Month: October 2022

bookmark_borderThe disgusting bigotry and sadism of David Leavitt

Posted on by Marissa

In one of the most disgusting, appalling, and hypocritical series of actions that I have ever seen, a so-called “journalist” named David Leavitt decided to viciously insult a political candidate, and subsequently to call Child Protective Services on said candidate, for the crime of having attended a Columbus Day ceremony with her daughter.

Leavitt instigated this conflict with Virginia state senate candidate Tina Ramirez by attacking her, asking on Twitter: “Why are you celebrating torture, rape, murder, and enslavement?”

When Ramirez dared to defend herself, Leavitt sicced his 330,000 followers on her by asking them, “Can someone please call child care services on Tina Ramirez who’s teaching her child to be a racist?”

Leavitt then proceeded to retweet dozens of mindless, sycophantic comments insulting both Ramirez and Christopher Columbus. And then, apparently too impatient to wait for his followers to do so, Leavitt called Child Protective Services himself and detailed his experience waiting on hold in a lengthy tweet thread.

And then, because this horrendous behavior apparently wasn’t horrendous enough, Leavitt complained when a Twitter user actually had the guts to stand up to him. “I’m being the subject of targeted harassment by someone who’s celebrating the torture, rape, murder, and enslavement of indigenous peoples,” he preposterously wrote. This after he instigated a conflict with an innocent person, who was minding her own business, by viciously insulting her and then urging his 330,000 followers to call CPS on her. For someone to complain that he is “being the subject of targeted harassment” immediately after himself instigating a campaign of targeted harassment is so hypocritical that it boggles the mind. I repeat: Leavitt is the one instigating a campaign of targeted harassment. He is the perpetrator of targeted harassment, not the victim.

Unbelievably, what I have described does not capture the full extent of Leavitt’s disgusting behavior. Throughout Columbus Day, he posted tweet after tweet characterizing the holiday as “celebrating torture, rape, murder, and enslavement.”

These comments are profoundly wrong. As I explained in an earlier blog post, obliterating a historical figure’s existence by removing their statues, monuments, and holidays inflicts harm and suffering on those historical figures and is the equivalent of torturing them to death. Given the enormous harm that has already been inflicted on Columbus through the grotesque dismemberment of his statues, celebrating “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” is the equivalent of going up to a person who is lying in a hospital bed in critical condition, and stomping on his face. To celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day is to celebrate and honor people who are brutally dismembering, and torturing to death, a historical figure.

So, no, Tina Ramirez was not “celebrating torture, rape, murder, and enslavement,” nor was she “teaching her child to be a racist.” She was celebrating Christopher Columbus. She was comforting, helping, and expressing solidarity with a person who has suffered enormous harm. And Leavitt chose to attack her for this. Leavitt chose to attack Ramirez because she helped a person in pain as opposed to stomping on his face.

No, the individual falsely accused by Leavitt of “targeted harassment” was not “celebrating the torture, rape, murder, and enslavement of indigenous peoples.” He was celebrating Christopher Columbus. He was expressing solidarity with a person who is suffering, as opposed to stomping on his face. And Leavitt chose to attack him for this.

“To all the companies “celebrating” torture, rape, murder, enslavement, and exploitation with the Happy Columbus Day posts: I see you #IndigenousPeoplesDay,” wrote Leavitt. But no companies were celebrating torture, rape, murder, enslavement, or exploitation. The companies were celebrating Christopher Columbus. These companies chose to express solidarity with a person who is suffering, as opposed to stomping on his face. And Leavitt chose to attack them for this.

“Why is the @GOP celebrating torture, rape, murder, and enslavement?” Leavitt asked. But the GOP was not celebrating torture, rape, murder, or enslavement. They were celebrating Christopher Columbus. They were expressing solidarity with a person who is suffering, as opposed to stomping on his face. And Leavitt chose to attack them for this.

“I just had to report a death threat from someone who’s who’s celebrating the torture, rape, murder, and enslavement of indigenous peoples,” wrote Leavitt. But no, this person was not celebrating the torture, rape, murder, or enslavement of indigenous peoples. The person was expressing solidarity with someone who is suffering, as opposed to stomping on his face. And Leavitt chose to attack him for this.

“I’m not religious, but people who celebrating torture, rape, murder, and enslavement surely don’t go to heaven,” Leavitt wrote. But no one was celebrating torture, rape, murder, or enslavement. The people in question were celebrating Christopher Columbus. They were expressing solidarity with someone who is suffering. And in my opinion, helping a suffering person makes one much more worthy of going to Heaven than stomping on his face.

To sum up, comforting, helping, and expressing solidarity with a suffering person is not the same thing as “celebrating torture, rape, murder, and enslavement.” In reality, David Leavitt and all those who celebrate “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” have been celebrating the infliction of harm, suffering, and pain. They have been celebrating the fact that a historical figure is being dismembered and tortured to death. For a person to celebrate something so unworthy of celebration is despicable enough, but Leavitt takes things even further by aggressively and viciously attacking anyone who has the audacity not to join him in his “celebration.” Leavitt chose, again and again, to aggressively and viciously attack people because they comforted, helped, and expressed solidarity with a suffering historical figure instead of stomping on his face. Perhaps Leavitt was somehow trying to make himself look and feel morally superior by beating up on someone who is wounded, hurting, and completely unable to defend himself. But all he did was reveal himself to be a nasty, sadistic bully with no compassion and no empathy. He should be ashamed of his words and behavior.

bookmark_borderThere is no right to “feel safe”

Posted on by Marissa

“Canadians have the right to feel safe in their homes, in their schools, and in their places of worship. With handgun violence increasing across Canada, it is our duty to take urgent action to remove these daily weapons from our communities. Today, we’re keeping more guns out of our communities, and keeping our kids safe.”

These words by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are despicable and disturbing on many levels.

Most importantly, neither Canadians, nor any people for that matter, have the right to “feel safe” anywhere. Safety is not a right; liberty is. What that means is that people have the right to do anything they want, as long as it does not directly harm anyone else. People have a right not to be harmed; this is what restricts the things that others are allowed to do. People do not, however, have a right to feel safe. This is because the things that some people require in order to feel safe would actually require violation of the rights of others. For example, say that a person, in order to feel safe, requires their environment to be made gun-free and/or restrictions to be imposed on the ownership or possessions of guns by others. Achieving these conditions would require other people to be harmed by having their freedom to own and possess guns taken away. People do not have a right to anything that would violate the rights of others. Therefore, people do not have a right to feel safe.

Trudeau also errs when he claims that he has a “duty to take urgent action.” Actually, because the action taken by Trudeau violates people’s rights, Trudeau does not even have the right to take this action, let alone the duty.

Additionally, Trudeau errs in citing the increase in handgun violence across Canada as a reason for violating people’s rights. The conditions that exist in a particular place, or at a particular time, actually have nothing to do with which policies governments should implement. This is because the sole purpose of government policies should be to specify which rights people have, and to punish people who violate the rights of others. The moral principle that I explained above, which determines the rights that people have, is universal and objective and does not change based on what conditions happen to exist in a particular place or time. Therefore, government policies with regard to guns should have nothing to do with the amount of gun violence that happens to exist in the country. The only policy that any government should have with regard to guns is a policy stating that people have a fundamental right to gun ownership and possession. People’s rights are not dependent on living in a country that happens to have low gun violence rates.

Also, why is Trudeau bragging about “keeping more guns out of our communities”? Why is this considered good? Guns are morally neutral. Having lots of guns in a community is in no way a worse state of affairs than having few guns in a community, so this statement does not make sense.

Plus, why does Trudeau specifically mention “keeping our kids safe”? What does a person’s age have to do with the importance of keeping that person safe? Apparently, the safety of adults does not matter to Trudeau.

Trudeau needs to place less emphasis on “communities” and more emphasis on individuals. He needs to place less value on safety and more value on liberty. Trudeau needs to stop his morally bankrupt and illogical behavior that has inflicted enormous harm and punishment on innocent people. He needs to stop obsessing about “kids” and “safety” and “communities” and start actually respecting people’s fundamental rights.

bookmark_border“Torture, rape, murder, and enslavement”

Posted on by Marissa

“Why are you celebrating torture, rape, murder, and enslavement?”

These are the words that a despicable person (and I use that term loosely) posted on Twitter. Said person (again, using the term loosely) repeated these words again and again, aggressively attacking people, companies, and organizations that had the audacity to wish their followers a happy Columbus Day.

To say that these words are false is the greatest understatement imaginable. These words are so wrong that there are no words in the English language (or any language) adequate to convey the extent of their wrongness, or to describe the rage and grief that consume my entire being upon reading them. These words are beyond harmful, beyond demoralizing, beyond overwhelming, and beyond infuriating. As I’ve written before, attacks on Christopher Columbus cause me unbearable and indescribable pain, and these anti-Columbus words are among the most egregious that have ever been uttered.

Often, when I read or see or her words such as these, I am paralyzed. I am filled with such excruciating pain that I cannot act, cannot think, am not capable of rational thought. My emotions are so strong that they cannot be expressed in words. And because there are no words to fully capture the wrongness of what I have read, I often don’t write or say anything at all.

Unfortunately, these disgusting and excruciatingly painful words are only one drop of water in a vast ocean of disgusting and excruciatingly painful sentiments that have been expressed to mark the occasion of Columbus Day. As I sit paralyzed, horrible words continue to come in, forming a pile of horribleness that grows larger and larger with each new social media post, news article, or politician’s statement. Doing nothing is the worst possible thing to do, because failing to publicly condemn these words implies that I am okay with them, or at least don’t consider them a serious problem. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

So even though there are no words adequate to express the extent of the wrongness, I have to try. I have to condemn the horrible attacks as strongly as I can, even if no words are quite strong enough. I have to explain why the statements are wrong, using the best and most accurate words that I can. I have to convey, as completely as possible, how much pain the horrible words inflict on me. I am learning to accept that unless I magically become immortal and acquire a source of unlimited income so that I no longer have to work, the pile of horribleness will likely never go down to zero. But it is better to rebut some of the horribleness than none.

Some days, I have the time and energy to tackle some of the horrible things from the pile. On those days, I feel all right. I feel that I am doing something to fight back against the people doing the horrible things. On other days, my mind collapses under the weight of the pile. On those days, I am overwhelmed by both the egregiousness and the enormous quantity of the horribleness that has happened.

This explains why I am not always able to write about the horrible things happening in the world in a timely manner. But even if I write about a horrible thing long after it happened, I think it is still worth doing. It is better to condemn and rebut something at a seemingly random time than to let it go without any condemnation or rebuttal at all. I hope over the coming days, weeks, and months to tackle some of the horrible things that have been said on the topic of Columbus Day, starting with the grotesque “torture, rape, murder, and enslavement” comments.

bookmark_borderWhy I say Columbus Day, not Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Posted on by Marissa

I love Christopher Columbus. My love for Columbus is difficult to explain, to logically justify, or to fully convey in words. I don’t love him in a sexual sense, or even in a romantic sense, but I love him passionately and fiercely. I love him more than anything else in the world.

Perhaps the most significant thing about Columbus, and the first thing that would come to mind if someone asked why I love him, is the fact that he was a brave explorer. I love that he came up with a revolutionary idea and pursued it until he had accomplished his dream, even when people dismissed it as ridiculous. I love that he risked his life crossing an ocean that (as far as he knew) no one had ever crossed before, not knowing how far the voyage would be or exactly what lay on the other side. By all accounts, Columbus was courageous, determined, intelligent, intellectually curious, independent-minded, quirky, and eccentric, all qualities that I admire and would like to think that I possess as well. Like Columbus, I am of Italian descent, so I feel a personal connection to him for that reason as well.

I also love statues of Christopher Columbus. I love that there are (or were, before people started brutally destroying them, but more on that later) so many statues of him all over the world. I love that the statues are both similar and different at the same time. Almost all of them depict a heroic-looking man with long hair and some sort of old-fashioned tunic and/or cape. But the statues are of different sizes, made of different materials, posed in different positions, different in their facial features and appearance, and wearing different variations of the same basic style of outfit. Some wear hats and some do not. Some hold maps, or binoculars, or swords, or other accessories, while others do not.

All of the things that I have listed above are reasons why I love Christopher Columbus and his statues. But it is impossible to reduce my love of Columbus to any of these things, or even the entire list of things collectively. As the saying goes, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Although words cannot fully capture my love for Columbus, and logic cannot fully justify it, neither of those things makes my love for Columbus any less valid or any less important. Columbus is the most important thing in the world to me. He is absolutely necessary to my happiness and well-being, necessary for me to have a life that is worth living. Columbus is irreplaceable, and it is obscene to suggest that he simply be replaced by another historical Italian American who is deemed more “acceptable” by the political establishment.

Obviously, Columbus does not exist in the same way that regular people do. In a literal sense and in a biological sense, he is dead, of course. But the way I see it, he lives on in the form of statues, monuments, holidays, places, and things named for him. Christopher Columbus exists as a historical figure. He exists in an abstract sense and in a spiritual sense. He exists in various forms all across the world. In the form of statues, his existence is made concrete. In other words, I think of Columbus as one person, but with numerous bodies. He is both one and many at the same time.

Unfortunately, in recent years, a movement has increased in popularity and power, a movement whose goal is to obliterate Columbus as a historical figure. Their goal, the way that I perceive it, is to murder Columbus. Not to murder him in a literal, biological sense, or a sense that is recognized by the law. But a sense that, to me, is just as real. And unfortunately, this movement has been very successful. At the hands of this movement, Columbus has been decapitated, smashed to pieces, hacked apart with axes and sledgehammers, strangled with nooses tightened around his neck, set on fire, and thrown into harbors and rivers. Dozens and dozens of Columbus’s bodies have been viciously destroyed with appalling cruelty. Because Columbus exists in numerous forms, he will not be completely killed as a historical figure until and unless every single one of these bodies is destroyed. But as the anti-Columbus movement continues to gain popularity and power, Columbus grows weaker. I imagine his power, presence, strength, and existence as a historical figure dwindling every time a body (or holiday or place name) is destroyed or removed from public view. I picture him screaming in anguish, writhing in agony, and crying tears of despair as more and more pieces of him are cruelly hacked off and chipped away.

Because I love Columbus, the actions of the anti-Columbus movement inflict unimaginable and unbearable pain on me. These actions are beyond harmful, beyond demoralizing, beyond hope-destroying, beyond overwhelming, and beyond infuriating. Hearing about, reading about, seeing images of, or even merely thinking about any attack on Columbus fills me with indescribable grief and rage. My stomach feels sick, my entire body is wracked with pain, and every atom feels like it is exploding in agony. My entire being feels like it is getting eviscerated. My soul feels as if it is being trampled on, crushed into the ground, pulverized, and turned to dust. My mind is entirely consumed by images of the man that I love being dismembered and tortured, his beautiful body being smashed to pieces, his head being ripped from his shoulders. The images are so vivid in their violence and their brutality that they obliterate any possibility of hope, positivity, or happiness. There are no words that fully capture this pain, other than to say that it is the worst pain imaginable.

Every time a new statue is removed, torn down, or vandalized, the pain erupts all over again. The pain erupts every time something named after Columbus gets renamed, and it erupts every time a city or state changes Columbus Day to “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” The pain erupts every time I see or hear any criticism of Columbus or any opinions in support of removing Columbus statues or Columbus Day. The pain erupts every time I see a social media post wishing people “Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” when I see signs referring to “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” in the windows of businesses, and whenever I see the words “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” at all.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a celebration of the dismemberment and torture of the man I love.

If you think this is an unfair characterization, consider how the pro-statue movement was treated after the protest that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. Because one pro-statue protestor committed the (alleged) crime of vehicular homicide, the entire pro-statue movement was punished with both universal condemnation and a doubling-down on the despicable trend of statue removal. Given that the entire pro-statue movement was brutally punished for the actions of one person, it is not unreasonable to demand that the entire anti-Columbus movement be punished for the hundreds of vicious acts of dismemberment and torture that have been perpetrated all over the country against the man that I love.

In my opinion, the only correct response to the horrific crimes perpetrated against Columbus would be to hold the entire anti-Columbus movement accountable. The leaders of this movement should be required to wholeheartedly, sincerely, and completely denounce these despicable acts before society even remotely considers adding any new statues, monuments, place names, or holidays favored by the anti-Columbus movement. And if the leaders of the anti-Columbus movement fail to denounce the despicable acts, then society should begin removing the existing statues, monuments, place names, and holidays favored by this movement. If you think that this is unfair, consider the fact that this is exactly how the pro-statue movement was treated after Charlottesville.

But of course, society did the exact opposite of what it should have done. When people who hate historical figures have committed horrific acts of violence against them, not only is their entire movement not punished, but the individuals who perpetrated the acts aren’t either. Out of all the people who beheaded, strangled, burned, drowned, and dismembered the man I love, almost none were arrested, charged with any offenses, or even criticized by anyone other than me and a small handful of people. Making matters even worse, both the individual perpetrators and their movement as a whole were actually rewarded for their horrific actions. Public officials chose to respond to the torturing and dismembering of Columbus by taking down additional Columbus statues, by removing Columbus’s name from additional things, and by replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day. They responded to a targeted campaign of torture and dismemberment against an individual by rewarding the perpetrators and by further harming the victim. In other words, society has decided that the torturing and dismembering of Christopher Columbus is worthy of being celebrated with a holiday.

There are no words that fully convey how morally wrong this is. To call this unfair, unjust, harmful, or hurtful is an understatement. Despicable, disgusting, reprehensible, repugnant, appalling, abhorrent… none of these words are quite strong enough, either. As I wrote above, the pain that this inflicts on me is the worst pain imaginable. When the pain is at its worst, I wonder how I can continue to live in the society that decided this. I wonder how I can possibly have a future in a society that chose to establish a holiday celebrating the infliction of horrific pain on both myself and the man I love and honoring its perpetrators.

In conclusion, when you say “Columbus Day,” you are affirming that it is not okay to brutalize, dismember, torture, and murder a historical figure who can do nothing to defend himself. You are expressing solidarity with someone who has been horrifically harmed. You are making a small gesture to help a suffering human being. For every person who honors and celebrates Columbus on Columbus Day, his existence as a historical figure is protected and solidified, a tiny iota of his strength is restored, his pain is slightly eased, and his grievous wounds are helped just a little bit to heal.

When you say “Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” you are saying that to brutalize, dismember, torture, and murder a defenseless human being is good and should be celebrated. You are saying that it is good to inflict horrific harm and pain. You are saying that when a person is suffering, the correct thing to do is not to comfort him, but to stomp on his face and inflict further pain. When you say “Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” you are expressing solidarity not with the victims of appallingly cruel and harmful actions, but with the perpetrators.

Personally, I don’t really think those are good sentiments to be expressing.

That is why I call the second Monday in October, Columbus Day.

bookmark_borderMy public comment on CDC/APIP Docket No. CDC-2022-0111

Posted on by Marissa

Below is a public comment that I submitted regarding the possibility of adding the Covid shot to the immunization schedule for kids, which the CDC will be meeting to discuss tomorrow. If you are so inclined, you can leave a comment yourself at this link. Please reference CDC/APIP Docket No. CDC-2022-0111.

To whom it may concern:

I am strongly opposed to the addition of any vaccines, particularly the Covid-19 shot, to the Vaccines for Children program. In my opinion, there are already too many shots, tests, and other medical procedures that children are made to routinely undergo, which negatively impacts their quality of life. The last thing our society should be doing is adding to the list of medical procedures that children are subjected to.

In my opinion, it is a particularly bad idea to add the Covid-19 shot to the list of vaccines administered through the Vaccines for Children program. Although there is some evidence that these shots reduce the severity of illness for people who get Covid-19, there is no evidence that the shots actually prevent people from catching Covid in the first place. This factor alone makes Covid shots significantly different from the other vaccines in the Vaccines for Children program, all of which prevent diseases as opposed to merely reducing their severity. I believe that every person has an absolute and fundamental human right to make his/her own medical decisions, and therefore I am philosophically opposed to making any medical procedure mandatory under any circumstances. However, I think that it would be particularly wrong to make the Covid shot mandatory because the justification of protecting the community by reducing disease transmission cannot really be used for shots that do not prevent transmission.

Another factor that weighs against routinely administering Covid shots to children is the fact that children are at very low risk for severe illness or death from Covid. Plus, from the data available so far, the risk of side effects from Covid shots appears to be quite high. It is very common for people to become sick for a day or two following getting these shots. Although this does not generally pose a threat to people’s long-term health, both the experience of receiving a shot and the resulting side effects have a negative impact on quality of life. This negative impact on quality of life should not be dismissed.

In conclusion, the drawbacks to administering Covid shots to children appear to be quite high, and the benefits quite low. Therefore, it is not clear that receiving these shots is, on the whole, beneficial to children. The moral principles of individual liberty, bodily autonomy, and medical freedom also weigh strongly against adding the Covid shot to the Vaccines for Children program. I feel strongly that children and their parents should have the freedom to weigh risks and benefits themselves and make their own decisions. I feel strongly that the Covid shot should be optional.

Sincerely,

Marissa B.

bookmark_borderProtesters senselessly attack Van Gogh painting

Posted on by Marissa

The word “senseless” is often thrown around when a crime or other atrocity happens. Frequently, I feel that this word is used when it is not appropriate. The word “senseless” shouldn’t be used merely to convey how horrible a crime is; it should be used only in cases where the crime actually makes no sense. Most of the time, no matter how horrific the crime is, the perpetrator has some kind of reasoning behind their act, which may very well be wrong but does make at least some sense from the perpetrator’s perspective.

But here’s a case where the word “senseless” applies perfectly:

Today two protesters from the organization “Just Stop Oil” threw tomato soup all over the painting “Sunflowers” by Vincent Van Gogh at the National Gallery in London. According to Yahoo News, the protesters’ cause is to get the British government to stop all new oil and gas projects.

“Is art worth more than life? More than food? More than justice?” the organization tweeted. “The cost of living crisis and climate crisis is driven by oil and gas.”

While being arrested, one of the protesters echoed these sentiments. “Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?” she asked officers.

These actions, and the sentiments accompanying them, are wrong in numerous ways.

First of all, what the heck does attacking a painting have to do with protecting the environment? What does attacking a painting have to do with the cost of living crisis or the climate crisis or oil or gas? Nothing. I don’t understand why protesters would choose to attack a painting to make a point about the climate crisis. The painting didn’t cause the climate crisis; nor did its creator; nor did the museum. None of the things that the organization is protesting against are the painting’s fault, so I don’t get why they chose the painting as the target of their destructive actions.

I also take issue with the protesters’ presumption that they have the right to judge how much art is worth, or how worthy it is of protection. The painting does not belong to them; it is not theirs to dispose of, to attack, or to destroy.

More fundamentally, I am sick and tired of this attitude that art is unimportant. Life and food and protecting the planet and people are certainly more practical than art. I would even admit that these things are more important than art in a utilitarian sense. But utility and practicality are not the only things that matter. Art is of crucial importance, not for living in and of itself, but for having a life that is worth living. Art is beauty; art is magnificence; art is joy. Without anything beautiful, magnificent, or joyful in the world, we might still have a planet filled with living people who all have enough to eat, but there would really be no point in having these things, because life would not be worth living. If having a life that is worth living is important, then art is absolutely important, and art is absolutely worthy of protecting.

Fortunately, the Sunflowers painting was covered by glass and not actually damaged. Also fortunately, the two protesters were arrested and charged with criminal damage and aggravated trespass.

I see similarities between this situation and the despicable genocide of statues that has taken place over the past few years. There are even parallels between Just Stop Oil’s statements and Richmond, Virginia Mayor Levar Stoney’s grotesque claim that it was somehow an improvement to remove the magnificent Confederate statues that gave his city its identity and instead spend more money on education. The fact that someone would consider increased spending on a basic municipal function to be an adequate replacement for breathtakingly beautiful, awe-inspiring public art is as hideously soulless as it is appallingly morally bankrupt.

For some reason, many protesters have decided that attacking irreplaceable works of art is a good way of advancing their cause. As someone who loves art, I find these actions incredibly upsetting, angering, and disturbing. It is incomprehensible and bizarre that so many people demonstrate such apparent hatred of paintings and statues. This war on art is truly senseless.

bookmark_borderThe incomprehensible hatred for “the anti-vaxers”

Posted on by Marissa

“I’m massively hostile to the anti-vaxers. Love the Singapore idea of making them pay for their hospital treatment. Or if that’s too strong the Greek idea of fining the elderly 85 pounds for every month they refuse the vaccine. Something must be done.”

So reads a tweet from last year, which has been making the rounds because its author (hypocritically) recently complained that his latest covid vaccine made him more sick than actually getting covid. 

There are numerous problems with this tweet.

First, the author equates “anti-vaxers” with people who choose not to get the Covid vaccine. This is erroneous, because choosing not to do something is not the same as being opposed to the thing. A person can fully support the fact that vaccines exist and are widely available, while themselves choosing not to get one. Apparently, the idea of people being able to make their own choices is a difficult concept for this tweeter to grasp. 

Second, I disagree with the implication that making vaccine-free people pay for “hospital treatment” is a harsher policy than fining them each month. In my opinion, fining people for the mere fact that they decline the vaccine is by far the harsher (and therefore much more unjust and morally wrong) of the two policies. Holding people financially responsible for medical services that they receive is, arguably, not a punishment at all, but merely the default. After all, for products and services in general, it is typical that when a person purchases a product or service, they are expected to pay for it. When it comes to medical services, it is common for either an insurance company or the government to pay, but holding the individual person financially responsible is not so much a punishment, as the withholding of a benefit. On the other hand, fining a person for declining a medical procedure is directly and indisputably punishing a person for their personal medical decision. It is, therefore, an egregious violation of fundamental human rights. This is much more severe than merely withholding a benefit. Plus, for vaccine-free people who do not ever end up requiring “hospital treatment” for Covid (most likely the vast majority!), the Singapore policy would not negatively affect them at all. That policy only has a negative financial effect on people who are unlucky enough to get a severe enough case of Covid that they go to a hospital. The Greek policy, on the other hand, directly punishes all old people who decline the vaccine, regardless of whether they end up getting severely sick from Covid, or even whether they end up getting Covid at all. This, again, is much more severe than a policy that only affects the few people who happen to get a very severe case of Covid.

Third, people do not “refuse the vaccine.” They choose not to get the vaccine. Semantics matter.

But most important of all is the fact that the overall sentiments expressed in this tweet are absolutely incomprehensible to me. How on earth could someone be “massively hostile” to people who are doing absolutely nothing wrong? To people who are simply going about their lives and minding their own business? How could someone be “massively hostile” towards people for declining a medical procedure? Declining medical procedures is something that people have a fundamental human right to do. How could someone feel hostility towards people for simply going without a particular medical intervention? I just don’t get it.

And why exactly must something be done about the fact that people have declined a medical procedure? People have a fundamental right to make their own medical decisions. People have a fundamental right to decline medical procedures. If a person doesn’t wish to get a medical procedure, then for them to decline the medical procedure is exactly what makes sense. It is exactly the way that things should be. Why would someone consider this a problem? I just don’t understand this way of thinking.

In short, I am “massively hostile” to people who engage in this intolerant, nasty, and authoritarian way of thinking. It is this way of thinking, not people who decline the vaccine, that something must be done about.