Gee, imagine that. Professional athletes acting responsibly and doing the right thing. The last time that happened was never. I don't suppose it had anything to do with the NFL issuing a statement warning all the teams that if a game has to be postponed due to a Covid outbreak and can't be rescheduled, the team responsible for the outbreak would not only forfeit the game but the players salaries as well? Nah, I'm sure that had nothing to do with it. I'm sure they did it because they're solid citizens. If you believe that, I got the Jets winning the Super Bowl this season.
For almost a year and a half now, the country, and by extension the planet, has been gripped by the worst pandemic in over a century. And for almost that long there have been two groups of people: those who listened to the science and those who didn't.
Those of us who listened to the science wore our masks in public and stayed socially distant from other people. We avoided large gatherings and sheltered for the most part in our homes. Remember that meme on social media about cars getting three weeks to a gallon? Yep, that was us.
Even when some restrictions were lifted during the summer of 2020, we remained cautious. Why? Because there was still a pandemic raging out there and we didn't want to die, that's why! It was tough not celebrating holidays like the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving with our friends and family, but it would've been ten times tougher knowing that our presence might've cost the life of a loved one. Our inconvenience was but a small price to pay for the safety of our fellow citizens.
It was sickening watching almost half the population of this country ignore the CDC guidelines. Protests over the wearing of a piece of fabric that weighed less than an ounce broke out in city after city. For the life of me, I couldn't wrap my head around how something so basic could be turned into a political football, but sure enough there it was. Millions of people convinced that Covid was nothing but a hoax, defying common sense and recklessly jeopardizing not only their own lives but the lives of innocent people.
Makeshift morgues weren't enough to persuade them; death tolls rising into the hundreds of thousands made them all the more resolute. In all my years on this planet I've never witnessed such a psychosis grab hold of a population the way this one has.
And then, eureka, the vaccines arrived. Certainly deliverance was at hand. My wife and I got vaccinated this spring, along with tens of millions of grateful people who were anxious to put this pandemic behind them. Herd immunity, we were told, would happen if 70 percent of the U.S. population got vaccinated. By the end of April, it seemed a foregone conclusion that America was well on its way to achieving that goal.
What could possibly go wrong?
You guessed it. The same people who equated wearing a mask with tyranny were now defiantly rejecting the vaccine. Soon, the number of people getting vaccinated fell from two million a day to under a million. And just as the experts feared, a new and more virulent strain of the virus - the Delta variant - entered the picture. Slowly, but not unexpectedly, the infection rate began to creep up. But not evenly. Some states initially did better than others. But soon every state saw their rates rise dramatically. Even in New York, my home state, the increase was ominous.
And now the CDC is recommending that all people, even those who are vaccinated, wear masks indoors; not to protect us, mind you, but to protect the unvaccinated. Yep, you heard right. Having done everything that we were told to do, we are now being asked to throw a life preserver to people who insist on drowning.
We are told that the best way to convince those who are "hesitant" about getting the vaccine is to be patient and explain to them what the benefits are. Calling them stupid isn't very helpful and will only force them to dig in their heels. Right, because humoring them has so far worked wonders.
I'm no parent, but every time I see that commercial where the parents try to get their kids to eat their vegetables by opening up a package of noodles covered in cheese, all while an Enya song is playing in the background, my blood boils. When I was a kid, there were two options on the menu: what my mother cooked or an empty plate. That was it. No cajoling, no pleading. You either ate your dinner or you went to bed hungry. And no snacks before bedtime. An empty stomach was the cure all for stubbornness.
Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to impersonate a singer I never much cared for in the first place. If you don't want to get vaccinated, fine. Don't expect me to save your ass. This is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated. So if you insist on jumping out of a plane without a parachute, go for it. Gravity will have its way with you, just like it does with all fools who believe they can fly.
I think the NFL is onto something here. Instead of bribing these idiots - and you are idiots - with a hundred bucks or a lotto ticket, maybe it's time we hit them where they live: in their wallets. Nothing gets a person's attention better than the threat of punitive action. Don't want the vaccine? You're fired. Don't want to show proof of vaccination? You can't get into a concert or ballgame. Don't want to wear a mask? Get out of the building. Need a job? Maybe the former guy can hook you up at one of his resorts busting tables for his billionaire cronies. After all, what are friends for?
I'm done with people who have a death wish. For every point you make - the mortality rates, the efficacy of the vaccines - they bring up five objections, almost all based on conspiracy theories that have been thoroughly debunked. It truly is like dealing with a child.
There's empathy and then there's enabling. I know a thing or two about the latter. As an alcoholic in my twenties, I could always count on finding someone who would enable my drunken behavior. My family, my friends, even some of my employers. None of them got me sober. Only when I ran out of people to blame did I finally decide to clean up my act. Being a full-time adult has been the toughest job I've ever had, but it sure beats living in denial.
Today, almost half the country is living in an alternate reality; a state of denial that is not only potentially fatal to them, but will have profound consequences for the rest of us, as well. What are we supposed to do, tuck these people in at night with a glass of milk and a cookie while the hospitals are overrun? Not while I have something to say about it.
Maybe we've been wrong all along. Maybe the answer is to let them meet their just reward. Like the father who lets his kid get sick smoking a cigar so the experience will hopefully teach him a lesson. Perhaps if enough of them were to die, the rest would have a collective epiphany. Reaching out to them sure as shit hasn't worked.
That's cruel, Peter, how can you say such a thing? Cruel? Cruel is tolerating millions of people thumbing their nose at science and then being asked to make excuses for them. Cruel is standing by while they threaten the safety and well being of an entire planet. Nobody has the right to get away with that.
I'm not the bad guy here; I'm just fed up. Fed up with people who behave like children in need of a time out. If we had tolerated such behavior during World War II, we'd all be speaking German and Japanese right now. But back in those days, the sane people ran the show. Now we let imbeciles call the shots.
These people speak of their rights. But what about their responsibilities? Are we not all responsible for doing our utmost to eradicate a deadly virus like this one? Think about it. If every adult in this country had gotten vaccinated, Covid would literally be in the rear-view mirror, and we wouldn't have to worry about the coming fall and winter the way many medical experts now are.
Does that piss you off? It sure pisses me off. Well, to quote a well-known scene from the movie Network, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" I will not shed one tear for those who foolishly paid the ultimate sacrifice due to their own ignorance. And I will not waste a single breath trying to force them to see the error of their ways. As Proverbs 14-7 says, "Go from the presence of a foolish man, in whom thou perceivest not the lips of knowledge."
In other words, don't waste your time arguing with an idiot!
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