Vaccine mandate.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down. Before you start yelling at me for daring to write those two words, let me get to the point. The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors is going to consider vaccine mandates at its next meeting—Aug. 31.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down. It’s not for everyone! It would be for county employees.
After 2nd District Supervisor Gregg Hart brought up the possibility at the board’s Aug. 24 meeting, the crazies came out. And while I can understand arguments such as “my body, my choice” (cough, cough, that’s an argument straight out of the pro-abortion playbook), I have no basis for understanding the genocide comments that spilled out of people’s mouths during pubic comment.
Anti-vaxxers railed against mandating vaccines, equating it to “cleansing” the population, unfairly separating vaccinated and unvaccinated members of the population—where unvaccinated people are shunned (Gasp! Shunned!). And yes, they did equate vaccine passports to those gold stars that Jewish people were forced to wear in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.
Yes, I’m going to agree with those of you whose mouths are hanging open alongside my gaping beak. Individual white people feel oppressed by talk of societal well-being! Quick! Somebody take away their internet privileges. They’re doing their own “research” and falling down the black hole of false equivalency and fake news. What in the actual name of Satan are these people talking about?
Cleansing and genocide both refer to populations of people who are targeted to be wiped out, killed, obliterated due to their ethnicity, color, religious affiliations. These are truly oppressed populations, minorities forced to go into hiding to save their own lives because of something they have no control over.
What cleansing, genocide, and the Holocaust are not about are American citizens who have a choice, who can speak out at public Board of Supervisors meetings about their displeasure with the potential for government rules, who can push back on society’s new norms that they disagree with, who can protest in the streets with signs expressing their First Amendment rights without fear of being jailed, beat up, or killed because of their views.
And comparing the COVID-19 vaccine to those things shows that you understand very little about oppression.
An employer does have the right to mandate vaccines in the workplace. Nobody is required to work for their employers, the county included. If you don’t like it, find another job. Isn’t it easy? Aren’t you the same people who think it’s so easy for unemployed individuals to find work? So do it. Go find that new job. And yes, you might be shunned for making choices.
That’s what life’s all about, choices.
You know: Your body, your choice.
And guess what? The county hasn’t yet made a decision about mandating the vaccine.
You, the unoppressed, unvaccinated people of Santa Barbara County, can choose to make your voices heard at the next Board of Supervisors meeting. You can choose to do your damnedest to show off the amount of crazy that lives inside of you. You can choose to express your displeasure with the folks you elected to make decisions on behalf of the community you choose to live in.
Sounds pretty oppressive, doesn’t it?
The canary thinks you’re oppressed by choice. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 2, 2021.