Do I contradict myself?

There is a fallacy known as “Tu Quoque,” which essentially accuses the person of saying one thing acting in a way at odds with that. So suppose you know an environmentalist who drives a Hummer, and you point out to him that we should not take his environmentalism seriously because his actions are at odds with his beliefs. Some would say that in making this charge we are committing the fallacy of “tu quoque,” since supposedly his driving a gas guzzling monstrosity is irrelevant to the truth or falsity of his stance on the environment.

True enough. But surely the critic here has a point. We have no reason to take seriously the claim because it is coming from an incredibly muddled person. And so when I accuse Chris Christie of being a big, fat hypocrite (ok, take away the fat—attack on the person), I don’t believe the charge can be dismissed as fallacious. I am simply saying a person who so blatantly contradicts himself should not be taken seriously as a straight shooter that he purports to be but is obviously just another politician mongering for votes. And this seems completely legitimate.

In the wake of the recent measles outbreak, Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey and likely 2016 presidential candidate, has come out in favor of allowing parents to have a choice when it comes to vaccinating their children against measles. But of course this is the same Chris Christie who quarantined a nurse who was returning from working with Ebola patients in Africa.  When it came to the nurse, who was asymptomatic, Christie said, and I quote: “I don’t believe when you’re dealing with something as serious as this that we can count on a voluntary system.” He continued: “The government’s job is to protect [the] safety and health of our citizens. And so we’ve taken this action, and I absolutely have no second thoughts about it.”

Now, there was literally zero threat from an asymptomatic nurse. Measles, on the other hand, is a highly contagious. An unvaccinated person has a ninety percent chance of getting the virus if they come into contact with it. And an unvaccinated child poses all sorts of threats to the public at large. If the child does get measles, he poses a threat to other unvaccinated children.  And though you might say this is their own fault for not getting the vaccination, it is still likely the state would have to pick up the tab for the treatment. But more importantly it is also the case that a child with measles can threaten those who are too young to be vaccinated as well as those who for some reasons are compromised, for example, someone receiving chemotherapy.

So why when dealing with a hypothetical threat would Christie insist on state intervention but when it comes to a very real threat, he says the state keep its hands off? Why indeed, unless you realize there is a Republican primary electorate made up of paranoids that need to be pandered to.