Tread lightly on the things of earth

Concerning the military draft:

I wrote to a young college-age friend last month that in a second Bush term, the military draft will almost certainly be implemented within months, affecting men and women ages 18 through 34. It’s not fearmongering to point this out; it’s self-evident and numerically inescapable: More wars are planned, and not enough volunteers are available. The draft will follow as night follows day.

Earlier this month, Congressman Tim Ryan, OH-17, explained on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives “why some people believe the Bush Administration has plans to re-institute a military draft” (October 5, 2004, video link).

The military draft has become, no surprise, a significant campaign issue. It’s rightly putting the fear of God into a lot of people.

I think the big-picture learning opportunity here is this:

If you support something only until you realize it costs you personally, and then you don’t support it, you can safely conclude it was never worth supporting at all. Being able to see this ahead of time is what “love your neighbor as yourself” means.

[draft age link via machopicasso]

Concerning flu vaccine:

How can we expect the Bush Administration to respond effectively to a catastrophic biological threat when it can’t ensure availability of flu vaccine?

This isn’t simply a question by analogy: Influenza (flu), of whatever sort, is itself a potentially catastrophic biological threat.

I’m keenly aware of this because my paternal grandfather and one sister were their family’s only survivors in the flu epidemic of 1918, their parents and other siblings suddenly dead:

In the fall of 1918 the Great War in Europe was winding down and peace was on the horizon. … Deep within the trenches these men lived through some of the most brutal conditions of life, which it seemed could not be any worse. Then, in pockets across the globe, something erupted that seemed as benign as the common cold. The influenza of that season, however, was far more than a cold. In the two years that this scourge ravaged the earth, a fifth of the world’s population was infected. The flu was most deadly for people ages 20 to 40. This pattern of morbidity was unusual for influenza which is usually a killer of the elderly and young children. It infected 28% of all Americans (Tice). An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during the pandemic, ten times as many as in the world war.

I’m pretty sure we’re talking about the same production and delivery infrastructure for flu vaccine as for smallpox, anthrax, and other bioterror agent treatments. If the infrastructure is broken for flu vaccine when there’s no pressing epidemic, I feel no confidence it’ll work under a bioterrorism threat.

update:
Ah, I see several letters to the editor about this very topic in today’s New York Times (via Buck Fush).

2004-10-19 update:
Melanie speaks detail to this flu vaccine- and public health infrastructure issue, making clear how it potentially affects every one of us.

Here’s the bottom line: we have a broken system, extremely broken, for public health. And it is ‘way larger than the vaccine. Last year, I skipped the vaccine, and I’m one of the ones who should be getting, not for me, but for you. I’m in the at risk population and you don’t want me acquiring the disease and spreading it. …

Think about this: your health choices this year will affect others, as well as will the choices you don’t get to make, because the functionaries in public health were denied the resources they need. Tell that to your elderly neighbor and the mother of three in pre-school.

Can Kerry fix a system which has been eroding for decades? No. But I’ll settle for knowing that 45 Million of the people I meet on the street every day can afford health care and won’t be blowing bugs on me.

Melanie’s argument makes clear that even selfish individual motivation to fix this problem can collectively lead to tremendous public benefit. Self-interest transformed into public altruism, ah, a wondrous alchemy!

[caught by Steve]