The following is my rebuttal to Jennifer Rubin, who recently wrote an op-ed condemning people who are hesitant to receive the coronavirus vaccine:
I understand your concern for the fate of public health, but your suggestions for “vaccine hesitant” people don’t particularly do anything to improve the situation.
My issue is how you pin your frustrations on the right. I know you don’t like them very much and I believe you have legitimate reasons, but you’re wrong about this one. Many republicans are taking these injections, including some that are ‘anti-mask’ and even some that think the election was fraudulent. In fact, Donald Trump is the republican who brought us Operation Warp Speed and pushed unapproved pharmaceuticals to market using the military. Don’t worry, I’m not praising him for this. I’m just stating an observation.
What’s fascinating is that a simple coronavirus was marketed to the public in a way that generated fear across the political spectrum, something that the threat of climate change could never accomplish. The majority of this country accepted the idea that coronavirus is so serious a concern that it warrants a great loss of liberty in order to combat it.
People on both the left and the right are deeply fearful. Perhaps they differ in their level of risk tolerance or opinions on masks, but when it comes down to it, about 80% of people are lining up to have experimental medications injected into their bodies.
The injection has become a religious experience for the godless and a sacrifice to the collective. Accepting it shows intelligence, selflessness and virtue, or so the 80% like to believe. For some, the thought of social isolation and ostracization for not accepting it is so exhausting, that they eventually just roll up their sleeves.
Jennifer, take comfort in the fact that opinion pieces like yours perpetuate this body shaming. Know that you’re doing great work for the pharmaceutical companies and the CDC organization, which they fund.
While I disagree with the 80%, I fully understand their reasons for choosing to take experimental medication and I don’t wish death or harm to them because of it. I would expect the same courtesy for my decisions, but I’m aware that this is not good enough for the hysterical science worshipers. They won’t be content with me making independent medical decisions. No, medical treatment must be exactly the same for everyone and forced on the population! How kind and inclusive.
The 20% of holdouts you mention are not a bunch of know-nothing republican bible believers, because there’s plenty of those people lining up to take their medicine. Perhaps there are some who are republican in name, but most of the 20% are simply people who choose to be skeptical of information that they receive, even from “responsible health-care officials”. This is a rare and specific type of intelligence, as you can see by the 20/80 ratio.
I’m wondering what your plan is for these people. You say they have no right to remain a breeding ground for disease and they have no right to be a danger to themselves or others. Once we stop catering to these militantly hesitant, individuals, what should ultimately happen to them? They’re not just going to vanish from society.
Do we hold them down and inject them? Do we round them up and intern them? Do we let them go homeless and hungry? Do we kill them and dump them in mass graves? Oh, how Christ-like, and what progress in public health!
Can you understand why a thinking and reasoning person might be militantly hesitant? Imagine having something forced into your body against your will? Imagine having to accept rape and then a passport to prove that you’ve been raped, in order to earn your freedom?
We don’t ‘earn’ our privileges here. We’re born with inherent rights. You might disagree, but at least 20% of this country understands the concept very well and believes that it’s their life’s purpose to uphold it, now, more than ever.
Your suggestions are cruel and regressive. I’m sorry you feel the way that you do about the unwashed, human breeding grounds for disease. Your commentary reminds me of past attitudes towards gays during AIDS hysteria and Jews during the reign of the National Socialists. I wonder if you can see the similarities.
