A year or so ago, the hubs and I were kicking off our Saturday errand running at the bank. For some reason, we had to go in and the line was a bit slow. The woman in front of us was talking on her cell phone. Loudly. So loudly that I became aware of her pregnancy troubles; her friend’s fight with her boyfriend, and various other details I seemed pretty content living without knowing. At one point, I either made a comment about her talking so loud or asked directly for her to quiet her conversation when she WHIPPED around went Shaniqwa on my ass. She ended her little tirade with, “I HAVE RIGHTS!”

Yes dear, I’m pretty sure that’s EXACTLY what Martin Luther King Jr. was talking about in his I Have a Dream speech. You being a jackass in public with your cell phone. (In general this is a huge problem. We have had to move tables in restaurants because people were talking so loud on their cell phone and instead of the waitstaff telling the man to take his conversation outside, they just watched us move tables. And when the man moved to another table close to us again, they did nothing. They got an earful from me. The place I get an oil change has a sign at the counter that says “No Cell Phone Conversations At the Counter.” They’re awesome.)

Anyways.

Sure. People have rights. We all have rights. Some more than others, sure. We can vote (yes, you may need an ID. But that’s okay. You probably need an ID to cash a check or buy booze. It’s not discrimination, it’s a law that makes sense.) We can have our guns. The press can say whatever it wants whether it’s true or not, this seems to get worse around election times. But we all have rights.

Sure.

However, does your right to be a jackass on your cell phone supersede my rights not to be forced to listen to it? How about smoking? Did you know people still like to smoke? Really! Head over to Europe, happens all the time. Some poor saps even sit outside the bars in the winter for their smoke, all huddled up blackening their lungs. I smoke fags when in Europe…ya know, when in Rome?? (I can’t inhale though or it makes me sick so I pretty much just look like an 11 year old smoking fags but at least I’m giving it the old college try.)

But the government has come in and said that you can’t smoke in buildings anymore including bars and restaurants. Huh. Why? I mean, I love it. When I lived in Texas I couldn’t go to the bars that allowed smoking. My hair would stink and I’d roll in around midnight having to shower or Fabreze my hair and my clothes would have to be left in the garage until I could wash them. BUT, that was MY CHOICE. To stay away from those places. And I kind of think that’s a win/win. The government stays out of small business on this matter and they CHOOSE whether or not they want smoking in their bar and we CHOOSE whether or not we want to go. Good deal.

But what if I didn’t get to choose? What if YOUR rights put me in danger but I didn’t get to CHOOSE not to be affected by them. Hmmmmmmm, that’s a conundrum (I just typed that word without spell check. I rule!) I guess there are times when the government’s intervention is just a wee bit helpful in our lives (that hurts to say. Really.)

Vaccinations are one of these times.

I’ve stayed out of this topic for a few reasons. First, it seems too simple to argue. Vaccinate your kid, protect them from others who are not vaccinated and primed carriers of disease. EZPZ. Get’r done at the check up time when you get to see how your baby compares to the rest of babies on the moronic growth chart that never meant anything to me but Doctor Byron still told me about it (by the way, Oscar never even registered on that thing. I finally asked Dr. Byron to grab a chart two years older than Oz to see how he did there. Bingo.)

My Grandpa had polio so he got to spend his childhood in an Iron Lung:

Hey, that looks fun!

But we forget. We are told that vaccines cause Autism so we skip vaccines (hey, remember when we were told that the low fat, high carb diet was best…or the whole cholesterol/heart disease thing?) But see, with vaccines, we have numbers. Numbers of deaths before vaccines, numbers after.

I actually read an anti-vac statement that said only 450 people a year die from measles. This is your argument not to vaccinate? How about if all 450 people are those you know and love including all of your children…every year. Does it matter then? Basically what this number is saying is that no one close to me has died from measles so don’t vaccinate.

MKay. Measles is spread through the air. There are people who are not able to get the vaccine or are diseased enough that they can not fight the virus if exposed. Do they have rights? Are they less then yours to be an idiot and not vaccinate? If your CHOICE stumbles into my RIGHTS  not to be diseased, well, you lose. You may not blow smoke in my face or cough measles at my baby. You have no rights that will infect others. None.

Why do you think you do?

If you ask 99.9% of  parents who have children with autism if we’d rather have the measles versus autism, we’d sign up for the measles.

Jenny McCarthy

p.s. Hey Jenny, how about you just stick to showing us your boobies in magazines and leave the heavy stuff to us kthxbye.