My memories of the fall semester and return to school include days where we lined up and left our classroom, destination the gym or cafeteria or some large room in the school where the school nurse and the medical staff from the local clinic, including one of the doctors, were administering vaccinations. Smallpox was the biggie, the gel placed on your arm and then several "pokes" with the needle to get it in. There was the cup with the sugar cube for polio and the shots in the arm for a variety of other diseases I didn't know anything about, like diphtheria, rubella, and other things I never worried about. Well, they told us we were getting the vaccinations so we would not get the other things. I did come down with a mild case of rubella when I was 10, and a mild case of chicken pox while I was in the hospital with mumps.
I don't recall whether parent permission had to be given to get these vaccinations, though I'm sure there was a form they signed. But what I do remember is that there was one member of my class of over 100 students, just one, who did not get in line and receive any of these immunizations or vaccinations. We weren't allowed to talk about it, but the "rumor" went around that her religion didn't allow her to get vaccinated.
That caused me to wonder what might happen if she got sick from one of these painful, deadly diseases. Is that what her parents wanted? At that point, my limited knowledge did not permit me to understand that she was insulated by the fact that all of the rest of her classmates, and by extension, virtually all of the other members of the community, were vaccinated and their actions led to the near-eradication and prevention of the spread of these diseases. And here we are, 50 years down the road from those days, and cases of measles, mumps, polio and diphtheria are rare. I can't say I've ever known of anyone having diphtheria and few of the school kids I've worked with in the last couple of decades have come down with any of the other childhood maladies.
Those vaccinations were developed and mandated by government for the protection of its citizens. The courts, including the Supreme Court, supported the authority of municipalities and states to pass laws requiring vaccinations to protect citizens from the spread of contagious disease, a practice that was welcomed and well received by people, many of whom had experienced and suffered through pandemics with limited medical care and without much close access to doctors or hospitals.
That's one of the responsibilities of democratic government. It protects its citizens from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and it mediates matters where individual rights clash. And in this case, where vaccinations protect those who get them from the spread of contagious, deadly disease and also prevent the bacterial or viral infection from growing, mutating and becoming resistant to vaccinations, the government decided that remaining at risk is dangerous to the common good of the community, and individual rights are subject to the will of the majority.
Perspectives and Specific Examples
It's not hard to imagine why state laws require health care workers to have a long list of immunizations and vaccines. The survival rate of employees who were vulnerable to a long list of contagious, deadly viruses and bacteria that come through every medical facility door every day would be very low. Likewise, someone who is sick, seeking medical care, should not have to worry about whether they will get a deadly infection from the nurse or doctor with whom they have close enough contact to be contagious. Health care is built on a foundation of immunizations and vaccinations. Without them, you don't have health "care."
I have had the unfortunate circumstance of being pulled over by a police officer. There was certainly enough close proximity, and enough time, to catch a contagious disease had he been carrying one. People have the right to expect that when they encounter police in an uncomfortable situation, they do not have to worry about also catching a contagious disease.
The same rights exist for those who attend movies, concerts or theater, sporting events, or who use public transportation or fly. Passengers flying together in close quarters on an airplane for several hours should not be expected to take the risk of catching a deadly, contagious virus in order to protect the "rights" of those who choose to work in that industry and know the requirements up front but decide not to comply with them. My plane fare helps pay their salary, and entitles me to a safe flight and the reasonable expectation that the employees have followed the requirements for being certified to do their job.
And here's an important fact. These vaccine and immunization requirements have been in effect for decades. They have never even remotely been considered "tyranny" or the denial of individual rights and freedom. By definition, there is no COVID-19 mandate that remotely fits the definition of either of those things. And there is no precedent for resistance to getting vaccinated being individual freedom or a basic right.
The Greater Good
The boundary line where individual liberty is limited is that point where it bumps into the individual liberty of someone else. In a constitutional republic that declares equality, the fact of the matter is that your rights are not more important than mine. Period.
That's where the rule of law comes in. Decisions are made by our elected government which define where the boundaries of individual rights are located. Ignoring those definitions is breaking the law by definition. So when there is compelling evidence that a vaccination prevents the spread of a deadly disease, and that a high percentage of the population being vaccinated prevents the disease from mutating and growing worse, the greater good establishes the boundary of individual rights in its own favor. And that's the whole principle behind immunization and vaccination mandates. That's it. Rights achieve the greater good.
Stupidity and Ignorance
Whether politics creates the vacuum into which common sense falls, or whether it is just a general lack of quality public education in this country. we have an anti-vaccination movement that has wrapped itself in a false, phony definition of "tyranny" and around one of the most ignorant premises ever invented. The whole movement is cult-like in its mentality, a position which is not only personally detrimental to themselves but which brings everyone else down to suffer at the same level. Maybe that's the attraction of it, I don't know. But there is no other way to describe this except that it is ignorance and stupidity. Those who endorse and push it are not credible thinkers.
Think about how little sense this makes. The same people who are shrieking and flapping their lips over state government restrictions that limit community activity in order to keep down the spread of COVID are shrieking and flapping their lips in opposition to the one thing that has the actual potential to cause the restrictions to go away.
Nothing indicates that using the terms "stupid" and "ignorant" to describe these people and characterize this position as completely accurate is better than the deaths of the prominent, well-known, extremist right-wing commentators to COVID. They set themselves up, ignore the problem, catch the disease and die. Well, before they passed on, did they "own" the libs? Who is laughing now? Do they think they are going to come back in another, reincarnated form? They're dead, so what point have they made, other than that their own stupid behavior led to their demise. They've left no legacy, no final word, nothing but a statement that they were stupid and ignorant before they departed.
So common wisdom declares "you can't fix stupid." But in this case, our health and recovery depends on fixing stupid. And if that means people who won't comply with vaccine mandates can't attend school, be admitted to a university, ride a train or plane or a public bus and lose their job as a result of their refusal, then we have achieved the greater good that is the goal of our democratic government.
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