Xenophobia

Human feces in a public area of a building.  Image from HERE.

A favorite tactic of the pseudo-intellectual is to label the opponent with a fancy word and then dismiss them, and their arguments, as irrational.

Having recently been called a Xenophobe, I thought I would play with the idea. This is what I ended up with.

xen·o·pho·bi·a: ˌ

zenəˈfōbēə,ˌzēnəˈfōbēə/

noun: xenophobia

1. intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries or cultures.

 Gramatically, this sentence offers eight separate definitions of Xenophobia:

1. Intense dislike of people from other countries
2. Intense dislike of people from other cultures
3. Intense fear of people from other countries
4. Intense fear of people from other cultures
5. Irrational dislike of people from other countries
6. Irrational dislike of people from other cultures
7. Irrational fear of people from other countries
8. Irrational fear of people from other cultures.

Only half the definitions are "Irrational".

What is interesting, from my side of the debate, is that "Xenophobe's" demands for due-diligence are branded as "irrational" at worst and "intense" at best.  We demand due-diligence from automakers and big-pharma.  When did big government become exempt from due-diligence?

Let's talk about poop

According to Wikipedia, here is a partial list of diseases that can be spread by human feces:

• Ascariasis and other soil transmitted helminthiasis
• Cholera
• Clostridium difficile
• Cryptosporidiosis
• Enteroviruses
• Giardiasis^[3]
• Hepatitis A^[4]
• Hepatitis E^[5]
• Norovirus acute gastroenteritis
• Poliomyelitis
• Rotavirus^[6] Most of these pathogens cause gastroenteritis.
• Shigellosis (bacillary dysentery)^[7]
• Typhoid fever^[8]
• Vibrio parahaemolyticus infections^[9]
• Waterborne diseases

This resonates with me because one of my high school classmates was orphaned after his father was infected by Hepatitis he contracted from a prisoner who spit in his face.

Many historians posit that more people die during wars due to diseases than from wounds inflicted on the field of battle.  Many causes come together that make this so.  Large numbers of people are placed in close proximity to each other.  The mean distance between carriers and naive patients is compressed by two or three orders of magnitude.  Bodies are weakened due to crappy diet, cold and wet.  Waste handling (poop) is lax.  Inadequate clean water for washing hands, or primitive methods of cleaning one's bottom afterward...all this comes together.

"The Grid" is a frequently mentioned target of terrorists.  The high casualty count from Grid Down will not be due to hypothermia or heat stroke.  Nope.  It will be from people crapping in stairwells after the toilets stop flushing.  It will be due to diseases that we are rarely exposed to, here in a developed country.

Am I a Xenophobe?

No.  I just demand due-diligence from my government.  They are acting like sixth graders, trying to shout-down the opposition.

Experts.  Top experts.

They take umbrage when we question them.  Their "top experts" were chosen based on ideology and political reliability.  I really don't care if intelligent questions cause them to have sand in their nether-regions.  Pathogens are not debate points, they are organisms that have a name for humans: Meat.

Pathogens, and terrorism that may be directed at The Grid are a couple of outstanding reasons to proceed cautiously.  Any other approach is both reckless and irrational.