Parents are yelling at and threatening school boards, other parents, and students. Parents are furious that a school district has the audacity to mandate masks. Parents are indignant that their rights are being trampled by authoritarian administrators. Parents are demanding that schools allow their children to make their own choice about wearing a mask. Actually, a very small number of parents are yelling, but because they’re the only ones yelling, it seems like a much bigger issue. But it is an issue - masks have been proven to significantly slow the spread of COVID-19, even the Delta variant. And since the Delta variant seems to be doing what the alpha didn’t do - make kids sick - parents should be the last people demanding that districts not adopt a mask mandate. If you’re reading this, I don’t need to tell you who’s to blame for this cult-like behavior. I also don’t need to point out the remarkable ignorance and hypocrisy of the anti-vaxxer/anti-mask crowd making necessary the mask and vaccine mandates that they are so outraged about. But maybe you didn’t know that, when those ranting and raving proclaim that individual freedoms, guaranteed by the Constitution, are being infringed by mask and/or vaccine mandates, the Supreme Court has ruled on this very question. In Jacobson v Massachusetts (1905), the plaintiff, Jacobson claimed that being forced to be vaccinated against smallpox during an epidemic was an infringement on his Constitutional rights. In the ruling against him, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote in part: “The good and welfare of the Commonwealth, of which the legislature is primarily the judge, is the basis on which the police power rests in Massachusetts upon the principle of self-defense, of paramount necessity, a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members,” (Source - Supreme Court rules on vaccines and public health) Therefore, when science dictates that masks and vaccines can help reduce the effects of a pandemic, they are not only appropriate, but necessary. Rights are not absolute - if they were, we would be a lawless society. But because the founding fathers subscribed to John Locke’s social contract theory (that you all learned about in US History…remember?), the American legal system has laws that limit the rights of its citizens in order to protect the life, liberty, and property of society as a whole. To sum up - according to the Founding Fathers and the Supreme Court, mask and vaccine mandates are not infringements of Constitutional rights if the government determines that they are necessary based on the most recent scientific information. That should end the discussion…but it won’t.
And then this week there’s really no doubt that the US screwed up the removal of troops from Afghanistan. At the very least, there was a significant misunderstanding about the ability and willingness of the Afghans to prevent an immediate Taliban takeover, and as a result, there are thousands of stranded Americans and American allies under threat of death. However, when the same people who supported the withdrawal agreement between the previous president and the Taliban are now indignant at President Biden for adhering to that agreement, it’s hard to take their criticism seriously. President Biden deserves criticism - he’s the president - but to blame him for the entirety of the Afghanistan issue when he’s the fourth American president dealing with it seems ludicrous. If the captain of the Titanic was replaced three times after hitting the iceberg, should the fourth captain be blamed for the entire disaster if the lifeboat procedure he was in charge of was a debacle? And if there is blame for the lifeboat procedure, shouldn’t the third captain who designed the procedure share a large part of the blame? Regardless of who’s to blame, there are still thousands of humans who don’t give a crap about the blame - they just want to keep themselves and their families alive. President Biden needs to remember that if he solves that problem, no one will care about who created it. Well, that’s not completely true - Republicans will make sure that their narrative fits their agenda, not the facts. Kind of like claiming that the January 6th insurrection wasn’t that big of a deal, and if it was, it was Nancy Pelosi’s fault. But that is irrelevant - human lives are at stake, and Joe Biden needs to live up to his reputation of compassion, regardless of the political outcome. That’s why so many more of us voted for him - right, Donald?
I’d like to share some comments re: vaccines
I’m a senior living in a 210 apartment senior complex. When word of the available COVID vaccine first came out, I said not me – I’m not going to take that; it’s barely been tested. Then, by the end of January 2021 with COVID raging, I was thrilled and thankful that the county came to my apartment complex to offer us all the vaccine. Now six months later we’re being told that in a couple of months we should be getting a booster. A month ago when I first heard the word booster, I thought hmm, I don’t think so. Personally I did have a reaction to the vaccine which has taken me several months to get relieved from. But again thankfully I will be accepting that booster.
I wish that every day on every news cast the following statement would be made: Every day that COVID is allowed to run rampant it develops more and more variants. The COVID-Delta Variant is many times more dangerous to humanity than the original COVID. Get vaccinated. Wear masks. Stop the development of more variants.
One of my absolute favorite words is WHY . Explain the “why” and hopefully you bring down the barrier of resistance (in all things).
I want to go back about 15 or so years to when the talk was that our children’s vaccines were giving them autism. At that point our babies were receiving about a dozen vaccines. Thankfully I did not have a child that I would need to make a decision about because my “understanding” was that all the vaccines were being treated with a mercury-based preservative (tur something or other-I’ve forgotten the name). This product in one or two vaccines wouldn’t cause damage but 12 vaccines – a real problem. The product was ultimately removed from the vaccines. Perhaps here again if people understood the “why” of the vaccine resistance and the whole story there might be less resistance.
Stay well all.