MEASLES, REPUBLICAN MYTHS AND THOM TILLIS

In the last few weeks the USA has suffered from a widespread out-break of measles the childhood disease. The Republican right wing and other anti-regulation folks are trying desperately to patch together some logical reason to justify their opposition to useful and necessary government regulations, such as childhood vaccinations and public health needs. Measles is a disease that we thought we had finally eliminated from our land way back in 2000. Apparently not here in 21 Century USA, where free marketeers, far-right propagandists, Republican politicians, home schoolers, and various fundamental religious sects have opted for personal freedom over the public good, and decided to ignore having their children vaccinated with the safe, effective measles vaccine....which was first developed here in the USA way back in 1968. By use of morbillivirus vaccine, and regulations which enforced childhood vaccinations by 2000, measles was formally declared eliminated from the USA. This new outbreak has underscored the fact that certain regulations...like childhood vaccinations... are obviously necessary for public health in general. Assertions that all regulations interfere with the profit making and the economy, and that freeing businesses from government interference will solve all our problems is just so much hog wash nonsense. Just ask the families of the 500 or so people who will die of this disease annually, if the "free market" is working for them.

But even in the face of such hard facts like disease outbreaks which underscore the fallacy of their "pitch" some snake oil salesmen persist in their pursuit of disinformation. Facts are not part of their repertoire and they simply revert to the old saw that repetition of an untruth over and over again can befuddle and confused an audience...and many within that befuddled group will believe them.

Thus we find today in North Carolina that the mostly nice, well-meaning citizenry, many of average intelligence, must be shaking their heads today with "voters remorse". According to the Washington Post, (2-3-15) their just-elected, spanking new, Senator Thom Tillis (R NC), slavishly following the Neo Republican script of "no regulation" and its mantra of "free markets" to their illogical end, apparently took a stump speech he had probably been repeating all election season and jumped over a cliff with it. Tillis stated yesterday to reporters after a meeting of the Bipartisan Policy Center in the Nation's Capitol that he had "no problem" with companies that would "opt out of the government regulation for employees to wash their hands after using the toilet". According to free marketeer Tillis the "market" would take care of those restaurants that made this choice by eventually being forced out of business. The critical question of, how would diners know that the staff of these establishments were taking advantage of their "freedom" from regulations by not washing their hands, after wiping their butts and going right back to food handling? Obviously the outbreak of disease and discomfort, vomiting and diarrhea would certainly alert them....after a while. However, many people would have to suffer from infection by disease germs transmitted from the butts of restaurant staff directly to the food of unaware diners before, an owner would notice the slow decline in his income. Tillis was alert enough to have realized the flaw in his thinking right away because, he immediately modified his plan with the proviso that these opting out "free" restaurants would have to notify the public of their decision with a sign out front indicating that their staff did not hand-wash. But was that not simply replacing one regulation with another? Tillis was not so astute to realize that.

So Tillis and the voters of NC will have to live for the next six years with that fact that their new Senator is not much of a thinking man...more an ideologue repeating "talking points" he was primed with and learned to repeat....and seems not too sharp on his feet. Let's hope there are no serious problems for him to solve, like widespread outbreaks of intestinal disease in North Carolina.