No, it's this general notion of people wanting to claim credit for "doing something" while actually only being willing to engage in the low-effort, low-sacrifice virtue signaling.
Could you stop this cynical insistence that taking a position on a issue is about "virtue signaling" or social credit? It's really annoying and not correct.
Second, could you stop assuming that two positions that you think are correlated are actually correlated?
Third, could you realize that no one is completely consistent in their positions?
Finally, could you please realize that even when someone agrees that two positions are correlated the same way that you do, it doesn't mean they can't find one to be more important than the other?
Thanks.
Follows the similar train of thought as the people who go on social media tirades about "tax the rich" and "expand Medicaid" as a means of showing everyone else "See, look at me, I care about the issue of poverty!" (just in ways that don't involve any effort or sacrifice from them, personally)
This is a perfect example of this problem of assumption. Expanding Medicaid would almost certainly improve health status for the poorest and next to poorest Americans (you know, those ones with the bad diets of cheap processed foods you rail about above and below). It would probably have some impact on poverty levels, but mostly on the health of the poor. If you really wanted to have the biggest impact on poverty it would be in support programs for parents (Child care tax credit, Earned income tax credit) at the same level of expenditure.
As for "Tax the Rich" (though Aerosmith had it better in the mid-90s, its the only thing the rich are very good for), they are the ones with the money available to be taxed. Taxing the poor certainly isn't going generate the revenue to lift the poor out of poverty. Let those with 6-figure incomes carry the burden, they can afford it.
No they're trying to promote their own images and bona fides as "trust the science" people.
[Face palm], [facepalm], [double facepalm], [naked_gun facepalm], [Picard-Riker facepalm]
Are you *trying* to demonstrate you are in the anti-science group? This mocking use of "trust the science" has been enthusiastically adopted by all of the anti-science movements, old and new, since Faucci said it ONCE. (Is this your virtue signalling?)
It seems that promoting weight loss, exercise, and healthy diet would save a lot of lives too... but they won't touch that one because they don't want to be called "fat phobic".
They'll go hard on the anti-vaxxers, but barely say a peep about the fat pride and "healthy at any size" body positivity movements.
Here we get to my other points. You are making assumptions about those who are vocally against the anti-vax, including projecting your ideas about what they should value on to them.
The "obesity crisis" is not new, or rapidly moving. It has been slowly growing for *DECADES* with the development of air conditioning, TV and gaming, HFCS, increasing office work and commutes, processed grains, etc. It is not new or rapidly changing. Can we do things to slow or reverse it? Of course. Healthier meals in schools, regulation of snack food industry practices, subsidizing less processed and fresh foods for poor people, putting in sidewalks and letting kids roam the neighborhood again, etc. Some of these the federal government could do (but not all in HHS), some they can't.
[Finally on "body shaming" and "body positivity". The first of this movement was decades ago to prevent the physical and psychological harm being done via anorexia because of the obsession of correlating thinness with health and beauty. "Fat pride" is a far newer thing that isn't nearly as popular as you seem to think it is. But that doesn't mean you should assume that every really skinny person is anorexic or a heroin user, or that every fat person lacks control or is lazy. These kinds of moral judgement are good and are rather mean. What is the best and healthiest course for them is between them and their doctors, not you or I. (See Medicaid expansion discussion above.)]
The anti-vax movement *is* an existential threat to public health. It was bubbling under the surface at a manageable level for decades, but the (very politicized) reaction against the COVID vaccines has supercharged it. A drop in vaccination rates will push protection for many diseases below the "herd immunity" levels that keep outbreaks localized and contained. Measles will be the first to become endemic again (it is one of the most infectious diseases out there), but others will follow.
Whatever "help" Kennedy can make on the "healthy eating and exercise" front will be wiped out completely when deadly diseases become endemic again. Other HHS secretaries (along with FDA commissioners, Surgeon Generals, etc.) could make the same case for those "positive" things, but no other administration even considered putting anti-vaxers in prominent health-associated position. That is his "unique" deficiency.
It it didn't even have to be anti-vaxxers, a person simply saying "You know, I just had the infection and recovered 2 months ago, I'm 30, healthy with no comorbidities, I don't feel need to rush out and get jabbed just yet" was enough to get them maligned. Yet a person who does virtually nothing else good for their own health gets a 4th booster, and they're praised for "doing their part" and "following the science".
Quit being so self-centered. Learn about social encouragement.
