10 ways to make anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers pay
Stephen H. Provost
My father used to tell me that a person’s rights extended only so far as the shortest distance between their fist and their neighbor’s face.
It’s a concept ant-vaxxers and anti-maskers seem to have forgotten or, more likely, don’t care about.
For them, it’s all about “freedom.”
The “freedom” to make other people sick.
The “freedom” to cause tremendous heartache to the loved ones of people killed by the disease they spread.
The “freedom” to cause inflict pain and torture on people with other severe diseases and afflictions who have been denied medical care because the hospital beds are full: people with cancer, pneumonia, heart conditions, and other painful, debilitating illnesses.
The “freedom” to make sick people pay exorbitant medical bills to treat these diseases and to make the rest of us pay the increased insurance costs that result.
All because they don’t like needles. Or think a mask will smudge their lipstick. Or believe stupid conspiracy theories that Tucker Carlson and his ilk borrowed from the Satanic panic of the 1980s and the Salem witch trials before that. Or just can’t be bothered with any of it.
Jesus? Who’s that?
To my way of thinking, it’s time to make these people pay — because the wrong people are paying the price now.
But how?
Force them to sit in a room with other non-vaccinated people so they’ll get sick themselves? No, they’re already doing that anyway, and they don’t care. Besides, that just spreads the disease even more.
Or we could make them watch videos of people who’ve nearly died of COVID and the relatives of those who have. But videos like that have been all over television for a year and a half now, and these “freedom” lovers just tune them out.
Some of them even argue that if people die, it’s somehow “their time” and “God’s will.” I don’t know what kind of sociopathic god they serve, but it sure as hell isn’t the guy from the Bible who went around healing lepers and restoring people’s sight.
And it isn’t the wrathful deity from the Old Testament, either, because if it were, he’d have struck each and every one of them down with a fatal case of COVID under the old “eye-for-an-eye” principle.
None of that would do any good, because these people don’t care about others. They only care about their own “freedom.” The Golden Rule is just another rule they think doesn’t apply to them, because they somehow believe it’s perfectly fine to spread a disease to others when, if they’re honest, they wouldn’t want to be lying in a hospital bed gasping for breath, either.
To these so-called Christians, the “least of these” from the parable of the sheep and the ghosts are little better than bugs to be squashed underfoot on their way to a Trump golf course.
Who should pay?
How should they pay, then?
Hit them where it hurts: the pocketbook.
These people should be forced to pay the medical bills of everyone sickened by COVID at a super-spreader event or a business that refuses to enforce mask mandates.
And the funeral costs of those who died.
They should be forced to pay every penny of those trillions of dollars in stimulus checks sent out as the result of a virus.
Add to that the money spent to provide tax relief, unemployment benefits, rental assistance, etc. for the people who’ve lost their jobs because their businesses or employers had to shut their doors.
While we’re at it, reimburse each and every one of those businesses for their losses (including what they had to pay for personal protective equipment).
And every one of their employees for lost wages and benefits.
They should be forced to pay the cost of overtime for health care professionals who stayed and worked insane hours trying to care for COVID patients.
They should pay for every insurance premium that went up because of COVID. That’s how it works in the car insurance game: If you’re an irresponsible, high-risk driver, you have to pay more. These people should, too, for the very same reason.
They should pay the cost of mental health services for everyone dealing with depression and anxiety because of this disease.
And yes, if this were a court of law, they’d be asked to cover pain and suffering, too.
I’m sure that’s just the tip of the iceberg, but that’s a good start.
If the hypothetical fist my father talked about hits someone else’s proverbial face, that’s assault and battery. These anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers have waged an assault on millions of Americans and left the country battered as a result. They need to pay. They won’t, but they should: That’s what the principle of “an eye for an eye” demands.
Of course, they could always take the New Testament approach and ask for forgiveness, but they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong.
We shouldn’t be the ones weeping and gnashing our teeth, they should.
They. Should. Pay.
“We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”