UPDATED: To The Willfully Benighted

 

Ah, if only the willfully stupid among us could be ridiculed and that would be the end of it. Unfortunately, those errant souls persist in trying to shove their ignorance down the throats of others.

Last weekend anti-vaccine demonstrators gathered outside a clinic in North Bay called One Kids Place and tried to intimidate a mother taking her 7-year-old son to get his first shot.

Abby Blaszczyk says she had to endure a torrent of abuse as she escorted her son Nolan, who had just become eligible for a COVID vaccine.

“They told me I … was murdering my son, I was committing genocide, stuff like that,” she told CBC News. “And then, just misinformation about the vaccine itself.”

Like the infection they are, the anti-vaxxers insist on spreading their benightedness.

...  in Windsor last week anti-vaxxers picketed another clinic that was offering vaccines to kids between 5 and 11. They carried signs with slogans like, “It’s not a vaccine. It’s a bioweapon.”

Some may wonder why I have such an obvious and deep antipathy towards these people. Part of the reason, of course is that, as a teacher for 30 years, my career revolved around critical thinking. To see that abandoned so wholeheartedly by some is disheartening. But my larger contempt is for the motivation of these people, their insistence that they are right, and the damage they seek to do to their fellow citizens by their obdurate refusal to think of society as a whole and get vaccinated to afford the best protection possible for all.

Parse it any way you want, but their egocentric selfishness more than merits society's widespread condemnation. 

UPDATE: Just in time for the season of giving, Pastor Kent Christmas shares the gift of his 'thoughts':

A Fine Day For The Stupid

Continuing with a theme, I found these videos of more stupid people, this group enjoying yesterday's fine weather in Toronto. While thousands of parents were lined up with their kids (12 years and older) to get their first Pfizer shot at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto, handfuls of anti-vaxxers took it upon themselves to educate them about the perils of listening to their parents and the science that guides them.

As is obvious here, some people have too much time on their hands. A pity they can't find something constructive to do with it, but with such apparent cognitive shortcomings, not really surprising, eh?

UPDATED: So Little Time, So Many Benighted Souls

As I have written elsewhere on this blog, my patience for those who willfully embrace ignorance, who prefer the blunt hammer of dark conspiracy to the hard work of thinking, is non-existent. And despite well-articulated arguments that the way to reach such people is not through confrontation, abuse or disdain but rather empathy and discourse, the well-entrenched cynic within me suggests that such an approach is both very time-consuming and of very limited efficacy.

Time is not on our side in our current Covid pandemic.

But if one were to judge by anti-vaxxer news reports, it is all much ado about nothing.

Take, for example, the anti-lockdown rally in Brantford Ontario over the weekend, which saw possibly a thousand unmasked protestors, bitter over our current lockdown and standing closely together in their solidarity.

The consequence of challenging such a benighted but obdurate mindset is both ugly and instructive. Last week, Martin Regg Cohn wrote a column advocating mandatory vaccinations:

The logical alternative to never-ending lockdowns is to make vaccinations mandatory. Yes, mandatory — like mask mandates.

No, I don’t mean physically restraining people and forcefully injecting them. After all, we don’t forcefully apply masks to people’s faces, we merely forbid them from forcing themselves upon us unmasked and unasked.

In other words, he says there must be restrictions on the freedoms of those who place their wants and beliefs above the requirements of public health. Those restrictions would include bans on overseas air travel, entry to nursing homes, and crossing the border.

This is the kind of response Regg Cohn received:

• “YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM WILL GO FUCKING HYPERACTIVE UNTIL YOU DIE AND HOPEFULLY FOR YOU THAT WILL BE VERY SOON.”

• “I HOPE YOU AN YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY ARE FIRST INLINE TO GET PUNCTURED WITH THIS EXPERIMENTAL INOCULATION.”

• “How much did you get paid to run that PsyOp? ... End the lockdowns. End the mask mandates. Ban the vaccine.”

• “You sir, are obviously a shill for the pharmaceutical industry and should be shut down.”

• “Nazis didn’t give Jews the right to decide. Are you German? Have you heard of the Nuremberg Code? Created to protect against medical experiments.”

• “Your article of forced vaccines is not only disgusting but actually a crime against humanity! Who the f__k do you think you are? I hope that you get what you deserve, God is always watching for demons like you!”

• “How about we dump you off in a totalitarian country like China, where you can live anong like-minded sheep and dittoheads. In fact, perhaps North Korea is more your style.”

• “This is the largest mass extinction event we can imagine and you are helping pushing along all the lemers until they fall off that cliff.”

• “Do you have a monetary gain? Were you ‘asked’ to write your article by a member of the government or ministry of health to help them push the vaccine?”

• “You are an aggressive participant in slow motion mass murder.... Vaccine dependency is mass murder in slow motion. You are an uneducated buffoon … who is your puppet master?”

Jesus said that we will always have the poor amongst us. It is obvious that today, we must also add a few other categories to that observation.

UPDATE: At least the above-mentioned Brantford rally netted a few arrests.

Police in Brantford have laid 12 charges following large protests held amid the provincewide shutdown over the long weekend and say more charges may be coming.