As one goes through life and, through experience, gains wisdom and perspective, he/she finds that, in almost all cases, there are at least two sides to every issue. Except for when it comes to vaccines; there’s only one side to that and that is that anti-vaxxers are the stupidest people on Earth. Even the ones who are able to speak in complete sentences are just smart enough to be stupid. They get a part of a piece of a tiny grain of an idea and then convince themselves that they have built Hadrian’s Wall.
It is so frustrating, after what everybody on Earth has lived through (and many died from) over the past 16 months, to hear morons blather on about that of which they obviously know nothing. Their refusal to get vaccinated is causing people to get sick and die. It is also keeping their beloved economy from returning to full strength. And for what?
The excuses given are mind-boggling. They include:
- I think I’m allergic.
How can you tell if you’re allergic to something if you’ve never had it?! Sadly, I’m allergic to avocados. I know this because I used to love guacamole, but as I got older, I developed a vicious allergy. It started as a tiny tickle in my throat. But, after a couple years, I would take one bite and my face would look like Ben Grimm after being exposed to the cosmic rays.
It is possible to be allergic to a vaccine, but it’s extremely rare and there’s no way of knowing until you get it.
- People are dying from the vaccine.
That’s just a lie. It’s not even worth bothering to refute it. Even most of Tucker Carlson’s brain-dead viewers don’t believe it and they’ll believe just about anything.
- The vaccine makes some people magnetic.
They can’t even get the lie right. The original lie was that there was some kind of metal being injected into people, enough to make a magnet stick to the injection site. This was completely false and quickly debunked. Actually, the original, original lie was that Bill Gates was using the vaccination effort to implant microchips in our bodies. That, too, has been proven to be completely false. But, through the evil that is TikTok, the lie has now morphed into the government is injecting us with magnets.
Stupid is as anti-vaxxer does.
- And my least-favorite, the vaccine can cause fertility issues. (Again, not true. The disease itself can mess with fertility; the vaccine, no.)
A young woman whom I used to coach in basketball contacted me a couple weeks ago and asked if she could use me as a reference for a job for which she was applying. We had a brief conversation; I asked her how she and her family were doing. Since she’s not yet 21 and still in college, I asked her if she had had the opportunity to get vaccinated yet. When she told me that she wasn’t going to get vaccinated, I was flabbergasted. She’s usually a smart kid.
When I asked her why, she said, “It’s because the vaccine causes fertility issues and I want to have kids someday.”
I said, “Dude, you need to stay off the internet. All that false information can make you null and void.”
She’s a great kid and I didn’t want to lecture her, but doggone it! I told her that saying that a vaccine can affect fertility issues is like saying that playing softball makes you better at English.
The unholy alliance of the anti-vaxxers and Fox News (and its copycat “networks”) have been pushing this and other ridiculous claims in a feeble attempt to derail President Biden’s wildly successful (and popular) national vaccination effort. They got somebody claiming to be a doctor to suggest that the vaccine might cause a person’s body to attack the protein synctin-1, which is in a woman’s placenta and shares a tiny bit of genetic code with the coronavirus’ spike protein.
One of the best reactions to that nonsense that I have read comes from (real) Dr. Laura Morris from the University of Missouri. Says Dr. Morris: “A good analogy for your immune system to get mixed up and attack the placental protein would be like you mistaking an elephant for an alley cat because they’re both gray. There is one small similarity but the overall constructions of the proteins are so completely different, your immune system is way too smart to be confused by that.”
What is most frustrating in this whole matter is the blatant hypocrisy being exhibited by the nouveau (Trump-inspired) anti-vaxxers. Many of the people in the wide swath of right-wingers who are refusing to get vaccinated are the same people who were storming state capitols with assault weapons last summer, screaming that the lockdown was doing more harm than the disease itself. They called on the government(s) to do everything possible to open businesses back up for the resurgence of the economy and the mental well-being of all Americans.
That was not a totally unreasonable argument, but now that there is a clear and incontrovertible method for doing that very thing that they wanted, they’re refusing to do the one simple thing that can save lives and bring the American economy roaring back.
They call themselves patriots; they’re really just hypocrites.
This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2021.
The magnet one is hilarious. Microchips are made out of silicon – a non-ferrous/non-magnetic substance.
Yeah Tom heart conditions and blood clots are no big deal. Let’s force people not at risk to be injected with a vaccine. We don’t need to worry about side effects.
The vaccine is trusted just about as much as our elections. That’s a blight on the government itself.
…at this time, there are 934 reports of death among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine.
So let me understand this Dr Tom….You trusted every death report on Covid and you don’t trust any death from vaccine.
88% of the population never got Covid.
If the government had a vaccine that could prevent cancer, would they give me gifts to take a free shot?
What if it was your family Tom. Stop being so judgmental.
Unfortunately Danehy is not the exception. He is a part that elite class of people who not only know better than all the rest but can’t wait to tell you how “stupid” you are for not believing. Sadly this group of people are an undiagnosed disease in an of itself for which there is no know vaccine.
@Connie yes people have died after receiving the vaccine. They did not die FROM the vaccine. Period.
Among Tom Danehy’s “stupidest people on Earth” are a surprising number of doctors, nurses, & frontline workers.
Maybe they know more about pharmaceutical & medical industry greed & fraud than Tom does.
Maybe they’re non-smokers who’ve never been obese or had any other underlying conditions & just don’t see the need to be a vaccine test subject.
Maybe they’re waiting for the “new car” incentive.
There is a not-so silent disease that is more dangerous than anything mother nature has thrown at us — although we should never underestimate the primal forces of nature that ABSOLUTELY have no F to give humanity.
I am speaking of partisanship, the simple solution for simple minds everywhere. Forget having to think for yourself, just let partisan hacks tell you what you think and go about your business as if everything will be OK.
Unfortunately, everything will not be OK if we continue to let these partisan propensities guide every aspect of our lives. There are too many problems in the world today that are going to take us working together to solve. In fact, many of the problems we have can be traced directly back to partisanship.
We all love the idea of being rebellious free spirits who cannot be told what to do, but all too often in our quest for personal freedom and liberty, we allow others to tell us what to do in the face of facts, reality and good old common sense. We go with our gut or get caught up in a cause that makes claims that just sound right.
Sadly, nefarious organizations and groups know how to weaponize these feelings in the face of facts and reality because our very nature values feelings over thinking.
I leave you with one observation that may help you to question the “truths” others are trying to make you believe — if the source has been monetized by any means such as advertising, political action committees, grants, go-fund-me sites or any other way to make or take money from you question it, investigate it, and make damn sure that you are not being used to become part of the problem.
#sgmith—Great comment. And here is our President doing exactly that…Driving up inflation that will hurt the very people he promised to help.
https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/watch-biden-aggressively-whispers-podium-boast-about-infrastructure
I said, “Dude, you need to stay off the internet. All that false information can make you null and void.”
You talking about yourself here Tom! You’re the guy everyone is reading on the internet spouting your opinions as news. Why don’t you do a real news story instead of an opinion piece and earn your pay?
Do any of you read the Wall St Journal?
“South America Is Now Covid-19 Hot Spot, With Eight Times the World’s Death Rate”
The President has invited them here, un vaccinated and then flew them to cities all over the country so we wouldn’t notice.
Can anybody explain that? This is intentional.
I’m OK with Trump supporters not getting vaccinated since that will inevitably translate to fewer votes for his acolytes in upcoming elections.
Among Tom Danehy’s “stupidest people on Earth” are a surprising number of doctors, nurses, & frontline workers.
Maybe they know more about pharmaceutical & medical industry greed & fraud than Tom does.
Maybe they’re non-smokers who’ve never been obese or had any other underlying conditions & just don’t see the need to be a vaccine test subject.
Maybe they’re waiting for the “new car” incentive.
Nothing new under the sun smugness included. Twilight Zone Tom D weighs in 64 years ago:
And my least-favorite, that thalidomide can cause fertility issues. (Again, not true. Anxiety and morning sickness themselves can mess with fertility; thalidomide, no.) Stupid is as anti-thalidomider does.
The CDC admitted this week to finding more cases of rare heart inflammation in young adults than was expected after receiving COVID vaccine shots.
The CDC presentation shows a surge in myocarditis/pericarditis cases in young adults after their second dose of the COVID vaccine.
There have been more than 1,200 cases of a rare heart inflammation condition in people who received Pfizer’s or Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine, according to a slide presentation published Wednesday ahead of an advisory meeting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“…they’re all just hypocrites…”
Starting with you Tom. Far higher percentage of Democrats are not vaccinated than Republicans.
Death rates for your college age friend from the Flu in 2019 are far higher than the death rates from Covid in 2020.
That claim that Republicans are more vaccinated than Democrats is absolutely false. What, you think you can just throw that out there are and expect it to go unchallenged? Any number of studies show it to be the opposite. For example, this from NY1: The 20 states with the highest rates of residents who have received at least one vaccine dose all went to Joe Biden in last year’s presidential election, while 19 of the 21 states with the lowest vaccination rates supported Donald Trump.
A Monmouth University poll in March found that 36% of Republicans said they did not plan to get inoculated, compared to 6% of Democrats. An NPR-PBS Newshour-Marist survey around the same time found that 49% of Republican men said they would not get the shot, compared to 6% of Democratic men.
I just read a book about Galileo and his heresy trial. It’s so sad to think that, 400 years later, there are still people who will worship politics while denying science.
On the one hand, it’s reasonably concerning that not reaching herd immunity through mass vaccination will allow the virus to continue to spread uncontrollably and evolve into more deadly, contagious and potentially vaccine resistant strains. On the otherhand, perhaps the fascist Trump cult members are setting themselves up for a Darwin award when this Delta variant finally catches up to us in the coming weeks. With a 2% death rate, that might be enough to turn Texas blue? In the larger scheme of things, you can think of these new deadly viruses and the global warming ecological catastrophe as just the Earth’s immune system trying to eradicated its own deadly virus, the human race. The Cytokine Storm is coming.
I always feel a little more stupid after reading a Danehy column. Thank God it wears off after a while!
You know how we get to heard immunity? By calling those on the fence idiots. Way to go ScIeNCe™️. Just trust and obey. And if you don’t, you are a. Science denier. Ugh. Seriously? Stop
Someone calls this guy for a reference, and he asks if they’ve been vaccinated? What an incredible invasion of someone’s privacy? Vaccination status has nothing to do with one’s past job performance and whether one merits a reference letter.
PS: Why didn’t he just tell her “Girl, I was your basketball coach – I have no idea how you’ll perform in a real job.”
The death rates for COVID, are related to the African American achievement test scores, showing snow bound states’ rates with higher teacher pay, don’t always run counter to private school voucher rates in desert states with African American governors. Or so goes the Huppster’s logic, as usual. You get dizzy trying to follow it.
Quit quibbling over the minute details and let’s find out who dumped this on us.
Well, when I am wrong, I admit it. Which is not often.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation survey, which seems to be the oracle on such things, a higher percentage of Democrats have been vaccinated than Republicans.
I find the data every so slightly suspect in that the major demographic groups of the Democrat party have significantly lower vaccination rates than Republicans.
@jhuppent, I don’t know where you saw “that the major demographic groups of the Democrat party have significantly lower vaccination rates than Republicans.” The Kaiser Family Foundation Covid-19 Vaccine dashboard (https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/d…), reports that the demographics that have higher democratic affiliation have high vaccination rates: Female, Black, Hispanic, College educated.
The reason that the antivax position is so very dangerous, is the fact that viruses mutate. Always have, always will. That’s what viruses do, and they do it well. The vaccines we presently have are safe and effective for the main coronavirus and it appears effective for the Delta variant as well. But… Viruses mutate, remember? Basic science. And the more rampant a virus becomes, where we “let it run its course”, the more variants it will mutate into – thus, we could potentially be faced with a covid coronavirus in which there is no protection. To a make a long story short – taking the position of “anti-vax” is dangerous for everyone, and is not just a personal choice concerning your freedom. The unvaccinated could potentially kill us all…