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Whatever one’s views of the anti-vaccination “movement” (full disclosure–mine run from incredulous to angry), its growth, and the current epidemic of measles that has resulted, offers a vivid metaphor for the basic tension that underlies liberal democratic governance.

Our system, as I tell my students, restrains and limits government, especially when laws threaten to infringe on fundamental human rights–religious or political beliefs, free speech and the like. Government is absolutely prohibited from interfering with an individual’s beliefs, and must demonstrate a compelling purpose before interfering with conduct based upon those beliefs.

One of the enduring debates in a liberal democracy concerns where we draw that line–under what circumstances do we allow government to require or prohibit behavior that is based upon an individual’s deeply held belief?

Another way of asking that is: how much danger must the behavior pose to others before government interference is permissible?

With respect to vaccination, many states have historically accommodated religious objections because relatively few people have harbored those objections, allowing the rest of us to develop what doctors refer to as “herd immunity.” A few non-immunized people in a population that is 95% vaccinated pose little threat to the rest of us, and it thus costs us little or nothing to accommodate their beliefs.

Legal scholars have suggested a similar calculus was at play when the Supreme Court, in Yoder, exempted the Amish from laws requiring that children attend school until age 16; whatever one’s opinion of that decision, it affected very few people. Had the impact been wider, the decision would probably have been different.

The current effort to exempt “bible-believing Christians” from compliance with otherwise applicable civil rights laws raises the same issue. Religious folks have absolute liberty to believe whatever they want about gay people or black people or Jewish people or whoever. But do those beliefs entitle them to engage in discriminatory behavior that is contrary to America’s cultural and legal commitment to civic equality? Can they claim a religious privilege to behave in ways that we collectively deem destructive to our social health?

If my “sincere” beliefs required me to blow up your headquarters building, or sacrifice my newborn, few people would argue that I should be allowed to act upon those beliefs.

If your religious (or just uninformed) decision to forego vaccinating your child is shared by enough people to pose a health risk to other children in a classroom, shouldn’t government be able to exclude your child from that classroom?

If your demand for “religious liberty” includes your right to breach the social contract and refuse to do business with certain of your fellow-citizens, shouldn’t government be able to rule such behavior out of order?

It’s all about where we draw the line.

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Well, we seem to have averted yet another government shutdown. Congress has passed, and Obama has signed, a 1.1 trillion-dollar bill that will keep the government operating through September of 2015. (It isn’t a budget bill, however; the last time Congress passed an actual budget, rather than an “omnibus spending bill” was 1997.)

Several members of Congress have lauded the measure as reassuring evidence that partisans can, indeed, work together. Others have pointed out that when you are distributing goodies desired by those partisans—when your legislation is a “Christmas Tree” with “ornaments” benefitting lawmakers and special interests—co-operation is easier to achieve.

What are those Christmas “goodies”? Who will benefit from them and who will pay for them?

Elizabeth Warren has pointed out that the measure contains multiple Wall Street giveaways (not to mention repealing part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill), but cuts over $300 million from the Pell Grant program.

Merry Christmas! Bankers win, students lose.

The giveaways to Wall Street, including the measures that once again open the door to the trading practices that triggered the Great Recession, have been the subject of a great deal of public debate. Other “gifts” have flown under the radar. Democratic Congressman Jared Polis of Colorado recently highlighted one of those.

Pointing to research done by the government watchdog group, “Represent US,” Polis noted that the bill allocates up to $1,000 per month to subsidize Congress members’ cars. At the same time, the bill authorized the reduction of benefits being paid to retirees by struggling multi-employer pension plans.

Merry Christmas! Car subsidies for Congress, coal for pensioners.

There was more, of course—much more. Defense lobbyists scored a big win, with a provision to pay $479 million for warplanes the Pentagon did not ask for. Gotta keep those defense contractors in business, you know.

Too bad ordinary Americans didn’t have the benefit of those defense industry lobbyists. Generosity to the well connected didn’t extend to the millions of low-wage Americans who are still struggling in the wake of the recession. Among other things, the bill cuts $93 Million from the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Nutrition Program. It cuts $300 million from supportive housing programs serving the homeless. Section 8 housing vouchers were funded at a level half a billion dollars below Administration requests.

And of course, there were lots of those last-minute “special” provisions so beloved by our lawmakers. The bill overrules the 70% of Washington, D.C. residents who recently voted to reform D.C. marijuana laws, puts taxpayers back on the hook for big bank bailouts by repealing laws that were put in place after the 2008 financial collapse, and gives billionaires the right to donate up to 1.5 Million to political parties of their choice. (That’s ten times the current limit, if you’re counting.)

And a cautionary note: if you’re on the road in 2015, look out for big trucks. Negotiators tucked a policy rider into the bill that suspends regulations that set maximum time periods behind the wheel, after which professional truckers had to stop and sleep.

This Christmas, We the People evidently get to choose between the rock of gridlock and the Deep Blue Sea of venal “bipartisanship.”

It’s a sea on which only those who have yachts can sail.

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Roll Call reports  on the persistent efforts by the House GOP to discredit sound science and cripple environmental regulation:

House leaders have decided that one of the most important things they can do during the lame duck session is to vote on two bills that would cripple good, science-based policy.

The bills’ backers are pitching the legislation as an effort to create transparency at the Environmental Protection Agency. But the science the EPA and other agencies base their rules on is already an open book. These bills are about trying to stop the EPA from doing its job.

The first bill, sponsored by Rep. Schweickert of Arizona, sounds innocuous enough; it requires the EPA to post all raw data on its website. The problem is, its definition of “raw data” includes information (about identifiable hospital patients, for example) that privacy laws prohibit the agency from disclosing. By requiring the EPA to do the impossible, the bill effectively prevents the agency from doing anything.

The second bill is even worse.

The EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act, sponsored by vocal EPA adversary Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, would similarly erect pointless roadblocks for the agency. The Science Advisory Board, composed of some of our nation’s best independent scientists, exists not to advocate any particular policy, but to evaluate whether the best science was used in agency decisions.

This bill would make it easier for experts with ties to corporations affected by new rules to serve on the SAB while excluding independent scientists from talking about their own research. In other words, academic scientists who know the most about a subject can’t weigh in, but experts paid by corporations who want to block regulations can.

These bills can’t be excused as the product of good-faith disagreements. From their disingenuous drafting to the sneaky timing of their introduction, they are quite clearly efforts to keep policies from being based on the best available science.

There should be a special place in hell for people who are willing to jeopardize the health and well-being of millions of humans who inhabit this planet if that’s what it takes to protect their bottom lines.There should be an even hotter place for the political pawns willing to do their bidding.

I seem to recall that Dante’s 9th Circle of Hell was reserved for those guilty of Treachery–defined as those who betray a trust.

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