When I first read the letter “Channeling Your Inner Revolutionary” [Feb. 9 Xpress], I wondered if Norman Plombe has external rules in his home, his house, or with his children. I suspect there must be some. Most rules are made to help life run more smoothly. Structures in their best design are aimed at increasing function and efficiency.
Mr. Plombe, vaccination and helmet law rules are very well researched, documented and managed by a broad range of folks. They are not the whim design of a dictator. When my son approached the vaccination question, I did my own research and decided (with some personal apprehension) that the benefits outweighed the risks.
Being a parent, I can empathize with the complexities of raising a child in this world. It is full of challenges, particularly with a special-needs child. But please consider the overview of trying to "parent" our community’s health and our health care system. That is why these rules were made: to conserve our resources and to take better care of ourselves.
Would you like to live where water wasn't controlled? Where animals and people could put any waste in the water if they wanted to? And you lived downstream?
Have you met anyone with polio, Mr. Plombe? I suspect they wish they had had the opportunity to be vaccinated.
We are all in this together and just as we follow driving rules for the common good, health laws are based on the same principal — the overall good.
Freedom is something we can always find within ourselves; external rules cannot take that away from us. May you find peace and freedom within and without, Mr. Plombe, and consider that the policeman and our rule makers for public health are not the enemy.
— Lynda Letourneau
Alexander
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Lynda, I sincerely thank you for taking the time and consideration to write this letter. It's strangely synchronistic that I just yesterday submitted another editorial that addresses more of what this discussion entails. I hope the mountainx prints it.
You presented some very valid and insightful arguments and I want you and all my fellow citizens to understand clearly that YES, I WANT (and deserve) TO EXPERIENCE ALL THE CONSEQUENCES OF MY OWN DECISIONS!!!!! So, if those potentially bad decisions don't directly harm you, they are none of your nor your government's business.
To answer your question, yes, when I worked at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, there was this one creepy shambling shuffling victim of your dreaded disease..and I say: Polio, Schmolio! I'd build a rat-motored iron lung and do burnouts in the high school parking lot!!!
By normanplombe
03/04/2011