“I agree to your terms,” the space invader, in the movie “Men in Black,” said to the farmer that declared, “The only way you’re gonna pry this gun out of my hands is over my cold, dead body.” The space invader, respecting the person’s wishes, said, “I accept your terms.” The invader obligingly waited until after he had killed the man, before he took his gun.
I saw “Men in Black” in a theater. When that scene happened it was one of the few times ever in a movie theater where not only every moviegoer clapped, but the whole theater stood up and clapped. Apparently, seeing someone die because of their cretinous commitment is, if not fun, acceptable to the point of a standing ovation.
What the covid-19 deniers are saying is the equivalence of “The only way you are ever going to get me to wear a mask or get a vaccination is over my cold, dead body.” It’s time we gave the Covid 19 mask and inoculations deniers a hand and a standing ovation. Let’s encourage them to stick to their denial guns until . . . well, death do they part.
It’s simple really, let’s accept their terms. Isn’t it tiring and teedjus (Hee-Haw spelling), to keep trying to save these die-easy dunderheads from themselves. Hell, let’s encourage their sacrifice. We know, in the addiction treatment profession, saving people from themselves rarely works anyway. First, they have to want to be saved. Repubs, bless their sacrificial hearts, like the farmer in “Men in Black”, would rather die to prove a point.
They are in a modern day, and, might I add, a most wonderful, Catch-22. A Catch-22 with several ironies (people in the thick of ironies, seldom recognize them) thrown in for good measure: the repubs are enacting Jim Crow voting laws in several states to cut close election margins in their favor. Simultaneously, mostly in the same states, they don’t seem to understand that every death of a denier is a vote for democrats (Actually, I don’t think many of us understand that either).
Oh, I know the argument against it is that it will keep spreading the virus and prolong its end. Folks, they will do that whatever? A few more of us will die while many more of them will. You don’t have to be a mathematician to know that, pretty soon, no more republicans.
But of course, it is too clever by far. Those crafty repubs, as soon as dems start encouraging them to not wear masks and not get shots, they’ll do 180 degree turnabout and start doing them. The law of unexpected consequences meets the rule of inverse proportion.
What about the even worse next killer pandemic that parades down the pike? If repubs stay on the same path they are now on they’ll be conditioned to not wear masks or get shots and, depending on how lethal the next inevitable pandemic is, might decimate the republican party even further into the political margins.
Oh wait . . . silly me. I take it all back: before masks wearing and getting vaccinated, and, in general, life-saving gets entirely out of hand, let’s just keep our mask and vaccination encouragements to ourselves.
Repubs are, in their inimical way, enacting their own brand of ‘Herd’ immunity; as in, culling the idiots from the herd.