Squeezing Our Eyes Shut

Individual empowerment is a wonderful thing.

Without it, the Boeing employee troubled by his employer's rush job on a poorly-designed airplane stays silent. The woman being victimized by high-ranking executives at her firm has no option but to submit—or quit.

Individual empowerment is a critical component of a functioning democracy. Otherwise, power congeals at the top, where it is too often abused. But abuses of power can run both ways. They can flow from the bottom up as well.

The best example are the stupendously naive Americans who believe having to vaccinate their kids constitutes an onerous breach of their civil liberties and is a classic case of government overreach. They claim it violates their religious beliefs. And is cover for a insidious plot to turn their children into aliens.

(Okay. Just kidding on that last one. But I doubt anti-vaxxers would know the difference.)

Anti-vaxxers tend to be young, and grew-up in a world free of things like measles, polio and rubella. Sadly, they also grew-up in a world infested by social media, where in a truly perverted take on democracy, anyone with a phone can concoct a conspiracy theory (remember pink slime?) and have it go viral.

Millennials and generation Y in particular embrace these theories, allowing them to gain traction instantly. I mean, if it's not from an established media source it just has to be true, right?

This much more quickly than the realization that hey—we never had measles outbreaks when I was a kid. Why is that?

That's because another generation, undistracted by the vacuousness of social media and possessing a more inclusive hierarchy, understood the value of mandated vaccinations. They kept us healthy.

Yes, there's a reason why you grew up unconcerned with measles and polio and rubella!

You get that, right?

Yet anti-vaxxers persist, even as children all around them die. Don't they realize their exaggerated sense of entitlement will kill still more? But congratulations on defending your religious beliefs (exactly what religion forbids vaccinations, anyway?) and exercising your misshapen idea of free will.

They're definitely worth risking our public health for.

Remarkably, there was an outbreak of common sense from Seattle's public schools. They had the temerity to tell the parents of its students that if their children weren't vaccinated, they would be prohibited from attending its schools.

Wow. Someone clearly has a clue.

But in other, less-enlightened places like New Jersey, parents protested pending legislation that would require similar action by its parents. Sadly, the parents succeeded and the bill died.

So who will they blame when their kid succumbs to measles? I'm guessing it won't be themselves.

Dear millennial. I'm just a racist, sexist, materialistic, technophobic boomer. Feel free to dismiss this with an fatigued recitation of "OK, boomer" and an airy wave of your hand. Yes, we are to blame for the wretched conditions under which you exist.

But you know what? I actually agree with you. Blame rests entirely with us for not insisting you learn how to think. If we had, you'd know George Santayana was right. He said those who remain ignorant of the past are condemned to repeat it.

The best of luck in finding your way to the truth of mandated vaccinations. I hope your a-ha moment arrives before your kid's infection.