What do we say to health care workers who refuse to accept a flu shot because, well, "I don't want to be a guinea pig... I don't think I should be forced to take something I don't want to take"?
In the United States, the drive is fueling anti-government sentiment and rumors on the Internet and elsewhere that the vaccine may become compulsory for everyone.
"You start with health-care workers but then expand that umbrella to make it mandatory for everybody," said Lori Price of Citizens for Legitimate Government, a Bristol, Conn.-based group that opposes government expansion. "It's all part of an encroachment on our liberties."
While the federal government plans to buy enough swine flu vaccine for every American, it will remain strictly voluntary for the average citizen, according to federal, state and local officials.
Sometimes the fear and intransigence are based on myths of popular culture. "They" took Roswell away from us and "they" tried to capture ET for experiments.
Sometimes the attitude is based on reality. "They" also take their orders (and lobby money) from transnational corporations. "They" punish ACORN but rehire Blackwater. "They" tell us one thing to get our votes and then do what they want.
Good government and popular trust go hand in hand. Break one and you kill the other.
I think a person of Obama's intelligence sees this more clearly than most. But he's decided to walk down the wrong path. He's joined enthusiastically by most of Congress. Not "looking back" and confronting government's worst excesses and criminality doesn't mean the public will forget them. A public that doesn't forget is a public that turns a required flu shot into a federal case -- or a secret rendition flight and Abu Ghraib and worse.
