Even though I’m not a parent (you can thank me later, nonexistent kids who were never forced to explain my Igloo cooler-sized head and piquant yeti musk to your friends and classmates), I feel every bit of this mini-Twitter thread from Rep. Eric Swalwell.
I enjoy Swalwell’s takes, which tend to be clear, concise, amusing, and acerbic. And when it comes to the perpetual waves of death that have washed over our land since Donald Trump decided to politicize the coronavirus, the congressman speaks for most members of the pro-real-human-life crowd.
Check it:
I’m losing my Covid patience. I’ve tried to reason with the unvaxxed. I’ve directed some to medical pros. I don’t judge but hear them out and steer them to facts. The unvaxxed love to say it’s about choice. But you know who doesn’t have a choice? My 3 kids under 5. (1/3)
Blah blah blah you have a right to not get vaxxed. Fine. Then business and government have a right to tell you that you’re not welcome to patronize or you can’t get on a plane. Because what right do you think you have to expose my kids to your Covid? As parents, let’s own (2/3) the outrage. The looney carnival barkers at the school board meetings DO NOT reflect where most parents are. Your unvaxxed status is creating new variants. So get your damn shot. Or, stay inside your house. But don’t mess with my kids.
Right? I really don’t give a shit about foolish personal choices that don’t affect me, like playing Russian roulette or sharing an unventilated room with Steve Bannon. But because the vaccines offer less than 100% protection—and even that fades over time—the unvaxxed among us do affect me. And you. And everyone else. Not only that, they occupy hospital beds that could be accommodating people who choose not to be dyspeptic fuckwits.
But who’s getting all the attention these days? Screeching banshees at school board meetings whose behavior wouldn’t pass muster in a kindergarten classroom.
And this part I love:
Then business and government have a right to tell you that you’re not welcome to patronize or you can’t get on a plane. Because what right do you think you have to expose my kids to your Covid?
But … but … freedom! Freedom to spread death. Freedom to infect other people’s children. Freedom to paralyze our hospital system. Freedom to fuck up our economic recovery. Freedom to sow chaos in order to grease the skids for the return of their ocher overlord.
Yeah, you have those freedoms, and others should have the freedom to make you pariahs—at which point you have the freedom to accept the all-too-predictable consequences of your actions and shut the fuck up for once.
Yes, I know. Natural selection is sorting this out as we speak, but that doesn't mean we need to be happy about it. After all, as Swalwell makes clear, we’re the real victims, not them.
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