My comment queue now includes a number of blistering denunciations of the Cook County judge who curtailed a mother's visitation rights with her young son, apparently sua sponte, because she was not vaccinated against COVID-19. You won't be seeing those. And I'll refrain from even naming the judge here. For once this is not because I don't know who the judge is; I do. I tweeted about it over the weekend when the order rescinding the first order was entered.
I'm not protecting anybody, or defending anyone either. You already know that story; I'll not pile on.
Instead, I'd like to come at it from another direction.
I saw a post put up by on Facebook one of my cousins this morning. One of my unvaccinated cousins.
Don't be smug. While I am certain that most FWIW readers are fully vaccinated, I am equally certain that there are probably unvaccinated persons among your relations, too, or among your in-laws, and almost certainly among some of your neighbors, whether you know it or not.
Indeed, one of the many sad consequences of this pandemic (albeit not up there with the suspension of civil jury trials in Cook County -- there, I've saved you the trouble of making that comment, Anonymous) is that the vaccination issue is yet another wedge dividing friends and families. As if we didn't have enough of those already.
Anyway, my cousin shared a post from the Fire Chief of the rural Oregon Aurora Fire District. The post in question is on the linked Facebook page; Mr. Zuckerberg either does not permit, or my limited techn-skills do not allow, me to link to the exact post. I've also linked to the district's web page. In short, I'm pretty sure that this is a real letter, from a real fire chief:
This is some pretty overheated, over-the-top rhetoric here ("un-American", "weaponized" government). Not as offensively over-the-top as the remarks recently attributed to FOP President John Catanzara, Jr. about Chicago's forthcoming COVID-19 vaccine mandate but, in a way, that makes Chief Williams' remarks all the more frightening. He seems perfectly willing to jettison his career on this issue.
And it's not just one firefighter in Who-knows-where Oregon that feels this way. From what I've been told, and from what I've read, there are a lot of firefighters in this area that haven't been vaccinated either. And policemen. Even nurses. A significant number of first responders who've been dealing with COVID and its consequences right from the start. You'd think that would be impossible. But, apparently, it's not.
My cousin has a son who is serving in the Marine Corps. If he hasn't been vaccinated yet for COVID, he will be shortly. I don't think he'll throw away his career on this. Persons serving in the armed forces are routinely required to submit to vaccinations of one sort or another before overseas deployments. A great many persons in the police and fire service are military veterans themselves, and therefore familiar with these requirements. You'd think they'd see this vaccination in a similar light. But... evidently not.
On Facebook and Twitter I read post after post from people -- supposedly rational, responsible people -- exulting over the deaths of their unvaccinated fellow humans (a right-wing Florida -- of course he'd be from Florida -- radio host who'd fulminated against vaccination, until his own, ultimately fatal encounter with COVID, being one of the latest examples). There's meanness and ugliness from so many out there.
What this shows me, at least, is the limitations of the law.
Passing a law -- or issuing a mandate -- prohibiting some practice or requiring another is absolutely ineffectual without one of two things: Either there must be broad consensus supporting the law or there must be the threat of force behind it. Force and even violence. Actually, you probably need both for a truly effective law because no matter what overwhelming percentage of persons support the enactment, there will always be someone who will violate it, or try to. But the important thing is this: The more people who agree with the law in the first place, the less onerous enforcement will have to be.
I don't know how a public health issue got made into a partisan political issue. But it happened here. And we're seeing the consequences. Most people in most places have agreed that the vaccine is a reasonable response to the COVID-19 problem. But not enough people anywhere to effectively contain the bug. So... now... enforcement is being ratcheted up: Government employees, at all levels, are being required to take the vaccine. Private employers are being urged to force their employees to do the same. Failure to comply will result in losing one's job. A pretty forceful consequence. And it still may not be enough.
But the law is not going to be enough here. Not without a whole lot of force. Or... alternatively... hopefully... by forging some consensus. Of course, for that, we'll just have to start talking to each other again. Do we still know how?