Airing of Grievances, Part Two

Hospitals are full of unvaccinated COVID patients, and it's hurting others: Writes @AuntB, at this point, refusing to get vaccinated when you can looks like a kind of self-harm that quickly spreads to harming others. https://t.co/NhFo6yK6yM pic.twitter.com/2xUCZTv5PZ

— Pith in the Wind (@pithinthewind) September 7, 2021

I link these posts because I read this column right after writing the other post. Now, in my mind, they are a palimpset, with the problems of covid a much more real and concrete feature of the failure of American society than the problems of governance (which is still not much more of a problem than it was in the '60's, nor is Trump as dangerous a political figure as Joe McCarthy or even Father Coughlin).

The author had elective surgery scheduled, for a condition that requires surgery, but is not immediately life-threatening.  She writes after learning her surgery has been canceled, again, due to the number of Covid patients in the hospitals of Nashville.

I did my part to get COVID over with as quickly as possible.

And all these people who did not do their part are clogging up the hospitals. I would be disappointed if my surgery were postponed due to an influx of kids too young to be vaccinated or adults who can’t be vaccinated. But I would understand.

This, though? Just selfish assholes who expected to get to be the exception to the rules? Fuck them. I’m so pissed. They’re too sick to do it, but unvaccinated COVID patients should have to be the ones to call people like me and tell us we can’t have the surgeries we were counting on because of them. I cried and cussed when the scheduler called me, but then I apologized, because it’s not her fault. And, my God, can you imagine the trauma of having to call multiple people and hearing them all in despair? But if I had been talking to an unvaccinated person who is in a hospital bed that I need? Well, let me just say that I would have found it cathartic. Perhaps they would have found it informative.

And this is where Mr. Nichols' concerns enter the picture, in a much more concrete way than I think he's even imagined.  Because it's one thing to say "Fuck those selfish assholes over there."  It's another to say "forgive and forget" isn't in the cards:

I've been saying for a while now that I’m not sure how we come back from this. How do we live together as a state knowing so many people just do not care about anyone but themselves? How can I be the kind of person I want to be — kind, compassionate, open to others — when I know that so many of those others are hostile to me?

But I’m going to admit, something has broken in me. I was watching a video of Gov. Bill Lee dodging doctors after his press conference and I felt nothing but utter contempt for him. If he were a lifeguard at a pool where half the pool-goers were pooping in the pool, and a good number of the poopers refused to wear bathing suits, would he be insisting it was a parent’s decision if kids needed to wear bathing suits? Would he be telling the people who weren’t pooping in the pool that the most they could hope for from him was encouragement that people get their tetanus and hepatitis vaccines? Would he continue to be lifeguard at the pool when it was so obvious that he was not actually guarding anyone’s life?

Do we really want to come back from this? At this point, refusing to get vaccinated when you can looks, from the outside, like a kind of self-harm that quickly spreads to harming others. Refusing to wear a mask makes you look selfish and myopic. Keeping masks off your kids looks like you’re trying to get your kids and other people's kids sick. In any other case, if there were a person who was harming herself and others — was under a delusion that a piece of safety equipment was somehow violating her freedom, and then was refusing that safety equipment for her children — the most charitable view we could have of that person is that she is suffering from a mental health crisis. Otherwise, it’s just an abuser with a good cover story.

I wouldn't say this is absolutely where we, as an entire society, are going; but the anger and resentment is only going to deepen.  People are dying because they can't get healthcare, and that's becaause others are refusing preventative care until they need extreme healthcare measures.   That tears at the social fabric in ways political campaigns and challenges to elections simply do not.

So far we have a lot of abusers with good cover stories:

WATCH: “GOVENOR LEE, we are delivering you a letter with 6000 signatures from physicians in Tennessee.”

DOCTORS asking for a mask mandate with NO OPT OUTS are ignored by @GovBillLee as Tennessee again becomes a world hot spot, for kids too. 😷 pic.twitter.com/T49ovMmo6r

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) September 2, 2021

That's the governor of Tennessee dodging doctors.

Those cover stories are not going to wear well.  And I don't think apathy is going to prove to be the root problem.  I think it's a question of competence, and where your interests lie.  We've been electing fools whose only interest is in themselves.  It may well be we're finally through doing that; for awhile, at least.

American history is rife with these cycles.  I suspect this is just another one.  But the people suffering now, are going to be the ones doing something about it, soon.  Of that, I'm quite sure. 

We do not have to continue to suffer fools gladly.