Comment Re:Hurray! (Score 1) 680
I just said "limits", and I didn't actually say anything about governments. I would not go as far as to say governments should force parents to have their children vaccinated, at least not for any current threats (if there were an extremely dangerous disease going around, with high likelihood of infection then maybe). Also, from what I've heard, governments often (usually?) do a horrible job of raising children.
I was actually addressing (as I thought the parent post was) the fact that the fundamental belief of Libertarians (of whom there are many in the US) is that self-interest trumps social interest. I was stating that I don't think this concept of "self-interest" can be applied to the vaccine issue in a clear-cut way. However I know that some Libertarians would say it does, because children have their parents' genes, and perhaps invoke Dawkins' "selfish gene" (I personally think this is a contrived pseudo-scientific argument and caring for a child has nothing to do with shared genes).