Letter: Vakzine Macht Frei — Vaccines will set you free

Posted 10/7/21

If you as an American ever wondered how a people as intelligent, empirical and rational as the Germans of the 1930s and ’40s allowed themselves to be divided, create classes of sub-humans, then …

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Letter: Vakzine Macht Frei — Vaccines will set you free

Posted

If you as an American ever wondered how a people as intelligent, empirical and rational as the Germans of the 1930s and ’40s allowed themselves to be divided, create classes of sub-humans, then turn a blind eye to horrors great and small committed by those “just following orders” of elected and appointed officials, well wonder no more.

Perhaps you’ve heard them, politicians, appointed officials, TV talking heads and celebrities declaring how the unvaccinated are a pandemic. And that as such should not be employed, not be allowed in schools, not go to restaurants or stores, not allowed food or housing. Perhaps you agree with them. Perhaps you would go further in the name of the common good.

Perhaps you’ve heard some doctors, some nurses and some hospital administrators say the unvaccinated will not be treated here. Perhaps you agree with them. Perhaps you would go further in the name of the common good.

Perhaps you’ve heard of them, “green zones” under the “Shielding Approach,” a CDC conjuring. These are euphemistically named camps where presumably the unvaccinated can be hygienically concentrated to protect others. Perhaps you agree with that. Perhaps you would go further in the name of the common good.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the idea of club cards to prove you’ve been vaccinated and that having one would entitle you to privileges that were once your rights. And those without the club card should be denied privileges. Perhaps you like that idea. Perhaps you would go further in the name of the common good.

Now flip the switch; let’s say the vaccinated are vulnerable to getting Covid and are creating pressure on the virus to mutate and are transmitting that mutation to others, vaccinated or not. Let’s call transmissions to the vaccinated breakthrough cases.

Let’s say breakthrough cases are on the rise, as well as their hospitalizations and deaths, and those at higher rates than the unvaccinated. Let’s say that as more people become vaccinated that they are perceived as the single greatest health threat to everyone.  Let’s also say that vaccine efficacy is limited to months not years, requiring perpetual boosters. Let’s say the vaccine with cumulative inoculations weakens your immune system, making you susceptible to myriad health problems not limited to covid variants. 

Perhaps with the former posited, if you are unvaccinated will you now agree with all of the loathsome aforementioned positions — only against the vaccinated this time. Perhaps you would go further in the name of the common good.

A curiously mustachioed little man from central Europe said on Feb. 24, 1920, “The common good before the individual good.” He used that slogan and his own club cards to divide a people, subjugate them to the state, then set Europe ablaze.

Covid is simply not an existential threat to America or humanity, in as much as the governmental response to it is. If the days ahead are dark, we shall need each other. We cannot make the same mistake, allowing politicians to divide us.

George P. Cooper
Bristol

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A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.