America, we have a problem.
Just when we think it’s safe to go back in the water …
Though, too many Americans are refusing the COVID vaccine. This makes life opening up in our country difficult.
Many of us understand that this vaccine is a miracle, but firstly, we can thank medical/hospital employees who have been risking their own lives to save COVID patients. Then, we need to remember that we are fortunate to have this life-saving vaccine, which is built on what started years ago to fight SARS.
Obviously, we’re grateful to all involved in that development and evolution, as well as the manufacture, distribution and administration of this vaccine to the people, and the numerous other fingers on this truly life-saving hand.
Still, unfortunately, we now have too many people resistant to being vaccinated, but not resistant – even more unfortunately – to the virus. What does that mean? There is a number that represents the minimum percentage of the American people who must be immunized to create a safe America. That number is the goal to restore a nation in which we actually can eat out again, support businesses, shop, and do all those group things that create our social and economic recovery without killing someone we love. It means if we want to be free again, we must be healthy enough to move about freely.
In a nutshell, it means we are either part of the solution or part of the problem.
It’s oxymoronic that they who rail about being free are, too often, those who are an impediment to that freedom. Freedom, as we all know, has never and will never come without action and a price; nothing has or ever will. “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Let’s remember that.
We wear our seatbelts and don’t risk our lives in our car. Oh, but the seatbelt wrinkles our beautiful new suit. Yeah. Well, there you have it. Helmets save our skull, but impede our hearing, and mess up our hair. Yup ... there we go again. Bathing suits are required at most beaches, whether we want to wear one or not. How about “no shoes, no shirt, no service”? We follow rules every day for things that are far less contagious or deadly than this virus.
No one wants to drive to a specific location, get stuck with a needle, do it again, and risk reactions (I, like many, had none, nothing, nada to either the shot or the booster, just FYI), but the alternative has the potential to be torturous or deadly, or both, to us or someone we love.
Most of us recognize all people’s individual rights, but we all also know that those rights are highly regulated even when they only affect one person or very few people. Here we are with a potential threat to the life of any person we exhale near.
We must recognize that our rights end where someone else’s begin. Unless we want to be in quarantine for 10 more years, we must be part of the solution. Moreover, America must take its place among the nations that prosper and grow, or other countries will prosper and grow while we waste time trying to convince a portion of our population to act intelligently. The vaccine is necessary in order for America to resume the life everyone wants and the life even the vaccine-o-phobes are screaming for.
Any intelligent, reality-based person knows we can’t have our cake and eat it too. If we want our lives back to normal, our nation to remain a world influence, our economy back our track and our people back to work and off unemployment, we’ve got to vaccinate. If we must, like all other imperative impositions – bathing suits, seat belts, “license and registration please” – perhaps we’re going to have to see your vaccination card for admittance. This virus is a loaded gun; it cannot be allowed here.
Worth repeating: if we aren’t part of the solution, we are part of the problem; no one can complain about a problem when he/she is unwilling to be part of the solution. One person’s rights end where the next person’s rights begin. We’ve got many things to protest in this nation. Staying alive isn’t one of them.
The fewer obligations we honor without government intervention, the more we force our government to intervene.
Then, we, ourselves, become a living oxymoron.
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