I am not sure how hard this concept is for you to understand. When I say “you people”, Im talking to a mixture of liberal housewives with too much time on their hands and hardcore right wingers who think everything is a government conspiracy.

There is quite a bit of press about how Jenny McCarthy ruined childhood vaccination rates, but she is far from alone in the blame. Most of the media is concerned with ultra-liberal health nuts who seem to think a few hours on the internet equal a career in medicine. Here in California, I cant tell you how many people I’ve met that espouse vaccines cause autism. But in reality, it was most likely a group of right-wing religious nuts (the Amish) who started the current outbreak in America after traveling to the Philippines for a mission to spread whatever religious nonsense they believed that week. One of their unvaccinated spawn met another unvaccinated spawn who decided to go to a very public place (Disneyland) and spread their stupid ideas biologically.

The internet is full of talk now, most thankfully are about vaccinating your children. However, cue the right wing nut bags who think vaccinations are a government conspiracy. Left leaning morons with an internet connection I can handle. They are all about the health of the child (or just keeping them from getting autism or something). They are a small group comparatively. But the right wing of this country has its own media network, and a hatred for everything government. Vaccinations are at the top of the conspiracy list. It varies depending on who you talk to, either vaccinations are literally the work of Satan, or Obama wants to control your mind via MMR injections.

Whenever the right wing talks, they love to mention the founding fathers and how they would never allow such a thing to occur in “their” country. Well, I am not so sure about that, so I went down the list of founding father who lost their children to otherwise preventable diseases:

John Adams – 6 children, 2 died in childhood.

Samuel Adams – 6 children, 4 died in childhood.

Josiah Bartlett – A medical doctor who spent his life fighting diseases. 12 children, 4 died in childhood.

Carter Braxton – 18 children, 7 died in childhood.

Charles Carroll – 7 children, 4 died in childhood.

Samuel Chase – 7 children, 3 died in childhood.

Abraham Clark – 10 children, 3 died in childhood (one of smallpox).

George Clymer – 10 children, 4 died in childhood.

William Allery – 17 children, 10 died in childhood.

William Floyd – 3 children, 0 died in childhood.

Benjiman Franklin – 3 children, 1 died of smallpox.

Elbridge Gerry – 10 children, 2 died in childhood.

Button Gwinnett – 4 children, 3 died in childhood.

Lyman Hall – A medical doctor. 1 child, 1 died in childhood.

John Hancock – 2 children, 2 died in childhood.

Benjiman Harrison V – 10 children, 8 died in childhood.

John Hart – 13 children, 1 died in childhood.

Joseph Hewes – No children.

Thomas Heyward Jr – 9 children, 5 died in childhood.

William Hooper – 6 children, 3 died in childhood.

Stephen Hopkins – 7 children, 2 died in childhood.

Francis Hopkinson – 9 children, 4 died in childhood.

Samuel Huntington – No children.

Thomas Jefferson – 6 children, 4 died in childhood.

Francis Lightfood Lee – No children.

Richard Henry Lee – 13 children, 4 died in childhood.

Francis Lewis – 7 children, 4 died in childhood.

Phillip Livingston – 9 children, 5 died in childhood.

Thomas Lynch Jr – No children.

Thomas McKeen – 11 children, 0 died in childhood.

Arthur Middleton – 4 children, 0 died in childhood.

Lewis Morris – 10 children, 1 died in childhood.

Robert Morris – 7 children, 1 died in childhood.

John Morton – 9 children, 5 died in childhood.

Thomas Nelson Jr. – 11 children, 4 died in childhood.

William Paca – 3 children, 2 died in childhood.

Robert Treat Paine – 8 children, 0 died in childhood.

John Penn – 2 children, 0 died in childhood.

George Read – 5 children, 0 died in childhood.

Caeser Rodney – No children.

George Ross – 4 children, 0 died in childhood.

Benjamin Rush – 13 children, 4 died in childhood.

Edward Rutledge – 3 children, 1 died in childhood.

Roger Sherman – 7 children, 3 died in childhood.

James Smith – 5 children, 4 died in childhood.

Richard Stockton – 6 children, 1 died in childhood.

Thomas Stone – 3 children, 0 died in childhood.

George Taylor – 2 children, 1 died in childhood.

Mathew Thornton – 5 children, 1 died in childhood.

George Walton – 3 children, 1 died in childhood.

George Washington – No children. Sterile due to smallpox.

William Whipple – No children.

William Williams – 5 children, 0 died in childhood.

James Wilson – 7 children, 1 died in childhood.

John Witherspoon – 10 children, 5 died in childhood.

Olver Wolcott – 5 children, 1 died in childhood.

George Wythe – No children.

That is 126 dead children between all of our founding fathers. I am willing to bet if they knew how to save them, they would have in a heartbeat (that includes vaccinations). These were fathers and husbands aside from being patriots. None of them wanted to bury a child, but today we have parents that are willing to let their egos rule their childrens’ lives (and the lives of completely unrelated children as well). Then, many of them hide behind our country’s founders like some sort of shield. They would laugh at you if they knew any inkling of what we have in modern medicine, especially the founding fathers who were licensed physicians.

Long story short, you are not smarter than doctors. You are probably not smarter than the vast majority of our founding fathers, nor are you braver for refusing to vaccinate your kids. Getting other children sick is not patriotism. Your false sense of patriotism only hides the fact that you are a huge asshole for not vaccinating your kids.