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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: the Human Right not to
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
Hello again -
Here is a little thing which might be interesting to discuss. A little bit of background: I was recently at a UN meeting which was discussing the sustainable development goals (SDGs). They are the replacement for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), they're being discussed in 2015 and will set the standards of development the world expects between 2015-2030.
One of the speakers was from a water regulator in an EU country. He was talking about universal provision of water and sanitation and said that if these things were supplied (at an appropriate price etc) then everyone should be forced to participate. His reasoning was that if someone had their own latrine or well this could adversely affect the health and effectiveness of the system for everyone else (the latrine might pollute the groundwater and so on). Which is interesting, because in some parts there is a movement of some people in the West (mostly ex-hippies maybe!) to want to go off-grid in terms of their water+sanitation.
Or another example is people not immunising their children. When the coverage for some diseases falls below 90% (I think I heard), the chance of a mass infection event gets much greater.
Or maybe those people who react with horror to the concept of being compelled to vote (as in Australia, I think). Large amounts of unengaged voters damages democracy, or so the argument goes.
So. Should you have the right not to participate even if someone else has a reason why your lack of participation will adversely affect the general effectiveness of the intervention?
If there is a line, where should it be drawn?
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
The cost of living as part of a society is ceding a portion of personal freedom for the good of society.
Your right to do what you want ends where it affects me. Poor sanitation and lack of immunisation threatens other people's lives. You should not have that right.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Bob Two-Owls
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# 9680
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Posted
All fine and dandy until big business gets involved. I lived in a remote farm during my early years with a well for water and a long-drop for a lavatory. In 1989 the new private water companies came along and decided that the water in our well and the sewage we left in our long-drop belonged to them. We would have to pay thousands of pounds in order to be connected to their grid or we would end up in court and forced to pay that way. In the end we sold up and left and they built a reservoir over the land. We shouldn't have the right to refuse something done for the public good but we should have the right to refuse to fill the coffers of private companies just for the sake of profit.
Posts: 1262 | Registered: Jul 2005
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The Rogue
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# 2275
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Posted
There probably is a line but like most lines it is very wriggly.
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If everyone starts thinking outside the box does outside the box come back inside?
Posts: 2507 | From: Toton | Registered: Feb 2002
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Hello again -
Here is a little thing which might be interesting to discuss. A little bit of background: I was recently at a UN meeting which was discussing the sustainable development goals (SDGs). They are the replacement for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), they're being discussed in 2015 and will set the standards of development the world expects between 2015-2030.
One of the speakers was from a water regulator in an EU country. He was talking about universal provision of water and sanitation and said that if these things were supplied (at an appropriate price etc) then everyone should be forced to participate. His reasoning was that if someone had their own latrine or well this could adversely affect the health and effectiveness of the system for everyone else (the latrine might pollute the groundwater and so on). Which is interesting, because in some parts there is a movement of some people in the West (mostly ex-hippies maybe!) to want to go off-grid in terms of their water+sanitation.
Or another example is people not immunising their children. When the coverage for some diseases falls below 90% (I think I heard), the chance of a mass infection event gets much greater.
Or maybe those people who react with horror to the concept of being compelled to vote (as in Australia, I think). Large amounts of unengaged voters damages democracy, or so the argument goes.
So. Should you have the right not to participate even if someone else has a reason why your lack of participation will adversely affect the general effectiveness of the intervention?
If there is a line, where should it be drawn?
I don't know if your delegate had come across the work done in rural water supply in Kenya? There pedagogic educators come to a community and offer to help people set up their own organisation. The community has to decide for itself how it will finance a borehole (it has to pay for this totally without support), and how it will manage the water resources. These are difficult issues, and although there may be universally standard replies, each community has to work it out for themselves. They can look at how other people do it, but have also got to take on board the responsibilities because - it it totally their responsibility whether this happens and whether it remains sustainable over the next few years, decades and over their grandchildrens lifetimes. It sounds too me like your delegate was proposing a top-down solution, which is easier to manage, quicker to implement, but has far less sustainability. And as has been pointed out above, is far more open to corruption and to big business profiteering. If there is already a major town or city then this is inevitably less easy and a lot more money is inevitably sloshing around. I find it very odd that the when the pakistani alluvial tube wells were put down in the 1970's, the ONE element that was not on the water analysis list was arsenic. How did that happen?
The general question of to what extent should people be forced to participate in communal ventures is therefore, to my way of thinking, slightly malformed. It is rife with dangers, and God save us from people with Good Intentions. The South African apartheid state was based on these principles - I worked in Namibia just after UN435 was implemented, and employed several people who had been attached to the mains because they wanted to have independent schools and hospitals. And saw the remains (rubble and weeds) of a world class TB clinic that was destroyed because it wasn't part of the state system. Paolo Friere's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" is required reading.
Personally, as a general rule, it is better to have a degree of accidents and deaths by stupidity than it is to have what is The Good of Everyone imposed from some central fountain of wisdom, because the central control always becomes corrupt.
The loss of personal and communal responsibility is also a recipe for greater and greater central taxation and loss of individual investment in their own communities and in the nature which they live in. So, for example, pre-water authority (1950's UK), many rural areas managed their own water supplies via wells and river courses. Once the benefits of central water supply were generously given to them, and the responsibility for maintaining water courses was removed from them, there has been a gradual decline in both biodiversity and quality of (small) watercourse management. Of course, the big water courses all start as small watercourses. 10 years previously there was also a "for the common good" decision to open up as much agricultural land as possible by draining as much marshland as possible, again resulting in a massive loss of habitat and biodiversity and a massive increase in the need to canalise lower watercourses due to the reduced upland buffer capacity. Time and time again, big top-down water projects have apparently solved one problem and have in turn caused many more other problems. The biggest examples of these disasters can be seen in Russian and Chinese projects between the 1930's to the 1970's Although I don't particularly like the US penchant for zero taxation and everyone look out for themselves, I think taxation, decisions and responsibility is generally most effective. efficient and ecological when it takes place on a small scale and when people are involved in deciding at a local level.
If you are talking about commercial interests - yes - there are alluvial floodplains in e.g. mexico where unchecked commercial exploitation has been known to be causing saline intrusion for decades. Saline intrusion is - on human timescales - irreversible, so over-exploitation of groundwater permanently kills off any future thought of using that resource once it has been exhausted. So if someone is making money by raping the ground and screwing their descendants, something needs to be done, and that requires imposition of rules from a central regulatory body. This is blatantly not well policed on an international level - so Gaza is denied any substantial access to water by the fact that Israeli date farms upgradient (on the Eastern Gaza border) are taking as much water as they can to deliberately deprive Gaza of water. You can see this by virtue of the sudden change from green to brown, visible at the Gaza border on Google Earth/Landsat. It's not the Palestinians being too lazy to grow anything - it's because they don't have any groundwater available to irrigate with because it is being creamed off elsewhere. So some EU eurocrat coming to Gaza and telling them they should take up his European tax and regulate model for the greater good is unlikely to fall on welcoming ears.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
If you are talking about Community Led Total Sanitation, then that's only tangentially related to this topic. And has highly disputed outcomes anyway.
Have you been to Gaza, by the way. I'm not sure it is as simple as you are saying here because the enclave is in a different geological and hydrological situation than the surrounding countryside.
However it is certainly true that in the West Bank there are severe problems due to unbalanced water use.
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arse
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
If you are talking about Community Led Total Sanitation, then that's only tangentially related to this topic. And has highly disputed outcomes anyway.
Have you been to Gaza, by the way. I'm not sure it is as simple as you are saying here because the enclave is in a different geological and hydrological situation than the surrounding countryside.
However it is certainly true that in the West Bank there are severe problems due to unbalanced water use.
Gaza - no - but I studied the geology when I was practicing about 15 years ago - the main aquifer is continuous with the alluvial plains to the east, and although the general sedimentary section is complex, the groundwater system is not so. For by far the greatest volume of water, recharge occurs to the East, with outflow to the coast. Prior to any borehole abstractions, some of that expressed as local springs. I've also read all the so-called technical reports about groundwater and Gaza, and they just make me furious in their apologist approach to twisting inconvenient truths. Date farming is the most water-intensive agriculture you can have, with between 1500 and 4000mm of ET per year, and the date farms on the eastern edge of the Gaza strip and their boreholes were set up to take exactly as much water as was available in aquifer throughflow. "Unbalanced water usage" is just one of the mealy mouthed ways of stating the obvious in a way that makes it all sound like a regrettable and trivial mistake. Talking of "the human right not to", I would like to ask about "the human responsibility not to".
So - in terms of ONE centrally initiated act international water resources regulation that could immediately benefit about a million people, a small reduction in Israeli date exports would be a very very small price to pay.
Wrt the OP, The whole argument assumes that an expert is able to have such a powerful case that he is justified imposing his will on everyone else. I am reminded of a cabinet minister getting his kids to eat GM burgers in public.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Date farming is the most water-intensive agriculture you can have, with between 1500 and 4000mm of ET per year, and the date farms on the eastern edge of the Gaza strip and their boreholes were set up to take exactly as much water as was available in aquifer throughflow
OK, I am not a geologist, but I'd like you to provide evidence for this assertion please.
quote:
"Unbalanced water usage" is just one of the mealy mouthed ways of stating the obvious in a way that makes it all sound like a regrettable and trivial mistake. Talking of "the human right not to", I would like to ask about "the human responsibility not to".
Nothing mealy mouthed here, I was trying to avoid having a technical discussion in a discussion about the concept. I have witnessed water issues in the West Bank where settlers deliberately allow their faecal wastes to contaminate their neighbour's fields. Is that non-mealy mouthed enough for you?
quote:
Wrt the OP, The whole argument assumes that an expert is able to have such a powerful case that he is justified imposing his will on everyone else. I am reminded of a cabinet minister getting his kids to eat GM burgers in public.
So he is wrong to say that when affordable municipal water and sanitation is available, people should not be allowed to potentially contaminate with their own off-grid sanitation systems? On what basis do you make this assertion?
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arse
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Date farming is the most water-intensive agriculture you can have, with between 1500 and 4000mm of ET per year, and the date farms on the eastern edge of the Gaza strip and their boreholes were set up to take exactly as much water as was available in aquifer throughflow
OK, I am not a geologist, but I'd like you to provide evidence for this assertion please.
Well, the fact that high volume abstractions occur immediately outside Gaza and the current abstractions inside it are enough to supply an extremely meagre few vegetable plots plus drinking/washing water, after which saline intrusion occurs. The water balance speaks very clearly for itself.
quote:
quote:
"Unbalanced water usage" is just one of the mealy mouthed ways of stating the obvious in a way that makes it all sound like a regrettable and trivial mistake. Talking of "the human right not to", I would like to ask about "the human responsibility not to".
Nothing mealy mouthed here, I was trying to avoid having a technical discussion in a discussion about the concept. I have witnessed water issues in the West Bank where settlers deliberately allow their faecal wastes to contaminate their neighbour's fields. Is that non-mealy mouthed enough for you?
I think that shows a basic human neighbourly courtesy and goodwill - which is the basic problem. Yes you can choose to intervene and make that less of a problem by some top down technical solution. But given that top-down technical intervention which may reduce one problem, the underlying problem of lack of respect and love for their neighbours will remain. If this is not dealt with on grounds of basic human relationships. it will not be resolved.
[/QB][/QUOTE] quote:
Wrt the OP, The whole argument assumes that an expert is able to have such a powerful case that he is justified imposing his will on everyone else. I am reminded of a cabinet minister getting his kids to eat GM burgers in public.
So he is wrong to say that when affordable municipal water and sanitation is available, people should not be allowed to potentially contaminate with their own off-grid sanitation systems? On what basis do you make this assertion? [/QB][/QUOTE]
I'm not saying that - I am saying that as a general principle, enforced top down approaches are a poor substitute for communal responsibility. The emphasis is always on top down because it's easiest to apply. If communities are helped to build from the bottom up, then in the long term that is a better solution. The end point might be the same.
"Affordable" also has to include "reliable" and "with no other strings attached" if you are looking for reasons why the uptake of "affordable" municipal water supplies are not generally taken up. Again, this comes back to community issues rather than technical ones. The technical issues should be secondary to the social ones.
I also worked on some emergency water supplies in the kalahari. It was frankly. heartbreaking to look at landsat and recognise that we could identify every existent borehole by desertification patterns, and that every borehole we put in was a) untested for long term resource, b) inevitably going to add another desertified patch on the map, c) would attract more people to that town who would then rely on a borehole that might last for only 5 years. Yes - we supplied a demand, but the basic problem only got worse. Birth rate was well above about 2%/year(!) and we were just putting off the day when the whole system popped. Then I had a job in a gulf state that was more or less the same - 2%/year++ birth rate and the country had gone past the point where it had the remotest chance to feed its own population through local agriculture. Expected oil reserves maybe 40-50 years. In fact there are many middle eastern states who are mining groundwater instead of harvesting a renewable resource. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Quatar, Oman - I don't know the details of the rest, but probably every single gulf state. It is state-sponsored mass suicide. All these countries are implicitly saying that they don't care whether they exist or not in 200 years (or 100, or 50) time.
Whilst I genuinely admire efforts to ameliorate suffering through water and sanitation programmes (I contribute a significant part of my monthly income to wateraid) and at the same time I know that all this good work now is - without also tackling problems at a community level - just increasing the eventual pain.
The general questions to experts and top-down common good decisions, I have stated my objections, and I think they are a very mixed blessing. Some are excellent and necessary. Other are just opportunities for shareholder profits with a net negative long term benefit to the general population. Most are somewhere in the middle. If you're looking for a general "human right not to", there isn't one.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
It is compulsory for employees in the public health region (that's all hospitals and clinics) here to show evidence that they had the flu vaccination each year, with the reasoning that if they have not, they are a risk to patients. Those who can't or have some legit reason are either redeployed to other jobs not in public contact or must wear masks.
Is this reasonable? Yes, I think so. The science is sound, and they have the potential to harm others.
Connecting to utilities? Like a water or sanitation system as Bob Two Owls reports? Probably in general yes, because if you're not, where is the waste going and where is the water coming from? Both into the below ground water table. I have great concern for the manner in which Bob reports this was done. Public works should be public and the ridiculous idea that private companies do things better because of their profit motive than government and public works which don't have this, is merely ideology not backed up by data.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Connecting to utilities? Like a water or sanitation system as Bob Two Owls reports? Probably in general yes, because if you're not, where is the waste going and where is the water coming from?
Quite a lot of people around here aren't on the municipal water systems - they get their water from their own private wells, and they have a septic tank system for the waste. It would be feasible to connect them to the municipal systems (both water and sewer are usually available a couple of streets away). For the most part, these people choose not to do this, deeming the connection costs too high, and they are perfectly happy with their well water and septic system.
Should the county forcibly connect them to a municipal system? I'd argue not - there's no public health problem with their current arrangements. If they were crapping in their back yard, there'd be a problem, but they're not.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Should the county forcibly connect them to a municipal system? I'd argue not - there's no public health problem with their current arrangements. If they were crapping in their back yard, there'd be a problem, but they're not.
How about if those services were available in the street and they were choosing not to participate? And how do you know there is no public health problem?
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arse
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Mere Nick
Shipmate
# 11827
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
What about employees being required to wash their hands when working in restaurants?
That article is intentionally misleading, especially to those who just look at the article titles as they skim the newspaper. The article would be more accurate if it said that the senator can see no need for a regulation about washing hands if restaurants are required to disclose whether or not they require employees to wash their hands. Either way, though, none of us really know if employees are actually washing their hands and it is the type of rule that is virtually impossible to determine if it is being followed. The next time you go to a restaurant and order soup, consider the fact that you won't really know if someone cleared their sinuses into it.
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"Well that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher's done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting's my reward."
Delmar O'Donnell
Posts: 2797 | From: West Carolina | Registered: Sep 2006
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
One house - it usually hardly matters. But I went round to a farm with a friend about 20 years ago - she was treating the family for various illnesses and wondered why there was so much illness in one family. They ran a pig farm, and had elected to supply they own water instead of pay a small amount more using public water supplied by pipe. The borehole was in the middle of the farm, nitrate management was zero, and they were poisoning themselves with about 200+mg/l nitrate. Schizophrenia, arthritis (in a 20 yo) and a load of other getting on for serious illnesses.
But this raises a whole host of issues - how much should one legislate for stupidity and then make life so much harder for everyone who isn't stupid? Is it right to force everyone to pay for a water supply when there is an alternative that they would prefer for some reason. Then it gets more complex - say you had forced everyone to use your clear public water an then a dentist came along and convinced the water board to mass medicate with fluoride. You have now forced people to pay for and to drink water containing a medication they have not consented to use. What's the next step? Australia has gone along that by making inoculations compulsory. Every one can be justified, and every one leads a little further down an increasingly slippery slope. I would like to meet the expert who states that the particular intervention they propose is one step too far. Because most experts only look to their own field and do not look at lateral implications. This is the job of consensual politics - but if the politicians and decision makers are enthralled by technology and science, they can lose the ability to debate the other stuff. I personally think we are hypnotised by the success of past technological fixes and don't want to recognise that the world is getting a lot more complex.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
And how do you know there is no public health problem?
Wouldn't it be the other way round - that we would need evidence there was a public health problem before restricting someone's freedom?
[ 05. February 2015, 15:39: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I don't think anyone has the freedom to poison other people - by deliberately refusing to use available sanitation facilities or by refusing to get their kids inoculated.
And no, personally, I don't think it is necessary to show in every individual case a direct link between poor local systems of sanitation and public health. That point has been proven over and over again, if the system is available it should be used in my opinion. No excuses.
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arse
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
How about if those services were available in the street and they were choosing not to participate?
How about it? If their current arrangements don't present a public health hazard, there's no reason to force them to change.
quote:
And how do you know there is no public health problem?
Someone using well water cannot pose a public heath risk, by construction. They could (see itsarumdo's post) be poisoning themselves, which is a different argument (and I think with a different threshold - I think it's acceptable for people to choose to take risks for themselves where it wouldn't be acceptable for them to force other people to take those risks).
As for the septic system, a properly maintained system presents no more hazard than a properly-maintained sewer system and municipal treatment facility.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Point is that it isn't necessarily possible to tell the immediate health impacts of a leaking latrine or other poor sanitation system.
It wouldn't happen in other areas of life - an airplane doesn't literally have to have parts falling off before it is considered unsafe. It is about risk, and the risk of allowing people to continue with private sanitation when public sanitation is available is clearly high.
quote:
Someone using well water cannot pose a public heath risk, by construction. They could (see itsarumdo's post) be poisoning themselves, which is a different argument (and I think with a different threshold - I think it's acceptable for people to choose to take risks for themselves where it wouldn't be acceptable for them to force other people to take those risks).
They can, though, be affecting the availability of water for others. And you don't know for certain that there is no health risk - in the Gaza example, the overuse of water from the aquifer has meant that the majority of water from the wells is undrinkable.
quote:
As for the septic system, a properly maintained system presents no more hazard than a properly-maintained sewer system and municipal treatment facility.
Do you know that or are you just stating it as truth?
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arse
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
If such septic systems are popular, but can be a public health risk, I think I'd require certification. If you want your own private septic system, you must get it checked to make sure it won't be a problem for others.
There's a system like that in the UK, which I know about because my brother in law gets a discount on his water charges because of a soakaway that handles surface and rainwater. He has to pay environmental charges however, and that includes a check that nothing unpleasant goes into the soakaway.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It is about risk, and the risk of allowing people to continue with private sanitation when public sanitation is available is clearly high.
You will excuse me if I ask for some justification for this assertion, I hope.
quote:
And you don't know for certain that there is no health risk - in the Gaza example, the overuse of water from the aquifer has meant that the majority of water from the wells is undrinkable.
This is just incoherent wibble. If someone stops getting water from their own well, and starts getting water from the city's well, it makes no difference to the water usage. These large-scale water issues are real (and don't just affect Gaza - there are real water management issues in several US states) but have very little to do with whether one (or many) individuals have private wells or municipally treated water.
quote:
Do you know that or are you just stating it as truth?
I have no qualifications in sewerage treatment, but I have encountered this statement, unchallenged, in numerous reputable places. What I do know about the science of sewerage treatment suggests that it is plausible. So I'm inclined to go with it unless someone can convince me otherwise.
You want to force septic tank owners to connect to a municipal sewer. The onus is on you to demonstrate that this is necessary. What have you got?
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
The issue with wells is that they draw water from aquifers which are not private and extend often for considerable distance. We have a well at our cottage. Thus, a permit is required, with regulations on how much water can be taken, i.e., pump size, flow per minute, and a gauge of overall usage, which is provided by septic system amounts. The evaporative septic fields etc are completely illegal for us as they can spill over, and there's a lake 100 ft in front of us. I don't think we have the right to use more than a reasonable share of the underground water, nor a right to have our waste in the lake.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
There is a lot of information about failing septic systems. Fair enough if there is no alternative, but a major risk if there is.
quote:
This is just incoherent wibble. If someone stops getting water from their own well, and starts getting water from the city's well, it makes no difference to the water usage. These large-scale water issues are real (and don't just affect Gaza - there are real water management issues in several US states) but have very little to do with whether one (or many) individuals have private wells or municipally treated water.
Well there are a lot of things to be said about this, but there seems no point given that you are such an expert. Why would anyone be worried about private boreholes?
quote:
I have no qualifications in sewerage treatment, but I have encountered this statement, unchallenged, in numerous reputable places. What I do know about the science of sewerage treatment suggests that it is plausible. So I'm inclined to go with it unless someone can convince me otherwise.
You want to force septic tank owners to connect to a municipal sewer. The onus is on you to demonstrate that this is necessary. What have you got?
Highly unlikely to be true. And from what I know about sewage systems, water treatment works and the various forms of dispersed sanitation systems, totally implausible.
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arse
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
As for the septic system, a properly maintained system presents no more hazard than a properly-maintained sewer system and municipal treatment facility.
Properly maintained, therefore not privately regulated.
A septic system is a dynamic system; the operation and maintenance of which can change based on external conditions. A sewer system is closed from the potable water system,* and fluctuations are more readily controlled.
*At least, directly.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bob Two-Owls:
All fine and dandy until big business gets involved. I lived in a remote farm during my early years with a well for water and a long-drop for a lavatory. In 1989 the new private water companies came along and decided that the water in our well and the sewage we left in our long-drop belonged to them. We would have to pay thousands of pounds in order to be connected to their grid or we would end up in court and forced to pay that way. In the end we sold up and left and they built a reservoir over the land. We shouldn't have the right to refuse something done for the public good but we should have the right to refuse to fill the coffers of private companies just for the sake of profit.
YES. That is a horrible situation you describe.
As for the claim that people having private wells, etc., would be harmful to the overall sanitation - my parents have a well (mostly because public water was not, and maybe still isn't, available there) and a septic system (same reason, the public sewage system didn't run out to where they are), and they have to get tests done, legally. That seems like a good way to allow people to have a private well and septic system (for whatever reason) and still maintain public safety and health standards.
The private interests will still ruin things, though, as they have affected water tables (lowering them, drying them, changing them) by drawing too heavily from them, etc. It might be due to the subdivision that was built on what used to be my grandparents' farm adjacent to my parents' little acre of land, but in recent years, the water table has changed so that their water has a rusty taste to it. That's a pretty minor issue, compared with farmers not having enough water because some corporation is bottling and selling it all. Regulating those companies and what they do to aquifers should also be part of the equation.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Vaticanchic
Shipmate
# 13869
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Posted
I think basic human rights/responsibilities can be distinguished from the higher rights/responsibilities of citizenship & society. In the latter case, the more you renege on responsibilities, the less rights you have. You might lose your freedom, for example, if you persist in crime. Immunisation issues affect society.
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"Sink, Burn or Take Her a Prize"
Posts: 697 | From: UK | Registered: Jul 2008
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
I wouldn't say that any general case of "you will do this as an individual because it is good for the whole of society" is without problems.
We each have responsibility to ourselves and to our families and immediate communities as well as to larger society. To make a general case about anything, you have to believe that the law is never an ass, that politicians and civil servants always make the best choices, that medical science is at its peak and any discoveries in the future will not alter how we would make decisions, and that state education and social care is so finely honed that we can give our children and needy to the state and they will automatically receive better than we can possibly provide ourselves. I'd say that it is a human right and responsibility to raise objections.
Take a look at the treatment of medical staff returning from working with Ebola. One nurse in the USA was placed in unnecessary and pernicious quarantine despite it being clear to experts that was completely unnecessary. So - yes - quarantine (by force of necessary) in some circumstances is justifiable - to give a complete carte blanche to quarantine measures is not justifiable. And this ends up back at the basic conflict between state and individual, and the important point that whilst the state's primary task is to protect its citizens, equal to that is the necessity to protect the citizens from the state. The line between these two is murky. I would rather fall on the "not quite enough state" side of the line than find myself on the "not quite enough protection of the citizens from the excesses of the state". So the innoculation issue is to my mind (as is almost all compulsory mass medication), one step too far. Iodine in salt is the only mass medication I currently have any sympathy for, and even then there should be some route by which people can obtain non-iodised salt if they so wish.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
So the innoculation issue is to my mind (as is almost all compulsory mass medication), one step too far.
Why is it? Lack of full herd coverage affects everyone. What give you the right to determine to put everyone else at risk of the infection?
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
So you would like mass immunisation against dandruff?
If not, where do you draw the line?
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Deadly illnesses. Measles is a deadly illness, dandruff is not.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
Bubonic plague is deadly.
So if the herd is immunised, how does one case of measles due to non-innoculation put everyone who is innoculated at risk? Why does everyone get up in arms about individuals not wanting their children to take these immunisations? The logic of herd immunity and innoculation programmes makes no sense, unless the innoculated children are for some reason at the same or more risk ... errr
The main risk is, in fact, to adults who have been immunised as children. Because they have not developed proper antibodies. So - why does childhood measles create an effective adult antibody, but immunisation with measles does not produce a long-lasting antibody? It's because the immunisation doesn't activate the same parts of the immune system as a real infection. So this in any event is not true herd immunity in the true sense of the word.
The choice they are making is to take a relatively small risk now to give a reduced lifelong risk. The public health decision is that we will put up with increased lifelong risk because we can't bear to do nothing for children. Because what you're also saying is that - for a small risk - we have to reduce our personal capacity to resist illness because the state insists that it will always be able to provide immunisation programmes for everyone. And in fact that protection is not perfect anyway. In populations where there is generally good nutrition and a history of measles, the fatalities are 0.3% of infections, but where there is no history of measles, this can rise to over 50%. Since measles is a virus, it cannot be eradicated like e.g. guinea worm. If immunisation programmes were 100% effective for 3 generations, where would that leave us? Not in a good place at all.
By all means continue with the measles inoculation programmes, but to say that this specific case is a cut and dried no brainer and the state knows best and should be able to enforce 100% compliance based purely on the epidemology is stretching the envelope a little.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
Herd immunity isn't compromised if one member of the community refuses to vaccinate, but it is if a substantial proportion of the community does.
Every community has a number of members that cannot be vaccinated. Because they're too young or too old, because they're suffering from other sicknesses, because they're allergical to some substances in the vaccine ...
Normally, they are protected by the herd immunity. If they are the only ones who aren't vaccinated, there is no problem.
But if a substantial proportion of the community refuses to vaccinate, these people are at risk.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Herd immunity isn't compromised if one member of the community refuses to vaccinate, but it is if a substantial proportion of the community does.
Every community has a number of members that cannot be vaccinated. Because they're too young or too old, because they're suffering from other sicknesses, because they're allergical to some substances in the vaccine ...
Normally, they are protected by the herd immunity. If they are the only ones who aren't vaccinated, there is no problem.
But if a substantial proportion of the community refuses to vaccinate, these people are at risk.
Exactly. If your child can be vaccinated (ie is not immuno-compromised, allergic to the vaccine etc), you don't have the right to selfishly deny herd immunity to those at real risk because you're wrongly scared of autism or mercury or whatever.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
It's very largely about the ones who are too young to be immunized--those and the ones whose immune system is compromised due to chemotherapy or whatever. You don't want a measles outbreak because some of those who get it are bound to carry it to the un-immunizable, which is all of us early in life. This is not primarily about preventing the immunized from the tiny chance that they might catch it anyway. Well, except in so far as they might then carry it to the wee babies and etc.
Measles is extraordinarily contagious--you don't need close, prolonged contact to catch it from someone. If I recall correctly, it can even linger in a room for several hours after the measelly person has gone. If I had an infant or family member on chemo, I'd be terrified to let them out in public during even a mild measles outbreak.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Pre-vaccination days, I had mumps, measles, rubella and chicken pox. The mumps took me from almost all of grade 2, about 9 months. Measles for 3 months. My sister is sterile from rubella. My father nearly died when I was 12 from hepatitis. He was off work and sick for nearly 2 years after out of hospital. I have seen 3 family members with shingles, which is related to the chicken pox virus.
Anyone who thinks it is a human right to not be vaccinated is in idiot. You do not want these diseases or any others that you can avoid. You don't have to be the first one to take the vaccinations by being an early adopter of them, but for God's sake, be in the second wave.
Any of my my employees who are off work with the flu and have not had a flu vaccination know that this is time off without pay. Period. I had the flu in 1993, and was ill on and off for almost 5 months with it. Not all of Canada requires children to be vaccinated or they may not attend school but they all should.
Finally, this may enlighten dofusses who think they shouldn't have vaccinations: {url=http://robertmoorejr.tumblr.com/post/110101466091/im-an-anti-braker]I'm an anti-braker[/url].
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
At the moment I believe the fundamental principle of medical ethics is that you don't intervene without informed consent. Someone who doesn't want to be vaccinated does not give consent and isn't informed.
The frequently cited principle that the right to swing your fist stops when it gets to someone else's nose is all very well, but it doesn't help you decide what is the fist and what is the nose. The kind of right that allows someone to refuse medical treatment seems a lot more nose-like, and a lot more defensible on general principles, than the right to not be exposed to unvaccinated people.
Certainly the right to refuse vaccination wouldn't exist on the grounds of the greater good. But rights are there so that they may not be overridden on the grounds of the general good.
Refusing vaccination is ignorant and irresponsible. But I think on most accounts of a liberal society of which I'm aware there ought to be a right to do so.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Refusing vaccination is ignorant and irresponsible. But I think on most accounts of a liberal society of which I'm aware there ought to be a right to do so.
So if you refuse to have your child vaccinated, s/he exposes my infant child too young to be vaccinated, and my infant dies from the disease... can you be charged with negligent homicide?
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Is it not law that children must attend school? How is this different than vaccinations? In both situations people may want to, not want, or do so because there is sanction if they don't. I personally would endorse children protection interventions to make either happen.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Refusing vaccination is ignorant and irresponsible. But I think on most accounts of a liberal society of which I'm aware there ought to be a right to do so.
So if you refuse to have your child vaccinated, s/he exposes my infant child too young to be vaccinated, and my infant dies from the disease... can you be charged with negligent homicide?
As I understand it, if there's a right not to be vaccinated without informed consent from yourself, or your parent or guardian acting on your behalf, then that should entail that the parent or guardian can't be charged with anything as a consequence of exercising that right.
Morally, I think the parent is culpable.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Is it not law that children must attend school? How is this different than vaccinations? In both situations people may want to, not want, or do so because there is sanction if they don't.
I don't know what the law is.
According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 26), elementary education is compulsory, but parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. I think society can intervene to ensure that the child is getting an education, but have limited rights over its form and content.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Is it not law that children must attend school?
No, it's the law that children must receive an education. Whether this happens at a public school, a private school, at home from a professional tutor or at home with the parents as teachers is up to the parents.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Here any education program whether home schooled or in an actual school must be set out as an education plan and approved. We also routinely see children apprehended to receive medical care declined by parents. There must be limits on freedom of choicr in any society.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Refusing vaccination is ignorant and irresponsible. But I think on most accounts of a liberal society of which I'm aware there ought to be a right to do so.
So if you refuse to have your child vaccinated, s/he exposes my infant child too young to be vaccinated, and my infant dies from the disease... can you be charged with negligent homicide?
If it's legal, you couldn't be charged criminally; but I'd bet there's a whopper of a civil case there (provided the non-vaccinator had no obvious reason such as allergy to the vaccine, AND provided you can establish that the exposure clearly came from that unvaccinated child and no one else)
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
There must be limits on freedom of choicr in any society.
Well, of course. You can't choose to not feed your children, you can't choose to keep them in cages in your yard, and so on. Everyone agrees that those things are unacceptable.
You can choose what colour to paint your kids' bedrooms, whether you want them to take ballet or hockey lessons and so on. Everybody agrees that those things are choices.
And then there's the stuff in the middle, where reasonable people disagree over where the boundaries are. In terms of education, "everybody" agrees that children should have an education that prepares them for adulthood. Reasonable people disagree about the level to which the state should have the authority to regulate that (approving curricula, requiring specific curricula, approving qualifications for teachers etc.)
Are vaccinations similar? I think people should vaccinate their kids. In particular, I think they should vaccinate their kids before they go and mingle with everyone else in schools and the like.
OTOH, if you don't have your kids in daycare, I don't think it's beyond the pale to want to vaccinate your kids on a delayed schedule. I don't think there's much of a scientific case for doing that, but if your kids are mostly at home, whether or not they are vaccinated is less of an issue.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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