dougsmith - 17 June 2009 04:31 AM

macgyver - 16 June 2009 02:49 PM

P.S. - I’ve had about 6 comment come in on the Newsweek article. All incredibly positive. I guess the Oprah supporters weren’t as vocal as I thought they would be or they didn’t feel it was worth their time to bother.

Yes, glad to hear this as well.

Maybe it’s making them THINK! I was traveling cross country on a plane when the article came out. The woman sitting next to me had a copy of the Newsweek issue. When we began discussing it, she at first denied that Oprah pushed a lot of woo. When I started to bring up the various wacky ideas she has spread, she said “Oh, I don’t pay attention to any of that”. This schoolteacher was filtering the issues presented on the show, and if she ‘was not interested’ usually the woo shows, she deleted the show. She hadn’t thought about just how many of the shows she was deleting without watching the entire show. In the end, she agreed that Oprah was a purveyor of woo, although she insisted that Oprah ‘means well’ and ‘does good things’ too. I have a feeling that this is the majority view.

Occam—in criminal and civil matters, the burden of proof is always on the prosecution/plaintiff.  Are you suggesting the defendant be forced to prove a negative?  In any event, your suggestion runs counter to history, law, etc.  It would never fly.  I look at what Mcgyver said about uncertainty about the source of the disease and salivate about how as a defense atty I could take that opinion and make it so murky no jury would convict a sweet innocent child or his concerned loving parents of anything. 

Vyazma, I said limited gov’t not impotent gov’t.  All the situations you mentioned don’t infringe excessively on individual rights.  Speed limits aren’t the same thing as health decisions. 

I absolutely disagree with those who don’t immunize their children, however it is not in our best interest to have governments making all health decisions.  Limited government can result in abuses or bad results, but the consequences of not limiting government are far more dangerous to the individual and society alike. 

I still say that if you have a state or fed constitution that sets limits on what a gov’t can do and you ignore those limitations when it’s convenient or you agree with the illegal action, you will have to live with the abuses of power by others against your interests.

I agree with Macgyver’s note that it would be difficult to prove that the initial carrier had the identical virus as that one which caused the disease in the victim.  And, of course, your point that it’s extremely difficult to prove a negative is well taken.  However, those are NOT what I was suggesting.  All the carrier has to show is that his/her virus is a different line from that which killed the victim to have the case found in his/her favor.

Certainly I recognize the extremely low probability of such legislation ever being enacted.  If you’ve paid attention to my posts, you will have noticed that many of them take outside-the-box or creative approaches to challenge people’s thinking, and they often have a bit of wise-ass humor in them.  My initial post included both of those ideas.  Sorry I didn’t make my motivation more obvious.

Occam