PAGE A12, KEIZERTIMES, JANUARY 7
Vaccine shaming is not a cure
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Violence is never the answer
By LYNDON ZAITZ
A number of recent surveys reveal
that up to one third of those polled
agreed that it is justified for citizens
to take violent action against the gov-
ernment. We saw that in real time on
January 6, 2021 at the nation's capitol in
Washington. That number should startle
everyone.
The United States has a tradition of
solving disputes with legislation and
court action. There are exceptions to that
of course, such as the civil rights and
anti-war protests in the 1960s. Violence
has become one of the primary forms of
protest. Whatever happened to "Vote the
rascals out!"?
Over the past year we have witnessed
mobs at the U.S. Capitol, busting doors
and windows, ransacking offices and
making threats against elected officials.
We saw the same type of mob in Lansing,
Mich., where Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
was the target of a violence and an assa-
sination plot. Twenty years into the 21st
century has brought us to a place where
some feel they have no recourse but to
pick up arms to affect the change they
seek.
This isn't the America in which
most of us grew up. A civil society has
heated debates, it doesn't strap a gun to
its waist, bent on change via bullets. In
the late 1990s people were concerned
how they would talk to their kids about
on my
mind
the information of the president's sor-
did and shameful acts. Today's parents
and teachers should be just as con-
cerned about how our children will be
affected by scenes of violence against
the government.
It is not pacificist to tell a child that
violence is never the answer. "Work it
out," a parent may tell their child, yet a
bully must be dealt with. The govern-
ment is not a bully; it does not threaten
physical harm.
Any government official, at any level,
who does not condemn violence in any
situaiton, should have to answer to the
voters.
Our leaders need to take to their col-
lective bully pulpits and call for a lower-
ing of anger. How can we securely and
confidently live in a country in which
one in three people see no problem using
violence to make their voices heard.
People are in pain. Politicians must
listen, address that pain and take away
the need for mob to descend on gov-
ernmnt steps.
(Lyndon Zaitz is publisher of the
Keizertimes .)
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By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
Blaming the unvaccinate1d is the
sharpest tool in President Joe Biden’s
shed, and that is not healthy for America.
Consider Biden’s address to the nation
on COVID-19 from the White House
State Dining Room Tuesday. Biden
started off well enough as he offered that
he shared the public’s frustration and
loss and commended Americans who
have been vaccinated.
Then he turned to vaccination
shaming.
“You have an obligation to yourselves,
to your family and, quite frankly -- I know
I’ll get criticized for this -- to your coun-
try” to get vaccinated, Biden declared.
He added, “I honest to God believe it’s
your patriotic duty.”
Calling the unvaccinated unpatriotic
-- that’ll win them over. Too bad Biden
didn’t call them stupid, too.
Biden’s remarks were not completely
tone-deaf. Aware that red states like
Alabama have a much lower rate of vac-
cination than blue states like California,
Biden credited former President Donald
Trump for getting vaccinated and a
booster shot. “It may be one of the few
things he and I agree on,” the Democrat
quipped.
Biden even credited “the prior admin-
istration and our scientific community”
for making America one of the earliest
countries to develop vaccines.
He could have done more. There are
pockets of the vaccine-resistant who
don’t trust the scientific establishment
because they’ve seen a tendency to shut
down unorthodox opinions.
Stanford Medical School epidemiol-
ogist Jay Bhattacharya tweeted that the
Biden address had positives but took
issue with Biden “blaming ‘misinforma-
tion’ for vaccine hesitancy without an
acknowledgment that the government &
some media have caused great harm to
trust in science & the vaccines by their
propaganda and silencing of scientific
dissidents.”
Bhattacharya has a history there.
The American Institute for Economic
Research reported that retiring Director
of National Institutes of Health Francis
Collins asked colleagues to publish
“a quick and devastating” takedown
of the October 2020 Great Barrington
Declaration, which warned of the dev-
astating public-health effects of blanket
COVID-19 lockdowns and called for a
return to normal.
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VOICES
Collins dismissed the three authors,
Bhattacharya, Oxford University epide-
miologist Sunetra Gupta and Harvard
epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff as
“fringe epidemiologists.”
But they were right, and the numbers
suggest that’s exactly what happened.
According to The New York Times, 95%
of Americans aged 65 and older have
had at least one vaccine dose, and 88%
are fully vaccinated. So, yaaay.
(Dr. Anthony Fauci, a recipient
of the email, was all for marginalizing the
three doctors who were right. It really is
time for him to go.)
And this Biden statement is just
wrong: “Almost everyone who has died
from COVID-19 in the past many months
has been unvaccinated.”
According to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, there were 16,700
COVID-19 deaths of vaccinated individ-
uals from April through November. The
CDC now estimates that unvaccinated
individuals are 20 times more likely to
die than vaccinated people.
Amid mushrooming breakthrough
cases, Americans are looking for tests
and not finding them on pharmacy
shelves. Here, the Biden administration
has come up short. The administration
promised half a billion tests next month
-- too little, too late. “The CDC now esti-
mates that unvaccinated individuals are
20 times more likely to die than vacci-
nated people.”
During the 2020 campaign, Biden and
other Democrats were merciless in their
bashing of Trump for being unprepared
and not sufficiently forceful in taking on
the virus.
Tell me how Biden’s better, because I
don’t see it. The last year has been a year
of drift.
Like Trump, Biden is not responsible
for COVID-19, but he is responsible for
his response to it.
“Blaming people for getting sick is
wrong & bad for public health. It will
make many vaccine-hesitant individu-
als distrust the message & further social
division,” Bhattacharya warned.
Finger-pointing is not a cure.
(Creators Syndicate)
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