OPEN LETTERS
An Open Letter to Conservatives
We need to talk about Covid — if only you would listen.
Dear anti-mask and anti-vaccine conservatives,
At the beginning of the pandemic, I cringed when I heard the terms “Covidiots” and “boomer-remover”. I believed that as a whole, you were mostly just reasonably suspicious and wary of government control. As someone who believes in liberty, I actually agree with minimizing government control in our daily lives … up to a point.
You see, I also remember the part of the preamble to our Constitution that says our government was created to “… promote the general welfare…”
Not only was our government founded to protect the rights of the citizens, but our founders knew that governments have a basic responsibility to protect those citizens from a variety of threats. Perhaps most critically — our founders empowered our government to do so.
“Promote the general welfare” is right between the phrases “to form a more perfect union” and “secure the Blessings of Liberty”. It’s also before the Bill of Rights. Clearly, our founders believed it was a necessary part of governing.
This means, our government has the right to pass laws to protect us, even when some of us don’t want protecting! For the most part, those laws have been passed at the state and local levels, but the consideration for the common good was explicitly included in our Constitution for a reason.
Still not convinced?
The ability of the government to pass public health regulations has been well established by various cases argued before the Supreme Court. It’s even corroborated by the actions our founders took during their own lifetimes.
None of our current public health efforts are new.
Consider the history of quarantines and legally mandated vaccinations. What about George Washington vaccinating his troops with what could have been called an “experimental” vaccine? You might also remember the more recent story of Typhoid Mary, the perfect example of a deadly, asymptomatic carrier.
Besides, if the government didn’t have an obligation to protect its citizens we wouldn’t have the FDA, USDA, or health departments at various levels. In fact, many of the organizations we trust to help keep us safe wouldn’t exist, because their sole purpose is to promote the general welfare.
I naively thought that as the evidence became available and people you knew got sick and died, you’d begin to comply with reasonable, pro-life, and civic-minded orders. I thought you’d begrudgingly follow mask mandates and accept social distancing guidelines.
I mean, you love your country and your countrymen, right?
The “Greatest Generation” complied with rationing, blackout orders, and all kinds of restrictions on their civil liberties to pull together and defeat a common enemy. Now you pretend that wearing a mask is some unbearable imposition and refusing the vaccination is a badge of honor.
Even now, I still believe that if this was all framed in a patriotic sense from the beginning, we’d have stood a good chance of minimizing the death and economic damage… but alas, here we are.
You didn’t want to stay home. You didn’t want to wear masks. You didn’t want to socially distance in public.
Now we have multiple vaccinations available that could have made all of those actions unnecessary, and you rail against them.
So, I have some questions for you…
Wasn’t Operation Warp Speed one of Trump’s biggest accomplishments?
Yes. He even called it a miracle.
Didn’t he get vaccinated?
Yes. At CPAC he said that everyone should get their shots.
Weren’t there tens of thousands of people who partook in the safety trials for the Covid vaccinations?
Yes. Just the Pfizer vaccination had over 43,00 people in their trials. Hundreds of thousands participated in others and now MILLIONS of your countrymen have received their vaccinations. How much more safety data do you need?
Even now, the mortality rate sits at approximately 1.7% in the U.S. (632,697 deaths for 36,455,271 cases). When you consider this risk and the hard evidence we have on the dangers of “long Covid”, the ridiculously tiny chance of a bad reaction pales in comparison.
Hasn’t the broader strategy for developing the mRNA vaccinations been in the works for decades?
Yes. The research dates back prior to the 1990s and in 2018 major research developments were discussed in various medical journals. Some even lauded their promise and looked forward to their application in many diseases including rabies and flu.
Isn’t there objective proof that the US has suffered hundreds of thousands of additional deaths in the past year?
Yes. Even if you don’t believe the “mainstream media”, just ask nurses, doctors, morticians, and nursing home staff. They’ve never seen death like this during our lifetimes — not even during the worst flu seasons on record.
So now, with all that out there… let’s talk about your newest source of “recreational outrage” — reinstated mask mandates and new vaccination requirements.
I’ve seen you proclaiming you’re cancelling gym memberships, refusing to patronize businesses with mask and vaccine requirements for their employees or customers, and declaring that not even medical staff should be forced to be vaccinated.
Would you really want your labor and delivery, NICU, and PICU nurses refusing the MMR, Polio, or Whooping cough vaccinations?! Of course not! So why would you expect this to be any different?
Shouldn’t medical staff be doing everything they can to protect the most vulnerable? Why is it so shocking to you that Covid vaccinations would be required for people who regularly serve the immunocompromised and elderly? We’re talking about the very people you keep claiming are “the only ones at risk”.
Let’s talk about the requirements that businesses have enacted in the past and compare them to the ones you rage about on Fox News and Facebook.
If you’ve ever supported a business refusing service for no shirt, no shoes, or even sagging pants, I don’t want to hear a word out of you about masks.
If you’ve ever believed that businesses have the right to enforce drug testing and then deny employment to (or fire!) people who use marijuana (off company time, mind you!), then I don’t want to hear a word about vaccination requirements.
You’ve clearly been okay with private businesses dictating the personal and medical choices of their employees and customers for years.
I also don’t want to hear a word about HIPAA. You’ve been twisting and misrepresenting the act and HIPAA regulations for months. No, asking someone to voluntarily disclose their vaccination (or Covid) status is NOT a HIPAA violation. If you asked their doctor and the doctor disclosed it without the patient’s permission THAT would be a violation.
Just talk to anyone who works in the healthcare industry and had to provide a negative tuberculosis test prior to their employment. Providing negative medical tests has actually been an accepted practice for years.
What about school, college, and university requirements for vaccinations? Yup, and guess what?! They’ve all been ruled constitutional as well.
While I was raised in a very conservative home, I now consider myself more of a moderate or an “independent”. I also still have many conservatives in my life whom I love dearly. Some of them are in the medical field and are trying to be ambassadors to other friends and family members, in an effort to keep our loved ones alive.
Others… well, they are spreading the bogus, anti-science propaganda that has contributed to the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in this country thus far.
Honestly, I’m starting to get compassion fatigue when it comes to the latter group, and I don’t just mean the loved ones who’ve been fooled. I mean every conservative who (despite the overwhelming evidence) insists Tucker Carlson, Newsmax, OAN, and even more fringe “news” media outlets speak the gospel truth about Covid.
Covid isn’t dangerous. Masks don’t work. Vaccines are dangerous. The left is just trying to control you….
If it’s just a democrat plot, why are countries the world over begging for vaccines and burying their citizens in mass graves or holding mass cremations?
Once again, why did Trump push for Operation Warp Speed and then openly encourage EVERYONE to get vaccinated at CPAC?
This shouldn’t be a political issue. It should be a public health issue, but you just don’t see it that way. You’re embracing political tribalism and your efforts to “Own the Libs” will literally kill you.
Some of my liberal and even moderate friends have decided that you’re not worth the frustration anymore. They feel you’re a lost cause anyway, so they’re looking for silver linings.
A minority of my peers are actually hoping that with 99% of Covid deaths coming from our unvaccinated population, and vaccination rates following party lines, that you’ll actually kill enough of yourselves off to guarantee even more states “turn blue”.
Consider what will happen if the new variants kill as many as we’ve already lost. As it seems we really do have a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”, then as more and more conservatives die, the electorate will likely move toward a more liberal majority.
This seems to be a concern some Republicans are now sharing. Governors and other party leaders that previously downplayed Covid have started pushing for vaccinations. They’ve clearly realized that where conservatives win elections by less than a percentage point, losing their staunchest supporters to Covid might just mean they lose power for the foreseeable future.
Besides, younger voters skew progressive and older people, well, they die more overall anyway.
I’m tired.
I don’t want to watch my mother and grandmother grieve even more extended family.
I don’t want to watch my mother continue to struggle with the incredible physical and mental stress caused by being a nurse in a Covid unit.
I don’t want to read more stories about babies in Texas taking a life flight 150 miles away from their families because even pediatric hospitals are filling with critical Covid patients.
I don’t want to lose tens or hundreds of thousands more Americans to what is now a preventable disease.
It’s really simple. I might dislike or even detest some of your politics, but I don’t want you dead. I’d rather you come to your senses, or at least, start acting in your own self-interest.
Get vaccinated. Wear a mask. Stick around.
You can’t argue about cancel culture or politics with a tube down your throat or from the grave.
Sincerely,
A millennial snowflake/sheep that actually wants to help keep you alive.
