? I don't know the website rules here for the clever use of dodging paywalls or copyright infringement by posting articles in full. The internet has many wonderful and powerful tools. On May 04 2026 23:08 Billyboy wrote:
[quote]
Sorry, your Canada point does not hold water. The places in Canada, such as exactly where I live and work, are the few MAGA hot beds in Canada. We did always have the religious sects that were low vaccination rates, however we even had some success increasing uptake in those communities before MAGA. The thing is that you can have some outliers that don’t and it doesn’t impact the system until the tipping point is reached. Which happened here when all the MAGA sheeple decided vaccines were not cool.
The silver lining is between Epstein, drastically rising fuel costs and insane fertilizer costs, Trumps popularity is at all time low around here. Outside of one place that looks like a MAGA circus, I have not seen Trump merch in a while. The scary part is all these people’s thoughts are so easily manipulated by whoever they think is cool that who knows who they will latch onto next. And I really doubt it’s an evidence based decision maker. I'm sure you can mash it all up into a MAGA story about MAGA sheeple in MAGA Canada if that's your particular axe to grind. I brought it up because the partisanship-influenced monocausal narrative misses an important story on past major outbreaks and this South Carolina one that is just ending. It points to the sort of outreach that is necessary, and focused on saving lives rather than settling political grudges and assigning blame. When I read "the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower" ... I don't immediately go This story doesn't hold water, because where I live and work in Canada is a MAGA hot bed and those sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. If we're all grumbling at the bar about RFK Jr and conspiracies and irresponsible parents, sure I'll be partially on board, but I'm not under any misapprehensions on the actual level of engagement with the topic. The article just isn’t that accurate. The mennonites are a small portion, there is Hutterites and other religious sects which tons of people confuse or think are the same thing but they are really quite different. The Hutterites live on colonies where all the power is held between the minister and general manager where as the Mennonite’s live as family units in their own places. The Mennonites here are also mostly from Mexico, where as the Hutterites have been here for generations. And the colonies are super wealthy (like worth 30-100s of millions) even though very few in the colony have access to that wealth and the Mennonites for the most part are quite poor and generally work as labour in farms. That aside, the reason why MAGA gets the blame is those people have existed in the same proportions for a long time. And until the MAGA people joined them it did not impact the system as a whole because of how herd immunity works. Now with the MAGA joined in, herd immunity fails and we get all the out breaks. And the issues are not just those who die from it, but just the pressure it puts on the system because where it is happening isn’t in cities or anywhere close. So an outbreak puts huge pressure on these small town emergent health care facilities as well as the smaller cities hospitals for the more severe cases. This is all compounded because we have a real shortage of doctors that are willing to work in these remote areas to begin with. And even for recruiting Im sure you can imagine that for highly educated doctors it’s not super fun to have people calling horrible things because of a stupid YouTube video they watched. Or even not being horrible and just taking the advice of some self interested YouTuber over the doctor. My issue is that even if MAGA goes away, these people have learned nothing and they will just latch onto what ever the next stupid populist trend is. And it will likely continue the same problems or create new ones with what ever is the new crazy take that sucks in these people. Do you have some original research of your own on how the 2025 Canada measles outbreak was reported as central to Mennonite communities, but in reality the Hutterites were just as involved? I'm failing to find anything on the matter as you state it. For the Mennonites, articles had Canadian health workers that specifically work with Mennonites and the Low German language difficulties. I find it difficult to believe that such a story was missed by Canadian media, if true, and international media. It sounds like you're making a specious argument that a historically low-vaccinated group would not have had a measles outbreak but for the modern Canadian MAGA movement. I think you're giving Maple MAGA a little too much credit. How about a historically low-vaccinated group was bound to have an outbreak with or without a modern trend in vaccine hesitancy, and stay in sane avenues like it's wider spread was made worse post-COVID19 vaccine skepticism, some of which is surely political. Hutterites also speak low German and most people. including those like 4 hours away by driving, just lump them all into the same category. You also can't tell until you ask if someone is Mexican Mennonite or has been here for generations. Accent won't help you because both groups have the low German accent and equally as white. I thought one of their distinguishing characteristics is that Hutterites speak Upper German and Mennonites speak Low German? Please explain. Take AI for what its worth but when I asked if Mennonites and Hutterites are grouped together for medical studies it said. Yes, Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amish are frequently grouped together in medical and genetic studies under the collective term "Anabaptist" or "Plain People" populations.While they are separate cultural and religious groups, they are combined in research because they share characteristics that make them ideal for genetic studies: I don't know what you're on about with this. I'm reading primary source interviews with people working directly with Mennonites. Since I want to know what happened and why. Just a fluke the matter of time ended up happening exactly at the same time as all the MAGA crew stopped vaccinating.
The reality is this area always had low vaccination rates compared to most places in Canada. So we worked really hard on getting all those without "religious" reasons for not vaccinating to do so. What changed was people starting taking their medical advice online from "influencers" instead of doctors and that has fucked us over. And huge percentage of those people are MAGA. Let's leave the "Quite the coincidence" and "Just asking questions" for the groups we're describing, not gorging ourselves on it ourselves. I'm not a fan. The uncertainty is not open season to assign our own preferred outcast group to the primary culprit. For example, if you look at the purported patient zero, a Canadian woman traveling in Thailand returning to a wedding, she said "I always thought, ‘Oh, most of those diseases are not really around anymore. It never really crossed my mind that I would get something that was actually serious." ( Globe and Mail) Maybe a closeted Maple MAGA or just genuine lack of knowledge on deadly and contagious disease? I'd say a hundred different reasons could be proposed. You're simply leading with your prejudice. Humans are still more complicated that the political simplifications that are about a dozen per page in these parts. In summary, your point at large seems to be "MAGA didn't invent antivaxxing. Sure, they made/make it worse, but you're trying to blame the straw that broke the camel's back for the whole weight of the load" if I don't misunderstand you? I don't find that difficult at all to agree with. There's probably an argument to make that my framing of a metaphorical 'straw' undervalues maga's contributions, but I like the imagery nonetheless. I don’t hate your summary either, just that the straw is actually a giant log. The reason MAGA takes more heat is because they are the new ones to the party and people have more sympathy for religious concerns than ones based on stupidity. There is also a lot more hope on being about to change their mind than those who have always been against it. I’m not sure that is true, very few seem to get out of the rabbit hole, and those that do seem to jump into another one. Yeah, I think the point you two are at in the discussion is dyhb asking you to 'quantify the log' so to speak, and you (seemingly?) only being able to allude to personal anecdote. Which is fine, it's just not a particularly compelling argument. MAGA promotes and endorses stupidity a ton. You and dyhb agree on that point. Where you seem to disagree is that dyhb is saying "Maybe MAGA only added to the stupidity already present here, and blaming MAGA outright feels politically motivated" and you replying "No its definitely MAGA's fault". 'quantify the log' seems like where the discussion is at. In the south zone of Alberta where the outbreaks are kids getting their second dose was 89% with a target of 90% by 2024 we were down to 71.6%. The good news is all the efforts around it since the outbreaks we have a 72% increase in doses given. Which should bring us back up. No one from the health services is going to directly blame MAGA and even stay away from talking about online misinformation. Since the goal is to not make it political. But to quote Don Cherry, it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out what’s going on here.
Seems pretty reasonable to me. I'd think looking at a study of vaccination rates from ~2014 and comparing them to vaccine rates from today would kind of cement the argument, if you could find those studies.
Very quickly no time :
2014 shows a mean of 57.3
cbc suggests comparable numbers in 2024
* Have not vetted the article/paper or read deeply, don't have the time to right now. Just trying to help prod the argument along - am curious how it goes.
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This idea that is fine to do stuff like go unvaccinated because it's your life or whatever doesn't work at the macro scale. We saw it with COVID, when the system is overwhelmed, more people die because they couldn't access healthcare when they needed it. Some personal sacrifices do need to be made so other people don't die. I appreciate that this is a controversial opinion in America, but to me this is symptomatic of your whole societal approach and why I don't think socialism (or any collectivist approach) has any hope of succeeding in the current US context. You need to actually give a shit about others for a society to function.
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Thankfully (and surprisingly), the Supreme Court has just made a (temporary, one-week) ruling in favor of a key aspect of women's reproductive rights:
Supreme Court restores access to abortion pill mifepristone through telehealth, mail and pharmacies
The Supreme Court on Monday restored broad access to the abortion pill mifepristone, blocking a lower-court ruling that had threatened to upend one of the main ways abortions are provided across the nation. The order signed by Justice Samuel Alito temporarily allows women seeking abortions to obtain the pill at pharmacies or through the mail, without an in-person visit to a doctor. Those practices had been permitted for several years until a federal appeals court imposed new restrictions last week.
The latest order will remain in effect for another week while both sides respond and the high court considers the issue more fully.
The majority of abortions in the U.S. are obtained through medications. Some Democratic-led states have laws that seek to give legal protection to those who prescribe the drugs via telehealth to patients in states with bans. Those prescriptions have blunted the impact of abortion bans that most Republican-led states have sought to enforce since the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. One recent report suggested that in the 13 states where abortion is banned at all stages of pregnancy, more women obtained abortions with pills prescribed by telehealth last year than by traveling to other states. https://apnews.com/article/abortion-pills-mifepristone-supreme-court-louisiana-0533e83d67148fdfec53b1d0d30c1e8a
The article above also shows a national map of which states have implemented abortion restrictions at "All stages of pregnancy" vs. "6-8 weeks, cardiac detection" vs. "12-18 weeks" vs. "20 weeks or later". Predictably, conservative states tend to start abortion restrictions earlier in pregnancy, whereas liberal states tend to start abortion restrictions later.
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On May 05 2026 07:05 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2026 06:19 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 05 2026 05:44 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 03:52 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 05 2026 03:37 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 02:59 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 02:43 dyhb wrote:On May 05 2026 01:56 Billyboy wrote:On May 05 2026 00:03 dyhb wrote:On May 04 2026 21:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:[quote] Yeah I understand you meant "insular" Some of those links are irrelevant to my question, and the two that are relevant seem to be paywalled ("This one was rooted in Russian and Ukrainian communities of south carolina, "a close-knit, evangelical Slavic community".") Would you mind copy/pasting the relevant info from those two links that the outbreak of ~1,000 cases of measles in South Carolina is rooted in inclusive/insular communities? I don't know the website rules here for the clever use of dodging paywalls or copyright infringement by posting articles in full. The internet has many wonderful and powerful tools. On May 04 2026 23:08 Billyboy wrote:
[quote]
Sorry, your Canada point does not hold water. The places in Canada, such as exactly where I live and work, are the few MAGA hot beds in Canada. We did always have the religious sects that were low vaccination rates, however we even had some success increasing uptake in those communities before MAGA. The thing is that you can have some outliers that don’t and it doesn’t impact the system until the tipping point is reached. Which happened here when all the MAGA sheeple decided vaccines were not cool.
The silver lining is between Epstein, drastically rising fuel costs and insane fertilizer costs, Trumps popularity is at all time low around here. Outside of one place that looks like a MAGA circus, I have not seen Trump merch in a while. The scary part is all these people’s thoughts are so easily manipulated by whoever they think is cool that who knows who they will latch onto next. And I really doubt it’s an evidence based decision maker. I'm sure you can mash it all up into a MAGA story about MAGA sheeple in MAGA Canada if that's your particular axe to grind. I brought it up because the partisanship-influenced monocausal narrative misses an important story on past major outbreaks and this South Carolina one that is just ending. It points to the sort of outreach that is necessary, and focused on saving lives rather than settling political grudges and assigning blame. When I read "the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower" ... I don't immediately go This story doesn't hold water, because where I live and work in Canada is a MAGA hot bed and those sheeple decided vaccines were not cool. If we're all grumbling at the bar about RFK Jr and conspiracies and irresponsible parents, sure I'll be partially on board, but I'm not under any misapprehensions on the actual level of engagement with the topic. The article just isn’t that accurate. The mennonites are a small portion, there is Hutterites and other religious sects which tons of people confuse or think are the same thing but they are really quite different. The Hutterites live on colonies where all the power is held between the minister and general manager where as the Mennonite’s live as family units in their own places. The Mennonites here are also mostly from Mexico, where as the Hutterites have been here for generations. And the colonies are super wealthy (like worth 30-100s of millions) even though very few in the colony have access to that wealth and the Mennonites for the most part are quite poor and generally work as labour in farms. That aside, the reason why MAGA gets the blame is those people have existed in the same proportions for a long time. And until the MAGA people joined them it did not impact the system as a whole because of how herd immunity works. Now with the MAGA joined in, herd immunity fails and we get all the out breaks. And the issues are not just those who die from it, but just the pressure it puts on the system because where it is happening isn’t in cities or anywhere close. So an outbreak puts huge pressure on these small town emergent health care facilities as well as the smaller cities hospitals for the more severe cases. This is all compounded because we have a real shortage of doctors that are willing to work in these remote areas to begin with. And even for recruiting Im sure you can imagine that for highly educated doctors it’s not super fun to have people calling horrible things because of a stupid YouTube video they watched. Or even not being horrible and just taking the advice of some self interested YouTuber over the doctor. My issue is that even if MAGA goes away, these people have learned nothing and they will just latch onto what ever the next stupid populist trend is. And it will likely continue the same problems or create new ones with what ever is the new crazy take that sucks in these people. Do you have some original research of your own on how the 2025 Canada measles outbreak was reported as central to Mennonite communities, but in reality the Hutterites were just as involved? I'm failing to find anything on the matter as you state it. For the Mennonites, articles had Canadian health workers that specifically work with Mennonites and the Low German language difficulties. I find it difficult to believe that such a story was missed by Canadian media, if true, and international media. It sounds like you're making a specious argument that a historically low-vaccinated group would not have had a measles outbreak but for the modern Canadian MAGA movement. I think you're giving Maple MAGA a little too much credit. How about a historically low-vaccinated group was bound to have an outbreak with or without a modern trend in vaccine hesitancy, and stay in sane avenues like it's wider spread was made worse post-COVID19 vaccine skepticism, some of which is surely political. Hutterites also speak low German and most people. including those like 4 hours away by driving, just lump them all into the same category. You also can't tell until you ask if someone is Mexican Mennonite or has been here for generations. Accent won't help you because both groups have the low German accent and equally as white. I thought one of their distinguishing characteristics is that Hutterites speak Upper German and Mennonites speak Low German? Please explain. Take AI for what its worth but when I asked if Mennonites and Hutterites are grouped together for medical studies it said. Yes, Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amish are frequently grouped together in medical and genetic studies under the collective term "Anabaptist" or "Plain People" populations.While they are separate cultural and religious groups, they are combined in research because they share characteristics that make them ideal for genetic studies: I don't know what you're on about with this. I'm reading primary source interviews with people working directly with Mennonites. Since I want to know what happened and why. Just a fluke the matter of time ended up happening exactly at the same time as all the MAGA crew stopped vaccinating.
The reality is this area always had low vaccination rates compared to most places in Canada. So we worked really hard on getting all those without "religious" reasons for not vaccinating to do so. What changed was people starting taking their medical advice online from "influencers" instead of doctors and that has fucked us over. And huge percentage of those people are MAGA. Let's leave the "Quite the coincidence" and "Just asking questions" for the groups we're describing, not gorging ourselves on it ourselves. I'm not a fan. The uncertainty is not open season to assign our own preferred outcast group to the primary culprit. For example, if you look at the purported patient zero, a Canadian woman traveling in Thailand returning to a wedding, she said "I always thought, ‘Oh, most of those diseases are not really around anymore. It never really crossed my mind that I would get something that was actually serious." ( Globe and Mail) Maybe a closeted Maple MAGA or just genuine lack of knowledge on deadly and contagious disease? I'd say a hundred different reasons could be proposed. You're simply leading with your prejudice. Humans are still more complicated that the political simplifications that are about a dozen per page in these parts. In summary, your point at large seems to be "MAGA didn't invent antivaxxing. Sure, they made/make it worse, but you're trying to blame the straw that broke the camel's back for the whole weight of the load" if I don't misunderstand you? I don't find that difficult at all to agree with. There's probably an argument to make that my framing of a metaphorical 'straw' undervalues maga's contributions, but I like the imagery nonetheless. I don’t hate your summary either, just that the straw is actually a giant log. The reason MAGA takes more heat is because they are the new ones to the party and people have more sympathy for religious concerns than ones based on stupidity. There is also a lot more hope on being about to change their mind than those who have always been against it. I’m not sure that is true, very few seem to get out of the rabbit hole, and those that do seem to jump into another one. Yeah, I think the point you two are at in the discussion is dyhb asking you to 'quantify the log' so to speak, and you (seemingly?) only being able to allude to personal anecdote. Which is fine, it's just not a particularly compelling argument. MAGA promotes and endorses stupidity a ton. You and dyhb agree on that point. Where you seem to disagree is that dyhb is saying "Maybe MAGA only added to the stupidity already present here, and blaming MAGA outright feels politically motivated" and you replying "No its definitely MAGA's fault". 'quantify the log' seems like where the discussion is at. In the south zone of Alberta where the outbreaks are kids getting their second dose was 89% with a target of 90% by 2024 we were down to 71.6%. The good news is all the efforts around it since the outbreaks we have a 72% increase in doses given. Which should bring us back up. No one from the health services is going to directly blame MAGA and even stay away from talking about online misinformation. Since the goal is to not make it political. But to quote Don Cherry, it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out what’s going on here.
I don't think it's that simple. MAGA went full anti-vaxx, but other people who resisted vaccinations before Covid also became a lot more vocal. I don't think you can say MAGA is the main cause of the drop in vaccine rates based on timeline alone. Communities in the east of the Netherlands that have low vaccination rates (the Dutch bible belt), also saw their vaccination rates drop further in the post-Covid time. This is not some kind of Dutch MAGA. In fact, support for the most MAGAest parties dropped in the latest election in favor of traditional parties between 2023 and 2025 elections (I can link sources in Dutch if you like: measels: https://www.cda.nl/gelderland/ede/nieuws/zorgen-over-toename-mazelenbesmettingen/, elections:
https://app.nos.nl/nieuws/tk2025/uitslag/ede/)
So yeah, that this was caused by maple MAGA, and that the anti-vaxx movement influx in the US was caused by MAGA is not clear. That said, MAGA in the US, with both Trump and RFK championing anti-vaxx idiocy is very clearly not doing anything to right the ship, and almost certainly steering it straight at the measels-shaped iceberg.
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EPT
