I have only addressed the actual issue of vaccinations in one single post in this thread. Most of my posts have been directed toward the issue of the tenor and tone, as well as generally usefulness, of this thread. I would hope it would have been made clear by now that my issue is not with people presenting facts and evidence to support the importance of vaccinations, but with the form and tone of such messages.
I understand that people are passionate on both sides of this issue. But I also understand that simply yelling at someone and tell them that they are stupid and deserve to be ashamed of themselves, which has been the general tone of most of the posts arguing for vaccinations, accomplishes little or nothing in terms of actually changing someone's mind. In fact, it tends to have exactly the opposite effect. And there is simply no call for it. It should be possible to have a civilized discussion even with people you think are woefully ignorant of relevant and important facts, and even on issues as serious as this. Sadly, that kind of discourse seems more and more rare on the Internet.
And, just to clarify, I never asked that the poster stop speaking. I asked that he stop speaking to me specifically. There is a difference. And my attitude in that post simply derives from the fact that it seems obvious that even a call for civility from someone who shares a position is not going to be met with anything but hostility.
