Sam Haselby @samhaselby: The U.S. can't convince almost half of its own citizens to take a vaccine

[BeckyDem]

Link to tweet

( That's a question I would love to hear msm ask all the hawks out there )

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. Not sure the value of arguing, essentially, that the government is a failure at everything (nt)

[BeckyDem]

2. I'm not sure I understand, the war there was not a failure?

[Hugh_Lebowski]

3. The argument presented is, at its most basic level ...

"Look, the US government fails at stuff, so why be surprised when the US government fails at more stuff?"

I'm not sure of the value of such a syllogism, coming from the side of people who, generally-speaking, believe in the value of the US government.

[BeckyDem]

4. A healthy functioing government, I don't think there is evidence we have that..is his point, imo.

There is most certainly value in trying to achieve it, thus the need for scrutiny.

[myccrider]

5. This doesn't read as "scrutiny"

It sounds like a blanket condemnation of the government, as in "government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem" as per Reagan.

The vaccine hesitancy is, in large part, being caused by decades of misinformation, FUD and right-wing propaganda that has caused mistrust of science (now spilling over into distrust of the medical profession) and decades of people preaching Reagan’s mantra causing indiscriminate distrust of the government. The failure in Afghanistan is an even more complex problem that is, in part, caused by American military hubris and lack of honest assessment of that country’s dynamics. That error is the government’s responsibility, although this president did not support those policies.

The two problems he’s connecting are not caused, primarily, by the same thing (except for human idiocy in general), so his "argument" isn’t sound. Tying the two things together like this is the same mistake in thinking that has, in part, caused the 20 year war over there. He’s not making some profound or clever point, he’s just taking pot shots.

[BeckyDem]

6. It does to me but he certainly is not writing extensively at the moment.

https://aeon.co/users/samhaselby