Welp, So Much for Young People

BALTIMORE, MD - JANUARY 12: Roommates Spencer Wolfe (from l.), Sean Wen and Forrest Miller hang out in the living room of their four-bedroom apartment in the Fells Point neighborhood, on January 12, 2015 in Baltimore... BALTIMORE, MD - JANUARY 12: Roommates Spencer Wolfe (from l.), Sean Wen and Forrest Miller hang out in the living room of their four-bedroom apartment in the Fells Point neighborhood, on January 12, 2015 in Baltimore, Maryland. They all moved to Baltimore just out of college and work for start ups. Baltimore is a draw for millennials who want to live in close-in, hip, urban neighborhoods. The city has a vibrant nightlife, great architecture and a relatively low cost of living and has earned the nickname Charm City. (Photo by Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor MORE LESS
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In recent years many progressive political thinkers have focused on the views of so-called millennials. They are more pro-gay rights, more racially inclusive and generally have more progressive political views on a host of issues. It’s part of what gives people – rightly – such confidence on LGBT rights issues. It’s generational. There’s no going back. That’s great. Unfortunately, a lot of these youngs seem to be complete a complete disaster on vaccination.

Check this out. This is a chart from a recent poll by Yougov. To be clear, it is not whether people think vaccinations are important. It’s whether people think vaccinations should be mandatory. As you can see, for older Americans, support for mandatory immunizations is overwhelming. And it just got lower and lower and lower the younger you go – with what looks like a steep turning points somewhere in the mid-30s.

This is not good news.

And the same goes for vaccination as gay rights, racial inclusion and the rest. The trend seems obvious. In twenty years will there be strong public support for even soft-compulsory vaccination?

I think the reality is that society seems to has lost the historical memory of various horrific endemic childhood diseases.

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