I mean obviously she has a point here (her argument is that shaming is counter-productive and you need to consider the viewpoint of the skeptics and persuade them logically) and I absolutely agree that elitist tsk-tsking in media coverage of deaths is extremely counter-productive.

But the vast majority of vaccine denialism is derived from two sources:

1. A complete destruction of trust in institutions and experts with a very valid basis that has ballooned into a total and insane conspiracy theory consciousness

2. Deeply ingrained partisan identification where getting the shot is essentially admitting the libs were right all along and have owned you

These cases are almost entirely unreachable by logical argument. Theyre unreachable because what they seek is an emotional "truth" disconnected from material reality and has its terms set by their own individual grievances and resentments. Both are also deeply connected with insane religious fundamentalism.

Even the case she laid out of trying to talk to her skeptical uncle has its problem. He's clearly a right-wing evangelical, so one of the initial "concerns" he has is the ethical sourcing of the vaccines, whether they were tested on "fetal stem cells". This is just an excuse cooked up to cover fhe real reason, which is certainly one of the two cases I outlined above. I highly, highly doubt her uncle has similar ethical concerns over the sourcing of the meat he eats or the blue jeans he buys. The same goes for other denialists who fake concern for the potential side effects of "chemicals" used to make the vaccines; do they ever have similar concerns about the industrial pesticides sprayed on the fruits and vegetables they eat, or the hormones pumped into cattle to fatten them up quickly? Hell no.

Luckily I mostly don't feel anything anymore when these people die. My emotional expression mostly comes somewhere between :proletariat: and :pathetic:

my opinion is that it's completely OK now but will be cringe in historical hindsight, my compromise is to upvote death mocking but not post it so as to leave no record :think-about-it:

there does seem to be significant willingness to consider vaccination

:doubt:

If you haven't figured out by now that "I'm looking into it" is a delay tactic, you could write for The Atlantic.

She makes a great point, but I'll leave it to the people with more empathy, so I will promptly ignore it and continue to point and laugh at dead reactionaries.

Coming from the lady that is a frequent guest in chapotraphouse, making fun of chuds is like the prime directive of the show; but guilt by association is a cheap shot, so let's see what she writes.

But inasmuch as democracy is a shared vision—a collaborative dream about the kind of governance we’re capable of and the sort of future we could build—it’s crucial to keep its practices alive even when its functions have broken down.

We don't live in a democracy, let alone a liberal democracy. The United States is a decidedly illiberal place, it has been for generations (since its foundation even, you could argue). To claim we can behave like liberals in a fundamentally illiberal context is to resign yourself to failure. This is a fundamentally ahistorical understanding of the united states. It obfuscates the reality of what's going on. That you cannot have a democracy when one group (the ruling class) has final veto on the demands of other classes (the working class, the marginalized communities, the racial minorities). There is only domination, bourgeois domination can be subtle or overt but it will subsume real demands and output token changes.

A recent iteration of the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey asked unvaccinated Americans about their reasons for putting off or refusing vaccination against COVID-19, and allowed them to select more than one option, resulting in a set of ranked concerns for COVID-vaccine skeptics.

No one is denying that there might reasonable arguments for being a vaccine skeptic. Changes to your menstrual cycle, kidney damage, myocarditis are all things you might consider weighting against the vaccine. But that has to be weighed against the very real and damaging consequences of getting ACTUAL COVID. 600,000+ people DEAD. People on dialysis for as long as they live. Systemic Organ failure. Cognitive impairment and brian damage. The weighting possible rare side effects versus chronic damage to your internal organs are absolutely demented. Another thing we could do is argue for the protection and funding of healthcare for anyone with vaccination-caused side effects. Probably the reason why so many people are hesitant to take this risk is that America's healthcare industry is ruthlessly run for profit.

The New York Times recently reported that myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, is more common after COVID-19 vaccination; likewise, NPR featured a story earlier this month on university researchers looking into thousands of claims of menstrual changes following vaccination, and two days later Reuters ran a news article noting that European regulators were probing a skin rash and a pair of kidney disorders as possible side effects of the vaccines

I think a condemnation ought to be made against the news outlets who have reported on this without providing or vetting the reporting through the scientific explanation of the probability of rare side effects. It is also a narrative of "Congrats we got a vaccine!" to "oh the vaccine might kill you" and that is only done to DRIVE UP CLICKS.

, I called one of my uncles, who works in auto repair in North Texas. Chris is an honest, fair, and kind-hearted person, the easygoing one in a family of tightly wound people. When I asked him why he and his wife had chosen not to get a shot yet, he said they were still thinking about it....I felt good about our talk. I want him, my aunt, my cousins, my other uncle, and the rest of my extended family scattered across Texas and Louisiana to be all right. And I believe—but cannot prove—that wanting that for someone is more persuasive, somehow, than the darker, harder political emotions that dominate our discourse now.

This is where I reached my most frustrating moment. All you did was talk to your uncle. He did not agree to vaccinate. Your persuasiveness did not make him get in line. All you did is talk. You are fundamentally a useless liberal. Your uncle might die before the other vaccines he is "waiting on" get approved. He could get the J&J vaccine right now and hasn't. This entire article was fundamentally useless.

We do not live in a democracy. Liberal ideology lives in fucking la-la land. The very serious concern of the unvaccinated cannot really be weighed against actual fucking DEATH. And ultimately, when all it is said and done. We are not, to some extent asking people to get vaccinated for themselves. This is a COMMUNITY NEED. The individual does not, cannot supersede the need for community herd immunity. This is the failure of analysis. For the lack of vaccination, the allowed free speech of vaccination skeptics. The failure to maintain institutional legitimacy and trust in government institutions. We have now allowed hundreds of thousands of people to reach the final end, in agonizing and painful moments that nobody deserves. We are allowing the research and effort to drive up vaccinations to collapse with new, more virulent and more damaging variants. This is an utter fucking mess that is unresolved, even within your own case study.

The Atlantic sucks. Everybody has lost their fucking minds. This is fucking ridiculous. What a fucking garbage article.

The Catholic "left" weirdo comes up with an obnoxious and self-regarding take, well I'm shocked

She should stop death shaming fetuses

Stop death shaming? Then how about you stop poopoo peepee shaming? :no-copyright:

The right kind of persuasion is the threat of getting fired, banned from most public places, and maybe just holding them down to get the jab and jailing them for two weeks to ensure they get the second one.

deleted by creator

I'm reading it right now

🥰

Okay.

:bugs-no: