Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Thom Tillis: Another Faux Liberty Bumpkin Who's Really for Lunacy

Norovirus closes hundreds of wards
The 'uninvited guest' on your restaurant  food - if idiot Thom Tillis has his way. Just one of these noroviruses will have you going both ways for days if you're unlucky enough to receive that burger from some careless food handler- who doesn't believe in washing his hands after a No. 2.

It appears the definitions of liberty have now plummeted to new lows, as we see libertarian twits like Rand Paul arguing that vaccinations can sometimes do more harm than good, and Chris Christie having to walk back recent remarks that "government shouldn't be telling parents to vaccinate their kids."  Oh yeah! Well, let's clarify that in fact governments (mainly of the states) are actually too cavalier in allowing too many vaccine exceptions - including for "personal beliefs" and "religious beliefs". In my day, you could not darken a school door unless you had all your vaccinations and could prove it. That's the way it should be and why a number of diseases were nearly wiped out.

Now, the "liberty" meme has been brought to a new low by the latest lowbrow mutt - a bumpkin named Thom Tillis (R-NC), an actual Senator - which goes to show how low the voting standards are in the Tarheel state. During a Q&A at the Bipartisan Policy Center on Monday, Tillis  described his own history of opposing certain health and hygiene regulations, including those that require employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom.


This cornpone turkey related a story (from his time in the state legislature in 2010),  when he complained that the U.S. is "one of the most regulated nations in the history of the planet," video via C-SPAN shows.  He said:


I was having a discussion with someone, and we were at a Starbucks in my district, and we were talking about certain regulations where I felt like ‘maybe you should allow businesses to opt out,'"


Tillis said his interrogator was in disbelief, and asked whether he thought businesses should be allowed to "opt out" of requiring employees to wash their hands after using the restroom.
The senator said he'd be fine with it, so long as businesses made this clear in "advertising" and "employment literature."

Yeah, and what if that "literature" is embedded on some barely visible, post-card sized index card with 8-point font tacked up in some corner?

“I said: ‘I don’t have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as they post a sign that says “We don’t require our employees to wash their hands after leaving the restroom,” Tillis said, adding:

The market will take care of that!"

Inciting laughter from the audience.

Oh, will it also take care of the all the customers that get norovirus- spawned diarrhea and vomiting? Of course, they will likely never return to said place of business again - whether Starbucks, Chipotle, Applebee's or Olive Garden - but by then the norovirus bug will likely have spread to thousands of others - simply by random contact. (It can survive on surfaces for up to 12 days)

Is this idiot for real? How the hell did he even manage to get to the U.S. Senate?

But it exemplifies the problems we have today with all manner of morons touting liberty when they don't have a clue what true liberty means. For one thing, and in the most basic sense, it means your liberty cannot transgress on my health and welfare. It also means, by extension, it cannot trespass on the communal health and welfare. Since people working in restaurants, and especially those handling foods that will be consumed - are at the critical nexus of disease communicability (including from not washing hands properly) it means they have NO liberty not to wash hands thoroughly. If they do not, and special cameras catch them - they need to be fired Johnny on the spot.

Tillis' version of freedom via non-regulation of hand washing for food handlers and others in restaurants, is therefore not freedom at all but license masquerading as freedom. It thus amounts to sheer lunacy given the adverse consequences to many people if allowed.

But it shows again how our educational foundation has been gutted because too many today are unable to distinguish legitimate freedom from license. It's a shame this stuff is no longer imparted in high schools and colleges, but evidently - given the success of turkeys like Tillis - it isn't.

Just be sure if this character is visiting some restaurant you're at, and wants to glad hand you - you properly disinfect your hands afterwards!

 

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