With the characteristic self-absorbed narcissism that marks the GQP antichrist cult, we find this sentiment everywhere among the antivaxers:
It reminds me of this:
Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will give his angels charge of you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ ” (Mt 4:5–7).
You may as well claim that the Providence of God will protect you as you play Russian Roulette. Or that you can fire randomly into a crowd and God will protect you from murdering somebody.
And with utter predictability, COVID rages like wildfire in Red America as these intensely selfish people–who do not, by the way, trust Jesus to protect them when it comes to their precious, precious guns
or their hatred of the poor and brown
…invoke the blood of Jesus who suffered crucifixion for them to give them a 007 to infect and kill the old, children, and the immunocompromised rather than endure even the slightest inconvenience to their mind-bogglingly selfish selves.
Meanwhile, the health care system workers are being crushed by COVID.
The selfish killers in the MAGA Murder/Suicide cult are in for a helluva shock when they discover that health care workers are not infinitely durable automatons.
Some of these narcissists are going to go seeking treatment for COVID they could have easily avoided with a shot and discover the understaffed health care facility has no room for them, can’t treat them and they are on their own–just as they demanded to be all along while they prattled about “freedom” and really only meant “Screw everybody else. I’m the only one who matters.
This is not, of course, to suggest that the stupidly and stubbornly unvaxed should be denied treatment as a form of punishment if they get sick. But it is to say that in a health care system with limited resources and a staff that are beyond exhausted, if the choice needs to be made between two patients with critical illnesses and one of them has COVID after defying every ounce of common sense and elementary consideration for others for a year and a half, it seems to me to be a no-brainer to devote the resources to the critical patient who is not a selfish moron likely to go right back out and endanger himself and others again. If you want to live your life in selfish isolated grandeur contemptuous of all others, then let the measure you use be measured to you.
Jesus tells us to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves, not dumb as doves and predatory as serpents. Luke was a physician, for crying out loud. The idea that the blood of Christ is a magic potion against all sickness is as stupid as the claim that the Providence of God will protect your kids if you let them play in traffic. The sacraments are grace, not magic.
In the words of my friend Sherry Antonetti:
Our God does not immunize us from the world. Our God sanctifies our trials, our everything, infuses it with grace. God does not require we suspend reason to believe -God does not negate one gift to activate another, God subtracts nothing –and we should likewise not willfully suspend reason and call it faith. Loving and trusting God is an offering, but it is not done as a conditional transaction -I love and trust you God, and thus you protect me from harm. That treats God’s love, God’s grace and one’s relationship with God like magic, something we control and manipulate (not love).
Advertisement
14 Responses
Some people’s notions of freedom are seriously warped. The freedom to do whatever you want in a life defined as a free-for-all is juvenile, and it is profoundly uncatholic. Besides, last time I checked the US consitution starts with ”we, the people”, not with ”I, the spoilt child”.
A free society requires men and women who choose to do what is right and what is required by the common good. This is not a matter of submission, but of freely chosen obedience. That there is no freedom without restraint is something that should not have to be explained to anyone who claims to be a conservative.
@ ArteveLde
I’ll put it slightly differently. There is a world of difference between freedom and anarchy. In the wisdom of Spider-Man, more or less, “with great freedom comes great responsibility.” With anarchy, all you get are soiled diapers.
But it’s a naturally conservative position! “Conservatives” aren’t even conservative anymore.
@ Porlock
I have no idea. Ben is right. They are anarchists. They are also revolutionaries, and yet they also seem to fancy a bit of autocracy. There’s quite a lot of atavistic longing and resentment as well. Comes pretty close to fascist ideologies, all in all, though it seems to lack even the slightest solidaristic component.
@ ArteveLde
Well, strictly speaking…
The fun of Anarchy for them. The burden of autocracy for us.
And resentment for everyone.
Mark, I’ve been doing a fair amount of research in this space as I prepare to give a talk in a week about the Church’s teaching on vaccines. Obviously I’ll be relying on the many statements of the Church since the beginning of the pandemic encouraging us to be vaccinated. But of course adding older quotes from the catechism, encyclicals and other Church documents can be helpful in convincing the more stubborn that the recent statements are in line with traditional Church teaching. Long story short, I’ve read a fair amount of the Church’s statements on medical treatment and ethics.
And in that I’ve found nothing that contradicts the traditional rules of triage in limited health care situations, which frankly is not that often discussed (generally there is more attention to when one might choose to refuse treatment). And the traditional rules of limited resource triage are that treatment needs to be given to those whose lives are most likely to be saved by the treatment. While a case could be made that in some situations the unvaccinated person is more likely to die even with treatment and thus what limited resources we have should be focused on a different person more likely to live, I don’t think that can be extended to whether they are “likely to go right back out and endanger himself and others again.” And in fact, I would argue that except in extreme shortage situations, the unvaccinated person should be first to get treatment as since they are the most likely to die without treatment, they should get it first.
@ deacon
I didn’t save the links, but in the last two weeks alone there have been at least five people in this country who needed hospital care, and couldn’t get it because the beds were filled with Covid deniers, and have died. These people did not die OF Covid, they died because other people who refuse to show any responsibility at all for their fellow citizens — what you Christians call LOVE for their neighbors – refused to get a vaccine and are taking up the hospital beds. Why should those innocence die because someone else basically says, “I would rather believe conspiracy theories and take horse paste than Believe 200 years of medical and public health practice and take a simple shot.“
EVERY SINGLE DAY, my husband goes to a hospital and puts his life in danger, and mine, as he strives to serve these idiots, who apparently have no interest in serving others, except for the interests of fox news, former guy, and delusional conspiracy theorists.
Ben, our love of our neighbor is to extend to others even when they are sinning. I don’t disagree with you that people who refuse to get vaccines are putting their lives and the lives of others at risk. But that is not cause for refusing medical treatment, even when medical resources are limited.
I don’t know if in the 5 cases you mention the doctors made the right triage decisions. It’s possible they didn’t. It’s possible if they had switched treatment from a handful of unvaccinated people to the others who later died (which it is worth noting is quite rare… ~1500 people vaccinated people have died out of ~170 million vaccinated) they would have saved more lives. And if that’s the case, they made the wrong triage decision (likely unintentionally). It’s also possible they did what gave them the highest likelihood of saving the most lives and sadly that meant some vaccinated people died.
But this is my point… that is the basis on which these decisions should be made: Saving the most lives. That and nothing else.
Our love of neighbor demands this of us… yes… even when some of those people are sinning in a way that has put their lives at risk, even if we fear they will continue to do so after the doctor has saved their life. We are called to love them and their lives even if they don’t.
@ Deacon Ken
Our Minister of public health, a social democrat whom I don’t suspect of being a Christian, was interviewed on the ethical aspects of Covid policy yesterday. he made it quite clear that restricting access to some places and events for the non-vaccinated is acceptable, but withholding care on the same grounds isn’t. He said ”after all, we also try to save those who made all sorts of miostakes in their life”.
Artvelde,
There’s another element to healthcare here in the US that you don’t have to think about in Belgium: who pays the bills? Here in the US, bills are mostly paid by insurance companies, and I expect it won’t be long before these companies announce that they will no longer cover the cost of hospital stays for COVID patients who refused vaccination. Anti-vaxxers will face the possibility of six-figure bills in their future.
– joel
@ deacon
I wish I had the links, but I don’t. One case was of a man with gall stones- a very treatable condition. He died. I understand how your compassion goes, and I can admire it even while I disagree with it. There are people who are suffering, dying, leaving fatherless children behind, because of other people’s choices, including deliberate ignorance. There was a story this last week about hospitals in Oklahoma having to turn away regular patients, because they were flooded with people taking horse paste and poisoning themselves.
I don’t want anyone to die, and I’ve been saying that ever since this plague began. But I’ve also been saying there are no rewards or punishments in the universe, there are simply consequences. Like so many people, I am beyond fed up with people who choose ignorance over knowledge, magic over science, politics over common sense, right wing politics over any sense, former guy over a decent man like Mr. Biden, right wing religion over anything remotely approaching compassion. Ans then they scream about theconsequences.
Every day, my husband goes to his hospital and works with people who have Covid. Every day, he puts his life on the line to try to save these people from themselves. And every day, he also puts my life on the line because this is his job. We are vaccinated, but this is still a threat, every single day. I’m over 70, a lifetime pot smoker, and a heart condition. He’s got more medical conditions than I want to think about.
This is a true story, deliberately left vague for a variety of reasons. last December, there was a coviddenying woman who worked at a hospital who tested positive for Covid and didn’t tell anyone. She was leaving, and they threw a small party for her. She exposed EVERYONE at that party, including their spouses when the workers went home. She then got on a plane to go to a family reunion in the Southwest somewhere, because she preferred to believe that her Covid test was fake. Fortunately, no one else got sick…THAT WE KNOW OF.
You can go to a site called sorryantivaxxer.com for an really horrific load of stories about people who put politics, religion, and ignorance over the safety of others. They are sorry now, unless they are simply dead now.
Yeah. I’m furious.
These folks who refuse to mask or vaccinate for COVID are the same ones who, thirty years ago, wouldn’t touch a person with AIDS.
I came across this article today. It more or less echoes what Mark has been saying, but from a different perspective.
https://timjwise.medium.com/covid-anti-vaxxers-arent-a-maga-death-cult-it-s-worse-than-that-16d74186e46b
jj