On Liberty - Mr Wooderson's Charges Rebutted
Mr Wooderson contributes: ‘Mr. Hitchens' defence of 'perplexed and frightened individuals against a high-handed and bullying state' in the case of the MMR vaccine is a noble one, but not, I think, entirely consistent with his views on other matters. He very much takes the side of the state against the individual on the matters of what substances one should be allowed to consume, the terms on which individuals may agree to engage in sexual intercourse (i.e. not for money), or divorce, the manner in which one ends one's life, and even – if I recall his comments on the 'Pussy Riot' incident rightly – the circumstances in which one should be allowed to express political opinions (i.e. not in a church). Of course, he may insist that he has good reasons for holding these positions, and I don't deny it, but then supporters of compulsion in the case of the MMR vaccine believe the same, and likewise believe themselves to be protecting children and society as a whole from the selfishness and stupidity of certain individuals. Like most people, Mr. Hitchens is a lover of liberty when it suits him, and an enthusiastic proponent of state coercion when it does not.’
I reject the charge of inconsistency. The freedom not to be bullied by the state into doing something you don’t want to do, but which cannot be obligatory in a free society ( eg, the unceasing panic-mongering propaganda campaign to bully parents into allowing their children to be given the MMR) cannot be equated with the so-called ‘freedom’ to sell, buy, possess and use drugs which are illegal under statute law. Why not? Well, for a start, the parent is entitled to say that he or she prefers the risk of the disease to the risk of the immunisation. This is perfectly reasonable, and only a totalitarian could force a parent to permit the injection for the alleged common good. Vivienne Parry, then a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which advises the Government on the controversial MMR injection, said back in 2007: 'There's a small risk with all vaccines...No one has ever said that any vaccine is completely without side-effects.’
She then added :’ But we have to decide whether the benefits outweigh the risks. If we had measles, it would kill lots of children. If you have a vaccine, it will damage some children, but a very small number.’
You can read this in context here
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/jul/08/health.medicineandhealth1
My case has always been that the risk of measles has been greatly exaggerated by the authorities, as has the role of immunisation in reducing the risk. Deaths from measles in this country fell far more in the era before the first measles immunisation than they did afterwards. This is because general improvements in public health had much more of an effect on the disease than immunisation. This conflicts with conventional wisdom, so many find it hard to believe, or to accept. Yet it is so. I entirely agree with Ms Parry’s frank admission that a vaccine ‘will damage some children’, and emphasise that she is and always has been on the other side of the argument from me.
Non-parents won’t get this. Parents will. But the knowledge that your personal, direct, positive and detailed decision *might* damage your small defenceless child is a heavy responsibility, rather greater than a generalised fear of disease.
I am always revolted by the attempt to portray the rich and greedy campaign for the commercial availability of mind-altering poison (which often makes its users into complacent serfs) as some sort of crusade for liberty. I have explained many times here why use of such drugs is not a ‘victimless’ crime, and why the criminal law has a valuable part to play, in countering the pro-drug propaganda of the rock music industry, and helping the young to resist peer pressure.
There is also an important difference between using the law to force someone to do something contentious, and using it to prevent him from doing something contentious.
My view of the Pussy riot case is not exactly as he describes it. My main concern was over the modish selective outrage directed against the Russian state, as explained here (20th August 2012) :
‘As to Pussy Riot itself, I’m not keen on desecrating anyone’s religious buildings. There’s something specially selfish and arrogant about trampling on the deepest sensitivities of others in this way. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that you could get into quite serious trouble for doing a ‘Pussy Riot’ type of action in St Paul’s, Notre Dame de Paris, St Peter’s, Washington National Cathedral, and in major religious buildings in many other free countries. I wouldn’t recommend doing it in a Mosque anywhere, free country or otherwise.
‘It’s not just free speech we’re talking about here. It’s attention-seeking disruption of someone else’s sacred space, quite easily classified as some sort of breach of the peace in any legal system. Now, for me, a penalty along the lines of six weeks spent publicly scrubbing the cathedral steps on their knees rather early in the morning would be rather more to the point than some penal colony. We should make much more effort, in the world in general, to make the punishment fit the crime. I don’t regard these women as specially pleasant, let alone as heroines of the struggle for free expression. Struggle to gain attention, more likely. You’ll note that there’s never been any suggestion that the authorities have the wrong people, so if Russian law is in any way comparable to the laws of countries like ours on this subject, and if it unquestionably bans such behaviour in cathedrals, and prescribes certain penalties for it, then that’s not lawless. And if they’d performed their little concert in a Moscow café, I doubt if anything would ever again have been heard of it. It was the location, location, location that did it. They got the publicity. Maybe they underestimated the reaction. And if Putin’s repressive hellhole was as bad as they say it is, how come they did that? Cause that sort of trouble even in Brezhnev’s Red Square, let alone Stalin’s, and it would have been a guaranteed one-way ticket to the far side of the Urals.
‘So, while the penalty is harsh and unjustified, this isn’t really a matter of free speech (unlike Turkey’s behaviour) , and it isn’t a matter of a trumped-up charge because they did do what they’re accused of, and it isn’t lawless, because they broke a pre-existing law. I don’t think much of Russia’s criminal justice system. But then again, in quite different ways, I don’t think much of ours either, and ours is getting worse all the time, whereas Russia’s has in recent years got a bit better than it was under Communism. Not much. Not enough. But a bit. Press allowed in the court, for a start.’ (NB, when I wrote this, this country had not begun to hold secret trials of alleged terrorists as is now being proposed by the authorities : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2508807/Secret-justice-row-revealed-terror-trial-place-closed-doors.html )
‘It’s all really a matter of degree. You can think the penalty harsh ( as I do) , without necessarily endorsing the view that this is the most worrying and important breach of human liberty on the planet just now.
‘And in my view, as I’ve said before, Russia gets it in the neck (and loyally globalist Turkey doesn’t) because Russia still stands up for its own national sovereignty (and that of other countries) and the Globalist League, headed by the ghastly Hillary Clinton, want to teach Russia a lesson for that. Hence the ‘New Cold War’, a pointless conflict against a country that’s no threat to us, and isn’t by the (admittedly grim) standards of the modern world outstandingly repressive, and the wild excitement over ‘Pussy Riot’(You must add into this the dubious media delight in, and the public’s dubious response to, film and pictures of young women in cages or in handcuffs. Fifty shades of what, did you say?). ‘