Well, well. Look at that.
Another politician died from COVID.
A tragedy, said the news. A terrible tragedy.
Yes, a tragedy. He leaves behind a family. Friends. A job undone. He was so young. He was in the prime of life. And now, he's dead. It's so sad. Yes, yes. So very sad.
He was a politician, you see.
He was an elected "leader."
He was that species of conservative we've grown all too familiar with of late: A vocal antivaxxer, a conspiracy theorist, loudly dismissive of the severity of the disease, profit over people, and who actively campaigned against any measure to contain the pandemic.
Who am I talking about?
What was his name?
Is it that guy yesterday from Washington state?
Or the one last week from Florida?
Maybe those (several) politicians from Texas or that one antivaxxer who was elected in Louisiana but died from COVID before he could take office?
While we're at it, what about that semi-famous YouTuber, or that media personality, or those various prominent preachers?
I mean, that's the thing, isn't it?
That, right there.
It could be any of them.
Every day, there's another one. Another dead idiot. Another jackass politician, another fanatical preacher, another red-faced talk show host, dead from a preventable disease after a month of sucking oxygen through a tube.
Do the names even matter at this point?
It's just another unvaccinated moron, drowned in his own snot.
Another suicide by petulance.
Do the names even matter?
What's that?
Oh. I see.
I should be a better person.
Take the high road, right? Like that.
Have some sympathy. Think of the families. Think of how these poor deluded fools were taken in by conspiracy and delusion. Have some empathy, man. Be the better person.
That's what you're saying. Be the better person. Don't cheer these deaths. Don't celebrate these fools killing themselves off. Don't raise up a huzzah to Darwin.
It's not their fault, right? They were led astray.
That's what Twitter told me, when I mentioned the latest death from stupidity.
Be the better person.
Yeah.
Well, Folks, you can just stop with "be a better person" bit.
Because that just ain't going to happen. That ship not only sailed, it hit a rock outside the harbor and went down with all hands.
I am all out of fucks to give.
I'm not going to feel bad for some obnoxious idiot politician, some loud mouthed media personality, some fanatical religious nut, who not only refused to get vaxxed, but actively tried to keep the public from the vaccine. These assholes are killing people. It's bad enough they killed themselves, but they are enthusiastically trying to take the rest of us with them.
Deliberately causing your own death from a preventable disease isn't a tragedy.
It's evolution.
And you can likewise stop with the "You should feel bad for his family" routine too.
His family?
His family, forsooth.
LOL.
These people, they don't give a shit about their families. Or you. Or anybody else. The only thing they care about is their fanatical ideology. They're willing to kill themselves for it, and they'll take you with them just to own some libs. Let's go, Brandon! Yeah!
We're years into this now.
And at this point if you believe Alex Jones and Sean Hannity over actual doctors, then you are a fucking moron.
You. Are. A. Moron.
Hell, even Donald goddamn Trump thinks you should get vaccinated.
At this point in human history, if you're an antivaxxer, you deserve every bit of scorn, mockery, and contempt we can heap upon you. You're a plague rat. You're Typhoid Mary and you should be exiled to a remote island somewhere beyond the edge of the map and left to rot.
You want me to care about your family when you don't? Fine. Maybe now that another idiot politician is dead from stupidity, his kids will have at least chance for a better life. I mean, hell, if he couldn't be the kind of parent who was willing to put his ideology aside for his own children, then at least maybe his selfish miserable death will serve as a lesson to his children to be better people than their asshole of an old man.
I dunno.
Maybe I am a callous son of a bitch, as Twitter accused me of being yesterday.
Maybe I am.
Twenty years in the military, a couple of wars, there's been a lot of dead bodies along the way, so, yeah, maybe I am a callous son of a bitch.
So?
So what?
I just can't see the death of another antivaxxer as a tragedy. Not to me. Not to you. Not even to his family.
The world is better off without these assholes.
Folks, the world is full of tragedy. Real tragedy.
Kids going hungry in a nation where we throw food away? Yeah, that's a tragedy.
People sleeping in boxes under a viaduct while the rich fly into space as a goof? That's a tragedy.
I live in a state that this morning is surging in COVID cases, where deaths from the pandemic are at all time high, where the hospitals are overflowing -- and thus the profits are likewise at all time high. Healthcare for profit, now, that is a tragedy. Down here in The South, every day I see kids with their teeth rotted out of their heads, because their idiot, ignorant, asshole parents bought AR-15s and $400 worth of cigarettes this month instead of dental care. That's a goddamn tragedy.
In my lifetime, we've spent untold trillions on decades of one futile miserable war after another, wars that left millions dead, millions more maimed, and the world measurably worse off than when it started. And no one was ever held to account. All those lives, all those people, all those families, bombed, burned, maimed, forgotten, and no one politician responsible was ever, not once, held to account. That's a not just a tragedy, that's a goddamn crime.
There are a million tragedies large and small every day in this world and you want me to feel bad because some asshole politician, a grown goddamn man, who should have known better -- AND WHO NO DOUBT DID KNOW BETTER -- but who was determined to endanger himself as a political stunt, died?
Died from his own determined and deliberate stupidity?
These deaths aren't an accident, they are on purpose.
Why shouldn't I celebrate that death? Why not? I mean, he got what he wanted. He made his point. Right?
Callous. You damn right, I'm callous.
And why shouldn't I be? These selfish miserable bastards, we've tried everything.
We've tried reason.
We've tried science.
We've tried appealing to their better nature, their sense of community and duty to their fellows.
They've been babied, cajoled, begged, shamed, and finally mandated.
But still, they are determined to die and take us with them.
And so they do.
They die.
Alone. Scared. Drowning in their snot.
That's not a tragedy.
That's natural selection.
These people, these antivaxers, they're not heroes.
They're not standing on principle.
It's not about freedom.
It's not a tragedy.
You can't appeal to their better nature, because they don't have any.
They're just ASSHOLES.
And the world is better off without them.
Viruses don't give a shit about your politics or your freedom or your idiotic political beliefs.
OR my callous disregard.
Look here: either you're part of civilization and you're willing to do whatever it takes to hold it together or you're not. If you're not willing to put aside your political ideology to protect your own families, and the rest of us, from a preventable disease, if you don't care that much, then I've got no fucks to give for you.
I have plenty of sympathy.
I have plenty of empathy.
I bleed for every real tragedy or I wouldn't have spent most of my adult life sworn to the defense of this nation and its people.
But not for you.
I have no fucks to give for you.
If you're trying to burn down civilization, if you'd rather kill yourself and everyone around you, for a political stunt, then I've got nothing but contempt for you and yours.
You're an asshole and you deserve what you get.
You don't like that?
It makes you mad?
You want empathy and respect and concern for your wellbeing? That's a two-way street.
You first. Step up.
Stop being an asshole.
As I read elsewhere: Mask It or Casket. It’s pretty simple.
ReplyDeleteOh so going to use that one.
DeleteWell said, and thank you for your service!
DeleteYES - You have perfectly encapsulated and articulated all of the anguished cries of the rational, vaxxed humans who have "normal" human emotions such as empathy, as we can only futiley stand by as we lose the "War on Ignorance" (and on flaming assholes)
DeleteAnother good one stolen from the SAV site:
Delete"Vaxx it now or Ventilator"
That reply is PURE GOLD!
DeleteLiterally all of my thoughts on these people are in this rant. Well done,Jim,as always. Keep swingin my friend.
DeleteMy friend and I refer to it as "The Great Culling." It would be nice to think that eventually all of the idiots and assholes would die out permanently - but this particular gene pool seems to be hardy, and expanding. Go figure.
DeleteWell done as usual Jim. The plague rats are becoming more vocal, well, until they drop dead. We'll eventually get the stats on their numbers but for now we are busy doing whatever we can to stay alive despite their constant B.S.
ReplyDeleteI have two severely immunocompromised younger sisters. I have felt the way you do for the last 2 years. I can't thank you enough for your inciteful posts over the last several years. They've kept me sane in a world gone mad,
ReplyDeleteYou might want to edit your comment to use the correct word: insightful vs inciteful. Or maybe you meant to do that?
DeleteI'm Pat's daughter. Pat had eye surgery recently and had my young daughter read H=Jim's post and type her reply. Sorry it upset you.
DeleteI *like* "inciteful" and it definitely is appropriate here. I feel incited - in a good way. And the double-meaning is great! I assumed that it was intentional.
DeleteThank you a million times. I'm posting this to Facebook--with a warning that you need to wear protection against the heat. I've posted your Bang Bang Sanity dozens of times and wish it got more widespread coverage. You should be on 60 Minutes with it. Thanks again.
ReplyDeleteI feel you 100% and I agree wholeheartedly. You just can't fix stupid, but you can be grateful it's no longer around to endanger others any longer.
ReplyDeleteExcellent summation. I agree whole-heartedly. I'm going to share this wherever appropriate.
ReplyDeleteAmen!
ReplyDeleteJust checked the Big Bag O'Fucks and guess what? None left.
ReplyDeleteGreat column, thanks.
Best response ever!
DeleteThank Christ someone said it
ReplyDeleteI agree with just about every word you have said. I also have no sympathy for those who will not make the effort, unless prevented by a health condition. To quote Larry Niven, it is Evolution in action.
ReplyDeleteVery, very few health conditions prevent vaccinations.
DeleteExcept most of these people have already passed their genes along.
DeleteAt this point, as you point out, anti-vaxers are stupider than Trump. And that's an awefuly low bar.
DeleteFor two years now this pandemic has caused a collective trauma at the hands of trump, fox, and fraudulent republican politicians, the dead keep accumulating, and families keep suffering, and to that end there's spiculation that the do nothing Republicans may regain Congress, ohh did I also mention the millions of ignorant voters?
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Fealty_(novel) Love that novel. One of the best Pournelle/Niven collaborations. I've quoted it for years in situations like this one. Not shedding tears for people who should know better.
DeleteAbsofreakinlutely.
ReplyDeleteWell said. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteBrilliantly phrased, as always!
ReplyDeleteAbsofreakinlutely.
ReplyDeleteProfound truth.
ReplyDeleteI mourn the innocent but I'm cheering on Covid when it takes out a RepubliKlan voter...
Amen.
ReplyDeleteBravo!
ReplyDeletePlague rats. Perfect.
ReplyDeleteGod, I could not love this more.
ReplyDeleteI am all out of fucks to give.
Pretty well sums up how I feel.
ReplyDelete"Tragedy" is certainly the most overused word in the media's lexicon. But by its original meaning, it does apply in this case: a flaw in the person's character brought about his own demise. Usually, the straight cause/effect line is not so evident in classical tragedy, however.
ReplyDelete-- Mal
I've been having a really hard time dealing with anti-vaxxers in my life. At work, thankfully, not in my family. You really help me deal with this, Jim. And I'm forever grateful. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you Jim! Dead on agree with your opinion in these cases of anti-vaxxer deaths. I got my shots and booster, it took almost a month because of the new rush, my partner is still waiting for his booster. Please stay healthy, you are a voice that does get heard in this wilderness.
ReplyDeleteExactly. I would offer thoughts and prayers but won’t even bother with that.
ReplyDeleteI also won’t send any money via gofundme for these assholes.
DeleteI agree with you. I may not be as callous as you because of being in a war, but I have lived through the same time as you and too often saw it on TV. These people who don't take this virus seriously enough to get the vaccine for themselves or to help protect others are just too ignorant to even talk to anymore. Evolution, do your best.
ReplyDelete"Suicide through petulance" is an apt description.
ReplyDeleteI'll add a little more callousness. Hospitals that are in danger of being overwhelmed need to start triaging care. If you show up expecting treatment for Covid and you are unvaxxed BY CHOICE, you can wait out in your car in the parking lot until the doctors, nurses, and staff have tended to the needs of those who give a shit about their community, and have had a hot meal with their family and a good nights sleep.
ReplyDeleteThen, if there are still resources available and you still have the capacity to gurgle, maybe your selfish, stupid ass can receive some attention.
!!!
DeleteTOO RIGHT!!!
DeleteTotally Agree!
Delete*Applause* People with no regard for the lives of others should not be treated on a first come first served basis. Parking lot is where they belong until, if and when, space and staff become available. What better way to learn that choices do, indeed, have consequences?
DeleteNy sister has presumed advanced cancer and can't get a diagnostic biopsy til at least mid-February because hospital staff are working on Covid instead of inpatient biopsies. She's been beet sick for 2 months already. These cretins are taking her life with them and the hospital is letting them.
Delete"You want empathy and respect and concern for your wellbeing? That's a two-way street." 👏👏
ReplyDeleteI am making a slide show showing these people and will post it everywhere I can in the up coming election cycle. Because that's some leadership the right wing produce. Death. Just suffering and DEATH.
ReplyDeleteI scream every day and feel exactly the same. But I could never say it with the clarity, intent and veracity as you do, I just don’t have that skill. But when I read it I feel such relief. It’s cathartic, and I can continue my day knowing that there is someone -you- who can nail the truth. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThe thinning of the gene pool!!
ReplyDeleteNot thinning. STRENGTHENING!!
DeleteBy now it should not astonish me that your words seem like they could come from my own thoughts. THANK YOU for saying what so many of us think. I am grateful for your skills with words. (and photos - as they bring me great joy)
ReplyDeleteThis should be read and said over and over and over. Evolution in action.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they will change their minds when enough Republicans die from Covid that their gerrymandering won't matter. By then it will be too late. Suckas!
ReplyDeleteMy giveashitter's broken,
ReplyDeleteMy fucks are depleted,
Wise words you have spoken,
I hope they're repeated.
Well done!! :D
DeleteThank you, Jim. This is pretty much what I've been saying since the vaccines became available. Evolution in action, for everyone to see. Cheers and thanks for another year of great writing and wonderful photography.
ReplyDeleteBrilliantly written and straight to the point! I applaud you, Jim Wright!
ReplyDeleteThank you for saying what I've been unable to put into words for fear of going against my raising as youngest-child-people-pleaser-don't-take-up-space-or-offend-anyone-woman . It's ok to struggle to find pity for people who actively dissuaded people from a life saving and free action. It's ok to not find any pity for them at all.
ReplyDeleteyou've said this so much better than me.
ReplyDeleteThank you as always.
Jim Wright...it is like you read my mind before my mind has even thought to put into words the feelings I have. Excellent as always.
ReplyDeleteThank you Jim. I wholeheartedly agree. In fact I think these assholes should really own their beliefs and refuse any and all medical care required due to covid. And a tattoo or brand on their forehead which specifies that they are antivax. Then we can avoid them!
ReplyDeleteIf they believe it let them own it!
Thanks a bunch, Jim!! I'm so tired of these assholes as well as the one's who think I should feel some sort of sympathy or sorrow.
ReplyDeleteThank you Jim. I wholeheartedly agree. In fact I think these assholes should really own their beliefs and refuse any and all medical care required due to covid. And a tattoo or brand on their forehead which specifies that they are antivax. Then we can avoid them!
ReplyDeleteIf they believe it let them own it!
Yep. Out of fucks a long time ago.
ReplyDelete"Darwin take the wheel" ~ Roger Isom
ReplyDeleteI can't even begin to express how much I agree with every word you wrote.
ReplyDeleteLanguage is a curious thing. To wit, the word "callous" descends from the Latin for "hard-skinned", the word "callus" from "hardened skin".
ReplyDeleteAnd we know how a callus forms: Constant agitating pressure.
THanks Jim I know how you feel I'm told all the time I'm scared I respond I'm not scared I'm pissed off
ReplyDeleteYou hit the proverbial nail on the head. Every single point laced w the same contempt I feel for these assholes who shout "MUH FREEDUM" but give not two shits about the rest of the world's people or even their own family and friends. I'm w you. I'm all out of fucks.
ReplyDeleteIf they didn't piss me off so much,I'm sure I'd find it laughable that the "MUH FREEDUM" folks don't realize vaccinated people have the freedom to fly, to dine out, to attend large gatherings, to participate in society, etc., whereas, the unvaxed have the freedom to get sick and die.
DeleteYou express my exact sentiments. A former colleague of mine with an advanced nursing degree had to hospitalize her 80+ dad because he was septic 2 days before Xmas and posted there would be a 2 day wait for a room. Her father rapidly improved and was released on Xmas eve. I expressed my delight at this news on her FB page. The very day he was released she then posted a pic of her entire family, including her dad and cousins gathering at her house. Not a mask in sight. But a comment by one cousin about how gathering after "two clown years" of social distancing, it was a blessing and answer to God's prayers that they were all able to gather that day. I don't know why I was surprised.
ReplyDelete100% agree. I feel sorry for the emergency and medical personnel that have to deal with the stupidity. I feel sorry for the people who cannot get the medical care they need because the hospitals are full. I feel sorry for the children left without parents.
ReplyDeleteBut the ones who actively avoid the vaccine that could have saved them? I'm completely out of *ucks.
Completely agree. Thank you for saying it.
ReplyDeleteYes. YES. Fucking YES!
ReplyDeleteBravo!!!!!
ReplyDeleteMy other half, G, has pretty much all of the high risk factors. As soon as COVID showed up in the US, at the hospital closest to where we live, we knew we had to keep her safe. If she caught it, it would likely kill her. Early March, 2020 we did one last big grocery trip and prepared to ride it out for a couple of months. The other person living in the house was not taking it seriously enough. Every other day she was running by the store because she forgot something, she didn't have the money to do a big stock up, etc. Then, acted like we were over reacting by asking if she washed her hands as soon as she came in the door and wiped down her groceries. She used hand sanitizer, it was fine. Mid March, I got a sore throat. G suddenly had a high fever and a couple hours later so did I. I very rarely run fevers. We knew at that point. We emailed our doctors and got the same answer. Basically there wasn't enough tests so unless we were sick enough to be hospitalized, assume we had COVID and isolate, stay hydrated, take Tylenol, contact them if it gets worse. The only was it could have gotten to it was from the roommate not taking it seriously enough. G now has long COVID, it took 9 months to find an inhaler that worked for my asthma, which got a lot worse post COVID. I watched my best friend struggle for breath almost every single day for a year before the COVID civic finally found a combination of inhalers that helped. She still can barely walk from one end of the house to the other without being winded. It's been almost 2 years, and they are not sure if her lungs will ever get better.
ReplyDeleteLast year, we didn't do in person family Christmas, for obvious reasons. This year since everyone was vaccinated (everyone boosted except the teens who can't yet), we planned to get together with G's family. Two hours into dinner/presents on Christmas Eve we found out that her sister-in-law's boyfriend was an anti-vaxer. They didn't tell anyone before hand, he didn't wear a mask, then started spewing every bullshit conspiracy theory there is, from people are getting COVID within an hour of getting the vax to they are kidnapping unvaxed people off the streets and locking then in concentration camps. We told him how serious the lasting effects of COVID are. He actually tried to argue that G's side effects were from the vaccine, not from getting "the flu". Then her sister-in-law insisted we all knew he wasn't and we'd had that conversation. He'd also just flown back from 4 months in Texas. G's sister tools him she never would have let him sit next to their elderly parents and would have insisted he wear a mask if she had known. Her boyfriend (works security at clubs, he's not someone you want to mess with) was livid, and barely kept himself from losing his shit on the guy.
These unvaxed idiots don't give a shit about you or your health. They don't care about their families or lives ones. All they care about is themselves and their "freedoms" Before this, I had very little sympathy for the anti vaxxers dying from COVID. Now, I have no sympathy at all. The sooner evolution sorts out the idiots from the rest of us, the sooner we might possibly get to the end of this.
In your case I'd find it difficult to wait for evolution.
DeleteTrust me, if it wasn't Christmas, I don't think the security guard boyfriend would have had as much restraint as he did.
DeleteI hope you sent the roommate to the curb.
DeleteI hope you both get better. and I hope the SIL gives her covidiot boyfriend the boot. Too bad the security boyfriend restrained himself.
DeleteReading this and agreeing from where I'm getting my second rapid test in the last seven days.
ReplyDeleteI'm just cynical enough to believe it's because of some anti-vaxxer/anti-masker getting too fscking close. Again. ::eyerolls::
They’re from the shallow end of the gene pool as Harlan Ellison used to say.
ReplyDeleteSurviving anti-vaxxers and others of that ilk should be taken to court by those people who mask up and vaccinate, but have come down with COVID19 anyway, or have lost loved ones who have taken precautions or can't get a vaccination for medical reasons. Class action suit anyone?
ReplyDeleteI lost my foolish anti vaxxer brother to covid a month ago. He went down in 2 weeks. Also refused to go to the hospital with his wife begging him. No politician but was always a right winger. And I feel both deep grief and a deep anger. Anger at him for stubbornly believing liars right into his early grave. And anger at all those lying antisocial politicians. I too have no sympathy for the leaders. I don't expect anyone outside our family to have sympathy for my brother who did everything wrong. I do have sympathy for his wife because she tried. At least his death finally spurred my other RW brother to get vaxxed.
ReplyDeleteOnce again you hit the nail on the head.
With both a brother and a nephew (oddly, from two different sides of the family) who suffered from this virus and survived,yet they and their spouses refuse to be vaccinated -- I hear you loud and clear about anger and struggles with empathy.
DeleteThank you for putting this into words. I keep thinking about how this has been two years of my kids' childhoods lost to this madness. Two years is a long time for kids. I don't know if it's worse for them because they remember Before or the younger family members who don't. I'm a naturally empathetic person, but they've simply burned it all up with this unending selfishness. I can't manage much now beyond a shrug and mental tally of "another one down." I don't know that I feel much about that either.
ReplyDeleteI agree 100%! I don't have any sympathy for anyone who chooses not to get vaccinated. I worry about our health care workers.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDeleteTelling you to be the "better person" is just another goddamn deflection. A way to not talk about the thing, the great big fucking thing looming right over them that won't acknowledge.
ReplyDeleteSupposedly at the core of all of this is a lack of respect. We don't respect them and they resent it.
Well we're kinda stuck then because now they're dying in way that makes me want to point and laugh.
Fuck them
I just wish they'd hurry it up.
I got shit to do and places to go and they are keeping me from it.
100!
DeleteWhy is it that the aggrieved party always is supposed to be "the better person"? I want the anti-vaxxers, the I ain't gonna wear no maskers, the freedumb assholes to be the better people by getting vaccinated, wearing masks, and social distancing. I already am the better person because I do all of those things. And no, I'm not wasting a single regret on some "covid is a hoax, Jesus will protect me" dipshit who dies of a preventable disease.
DeleteAnd furthermore, they are driving up our health costs that we all share. Put those who chose not to get vaccinated at the end of the line and take away their health insurance and medicare benefits for covid at this point. Make them pay for their responsibility as they always preach.
ReplyDeleteWhew! That's great all in one piece. (I saw the Twitter thread)
ReplyDeleteI'm good with this attitude, it mirrors my own thoughts on this nonsense. The salient passage was "...want to burn down civilization.." because that is exactly what these selfish children want to do. They are unable to negotiate adult life in the real world: if you want your values legislated in government, make a compelling argument that a majority agree with. They are unable to do that, so that blather about "freedom" and the "radical left" and attempt to tear it down and kill us all with their ignorance.
ReplyDeleteIdolatry of ideology
ReplyDeleteespecially when they slather their born-again "our tribe is the GOOD people" horseshit all over it. I'm an ATHEIST and I know their Sermon on the Mount better than evangelical preachers seem to do; they took Trump's offer of (a little) worldly power for their homage, and eagerly set out to convince their flocks Trump was Jesus' big brother.
Delete"Belief" is when you mistake idea for identity. (Well first 3 letters are the same.)
DeleteVery pointed, as ever. And anyone with any sense or responsibility will agree, although perhaps with less profanity. Myself, I think a profane situation calls for all the profanity you can pile on it. Bravo, sir!
ReplyDeleteThis is not how I expected the Rapture to look like, but they embrace it just the same. If they'd just GO already! (Just got my booster on Sunday. Perhaps a little cranky.)
ReplyDeleteI'll just add my wholehearted agreement to EVERY. SINGLE. WORD. Of this. Done with stupid; fuck 'em and forget 'em. It's such a pathetic, pointless waste of life - and the irony is that a lot of these antivax/antimask morons will/would have proudly bleated how "pro-life" they are/were! Evolution 1; stupid assholes 0.
ReplyDeletePerfectly said as always. I am also tired of people constantly criticizing Biden for not having done enough. He’s done everything but give the vaccines personally. Stop laying this at his feet and look at the assholes fighting him every step of the way.
ReplyDeleteThe only people I am concerned about are the people who may have been infected by the anti reality talk and those in close contact who do not hold his inbred views.
ReplyDeleteReal shame.
My brother is dealing with covid at the moment. He's vaccinated, but he has an immune disorder that puts him at risk. Luckily, he never had to be admitted to the hospital. He caught the virus because his asshole employer forced him to attend a company convention with several hundred of his anti-vax co-workers. He's recovering, although it's still a struggle, because he got the vaccine. I'd hate to think what would have happened to him if he hadn't.
ReplyDeleteI wish your brother could sue the pants off his idiot boss.
DeleteO.K. NOW, tell us how you REALLY feel!!! Enough beating around the bush!! (After that, I thought you might need a little levity!) The Pandemic is dragging us all into not having a fuck to give. How very sad for our country and for us who have made GOOD choices. Thanks, Jim!!!
ReplyDeleteI have no response for fools who chose to go skydiving without parachutes, other than a shrug and an eye roll. However, I do have a very strong reaction when they maim and kill the innocents they land on.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with every single word. I’m also to the point where these idiot assholes should not take up beds in hospitals preventing others from getting the care and treatment they need (i.e. cancer patients). I no longer have any fucks to give either.
ReplyDeleteWell ain't that the fucking truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
ReplyDeleteAmen!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely Jim. It's not only the celebrity assholes, but also the ones that crowd around the bar at 2 in the morning and brag about not getting vaxed and chant "lets go Brandon". Then they go home to their Trump flag that says "fuck your feelings". I'm with you Jim, not a fuck left to give.
ReplyDeleteThere is a line in today's NYT ethics column that I like: Those saddled on high horses sometimes see the fields more clearly than others.
ReplyDeleteFucking so well said!
ReplyDeleteThis song pretty much sums it up for me.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqbk9cDX0l0
For the first time in history, we actually hod the power to spread the word to the entire world about an oncoming plague, and actually stop it in its tracks, and we entirely blew it! Nutjobs never cease to amaze me!
ReplyDeleteAdd DAVID to the list of antivaxxers. told his whole family the vaccine was bad. they didnt get vaccinated, because "David told us not to." this month, he caught covid, infected 5 family members, 3 of whom ended up in hospital. David did not get covid tested, told everyone it was allergies. right. his kid brother found him at his shop, 4 days dead, bloated, drown in his own snot. left a hot mess for the family to deal with, including super sick people. dammnit, i was right, I got the vaccines and the booster. he was wrong and paid with his life. and I am so damn mad at him i will NOT go to the funeral. if there is one.
ReplyDeleteWell said sir.
ReplyDeleteSpider Jerusalem, is that you?
ReplyDeleteThank You! I have written this in my mind, numerous conversations, and in spurts on my Social Media pages, but never so damned completely!
ReplyDeleteSpot on. How many of us feel.
ReplyDeleteIt's going to get worse. There's no doubt whatsoever about that When it does, it's time to use the same sort of triage principles that I was taught as an Army Medic, only adapting them to this problem. If hospitals are full, the people who decried Covid as a hoax and mocked those who wore masks and got vaccinated should be sent to the overflow tents in the parking lots. If those tents are full, well, looks like you're on your own here. I've run out of sympathy for the people who, through their refusal to even consider the common good, are the reason we're still dealing with wave after wave of infections and the spread of variants. Had everyone gotten vaccinated when first given the opportunity, we'd be looking at isolated pockets of infection and not a continuing pandemic.
ReplyDeleteI've been saying that for a while. I'm tired of people not getting the care they need because of these large selfish toddlers. They refuse to acknowledge medical science, then whine and screech for it to save them.
DeleteI saw a story the other day where someone died waiting for a bed in a hospital full of unvaccinated covid cases. I'm sure that this is not the only case. Pisses me off!
DeleteI've thought for a while now that conservatives don't actually like their families. Then covid hit and I was certain. My state, that voted for Biden, just voted in another useless millionaire republican governor. Why? Because of covid lockdowns. These people had absolute fits when they had to deal with their own families for more than an hour a day. And now they can't wait for Governor Irresponsible Asshole to get their kids killed in covid-filled schools. I'm done caring or taking the high road. The "free thinkers" who cheerfully sacrifice their families because some right-wing, moronic personality told them to don't deserve our pity.
ReplyDeleteTheir real disease is believing things they just WANT to be true. They WANT it to be true that the pandemic is a "hoax" so they can get their kids back into school and not BELIEVE they're endangering anybody.
DeleteAnd now Republican governors are rewarding anti-vaxers by offering unemployment to anyone fired for not vaxing. No worries that they will spend it on hunting or drugs (but not the right drugs). No sympathy for those that refuse the vaccines and get sick or die.
ReplyDeleteWell said, and it pisses me off that there are so many military members fighting the vaccine to...where was all this pushback when we were getting anthrax Vax, or smallpox before deployments to Iraq?
ReplyDeleteYou, sir, are helping me keep my sanity. Thank you for your gift of telling it like it is.
ReplyDeleteThese wankers would be the first to cac their pants were I to point a 9mm Browning at them. Yet these UTTER Wankspangles see no problem with putting other people's lives at risk.
ReplyDeleteUTTER, selfish, cocksockets.
You, sir, are helping me keep my sanity. Thank you for your gift of telling it like it is.
ReplyDeleteAbsofuckinglutely, Jim. You said what I've been thinking this whole year. I'm fully vaccinated and boosted and I have no fucks left to give. The nut jobs can take their one-way train to hell. I'm done with them.
ReplyDeleteI wrestle daily with the frustration of the ignorance and with those taking advantage of the ignorance. Thank you for putting words to my feelings.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I wholeheartedly agree. Right down to triaging unvaccinated folks.
ReplyDeleteEvery word bang on Jim - well done.
ReplyDeleteYep, Jim. And the assholes are now trying to keep the health departments of states and counties from doing their jobs protecting the public health. As far as I'm concerned, the quicker they die off the better off we will be.
ReplyDeleteYou're a better person than I- my ship of fucks went to a watery grave many MONTHS ago. I simply Do. Not. Care if some jackass antivaxxer dies of covid, and I'm not apologizing for that sentiment. Their words killed others.
ReplyDeleteamen
ReplyDeleteWell said, Jim. I didn't even bother to look up which idiot died. I don't care, my last fuck abandoned ship months ago. Another damn fool determined to own the libs got owned by a virus that's had a vaccine for a freaking year now.
ReplyDeleteAt this point, I usually preface announcements of dead right-wingers/anti-vaxx loons as the garbage helpfully taking itself to the curb.
ReplyDeleteWell Said. I agree wholeheartedly. I too have zero fucks to give any antivaxxer who suffers the consequences of their willful ignorance.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the triage needed. Let the cancer patients, stroke/heart attack victims, and those with traumatic injuries or breakthrough cases go before the sheeple that actively chose not to get vaccinated--they can live or die by their choices. If they infect others that medically can't, (I have friends undergoing chemo and another that is epi pen allergic to eggs), then they should be able to be sued for reckless endangerment at the least.
ReplyDeleteI tired of the "high road" mentality a while ago. That's a platitude people say when they want to feel morally superior to everyone else, yet don't really seem inclined to change anything either in any substantial way. Taking the high road is great for spectating as the world below burns.
ReplyDeleteNo, I have no sympathy or empathy for those left behind by each of these idiots' death. THEIR callous disregard for their fellow humans when they started going on the anti-vax train nullified any I may have harbored. All I feel now is grim satisfaction from every one of these nameless clowns taking a dirt nap, freeing up valuable hospital space for someone who is hopefully not a fool. At the very least it frees up more oxygen for the rest of us.
I'm just so tired. I know I'll have to put up with it longer. But I know I don't have to be dictated to about how I should feel about dead assholes' families.
Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAgree 100%...
ReplyDeleteAwesome !
ReplyDeleteI’ve been saying this for months. Got into a habit of using the “And nothing of value was lost” gif and the shots from “Loki” where says “So sad” about a stupid tragedy, immediately followed by “Anyway…”
ReplyDeleteLately, though, it’s been silence. I’m not reaching the Suicide Squads and I’m tired of the “so what?” reaction I have. I’m tired of looking at r/HermanCainAward on Reddit and seeing the latest yahoos to make the list. I’m tired of my agoraphobia being turned to 11 because some gunfucking needledick out there is spewing SARS-COV-2 all over. I’m tired. Possibly almost as tired as the hospital personnel who have to deal with the Suicides By COVID.
These people are stupid, and they’re evil, and they’re destructive. I have no sympathy for them. I never really have (just for those who were unwilling victims of this plague.) If anything, I wish they’d get on with dying from this, with poisoning themselves with Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and bleach.
Well said. The Nazis rose to power because people were more concerned with being polite to the Nazis than they were with how many the Nazis would kill.
DeleteWe are watching history repeat itself.
I could not agree more with all you wrote. My feelings exactly and put way better than I ever could. I'm done caring.Not one fuck left to give them.
ReplyDeleteThese people spread lies that contributed to over 800,000 preventable deaths in America. Dying from their own stupidity is the only way they will stop killing even more people.
ReplyDeleteIf you have a problem with celebrating their deaths, then that means you want them to kill more people. More than the 800,000 they've already killed. Your demand for civility identifies you as a monster. You are no different from someone putting flowers on Nazi graves.
My brother comes the term stpicide. Everyone should start using it.
ReplyDeleteYes. Kick them out of the hospitals now and let them eat their horse paste.
ReplyDeleteThank you for saying much of what I've been thinking. I'm not generally an angry man, but the combination of stupidity and selfishness I see on display from antivaxxers EVERY GODDAM DAY definitely gets me riled up.
ReplyDeleteThank you!!! We're having quite the surge in cases in the Northeast, probably because even up here, the relatively few covidiots spew their germs everywhere. We have movers coming tomorrow, and an unloading crew the day after at the new place. I'm putting up a sign on the front door requiring masks. I'm asthmatic, and regular bronchitis invariably turns into hospitalizable pneumonia. Covid would likely kill me, even with vaccination and booster on board. As I frequently say to those who look at me funny for wearing my mask, I'm a cancer survivor and asthmatic, and I didn't endure chemo and radiation to die of some damn virus.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Couldn't agree more. I am so sick and tired of these idiots.
ReplyDeleteI'm sick and tired of being told we be gracious, be the better person, yadda, yadda, yadda. THEY are prolonging this into an unending, chronic pandemic with I don't know how many variants. Many of them are confused and stupid and believe their feeling trump science, but some are willful assholes absolutely unwilling to give an inch for the good of any other living thing.
ReplyDeleteSome people are led astray, but the men you are talking about? THEY WERE THE ONES LEADING OTHER ASTRAY-- using every ounce of their influence to help the pandemic kill people, by decrying every single effort to stop it *except* the fake ones. They were USING the pandemic, and all the real grief and fear caused by it, to rachet up their MAGA cred, or their flock's reliance on Jesus-As-This-Asshole-Presents-Him, or sell snake oil remedies or fake vaccination cards along with their fake outrage at nonexistent "violations" of a right they don't have, the right to spread dangerous disease.
ReplyDeleteSure, they took this idea from the touchstone of Donald goddamn Trump's administration's approach to the pandemic as a PR problem, where they called concern about it a "Democratic hoax" (like every other real concern they don't want their people to take seriously). But THEY developed and deployed it for political, economic, and psychological gain. They were SO infected with the GOP disease of "there is no truth, just what people think" and super-excitement at the idea of being Masters of the Universe, able to control the world with their spin, they really didn't GET the point that a virus does not give a shit if you believe in it.
And they are better off dead, from the point of view of the rest of us surviving our current political plague of disrespect for the very idea of a real world. All these anti-vaxxer "leaders" are responsible for the deaths of everyone who trusted them as authorities for the "right beliefs" about the world. They are not to be pitied in the least, and if sometimes their families are also victims, it is also the case that PLENTY of their family members were co-conspirators, eagerly pushing the religious-fascist "whatever we have faith in, becomes true" mind rot. No arguments, appeals, nothing works on people like that EXCEPT being beaten into submission by the reality they refuse to admit doesn't obey their minds.
Education is the solution to stupidity. It does not fix corruption.
"Think of it as Evolution in Action." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Fealty_(novel)
ReplyDeleteThanks for another good one. If your supply of fucks has only recently run out with regard to covidiots, you must have started with a lot more than I did.
ReplyDeleteTpyo Patrol: "Callous. You damn right, I'm callous", might call for a "You're".
I think I like "you damn right,". Sounds righteous.
DeleteDid you mean "Typo Patrol"?
Delete74 year old woman here who wants her life back!!! I wish all of them would hurry up and die and let the rest of us get on with our lives. I am sick and damn tired of these antivaxxers. I have no fucks left to give. Thank you Jim for expressing it more politely than I did.
ReplyDeleteThank you. This is a much more erudite explanation of the rage I keep feeling. My wife and I run a small business. When the vaccines were available I required every employee to get fully vaccinated within 90 days. Then I fired the folks who refused.
ReplyDeleteReligious exemption? Yeah, get me a letter from your Bishop or Rabbi. Fuck that. Idiots can be replaced.
Rant rant rant. Anyway, thank you.
This had to be said. Thank you for saying it so eloquently and unsparingly. Those who perpetrate such deadly fraud on the public are abusing the social contract and needed desperately to be called to account.
ReplyDeleteThis is where 'The Paradox Of Tolerance' comes into play, and more people of good will need to learn it and be ready to apply it, IMHO.
(Truer words were never spoken)^nth degree.
ReplyDeleteI'm at the same point...offering sympathies to these aggressively ignorant fools would be akin to feeling sorry for someone trying to murder you who slipped and stabbed themselves to death with their own knife.
We, collectively, display little concern for the real tragedies that you mention: a shitty healthcare system (including a public health system that has been under active attack since the St. Regan years), child poverty, hunger in a land of plenty, trillions spent in wars, crumbling infrastructure that leaves people dead when it fails, etc., ad infinitum, but are expected to listen to "the better angels of our nature" at the news that another of these simple bastards has slipped of this mortal coil. While I weep for (and strive to help address) the victims in the former categories, all I can offer those who enroll in the Darwin sweepstakes is...nothing.
I also hold in absolute contempt those politicians who get vaccinated (and receive the highest quality medical care if they do get sick) while urging their acolytes to shun vaccination clinics, and those politicians (such as the Republican governor of my state) who push the decisions on masking/vaccination requirements to (mostly Democratic) local leaders and/or local business owners (forcing them to take the heat from the Trumpist base).
I saw this meme on fb today. "Let's go Darwin!" Perfectly fits your post. We have hit that "Survival of the fittest" point, and unsurprisingly these anti-vax fools aren't what they thought they were! Like you, I have no fucks left to give. From an Ohio county with a 37% vaccination rate. And sadly, some fine folks fell victim, , even some who were fully vaccinated but elderly with vax-denier families.
ReplyDeleteDAMN, that's going to leave a mark.
ReplyDeleteTestify!
Don't sugar coat it so much Jim, these ignorant fuckwads are lower than whale shit.
ReplyDeleteGood job Jim. I'd like to buy you a drink or lunch. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteWould you be willing to consider center justified alignment?
ReplyDeleteGood article though. Had to be said.
Agreed, wholeheartedly. It would appear that some of the dying have either never learned, or forgot, what is meant by "community." Nor do they appear to have ever heard of the SCOTUS decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), where the SCOTUS decided that the state had the RIGHT to FORCE vaccination upon its citizens for the good of the whole. Unfortunately, they do not seem to be eradicating themselves in sufficient numbers to overcome the gerrymandering taking place across the country these days. And if THAT is offensive, well, I'm really NOT sorry.
ReplyDeleteNo sympathy for suicides-by-covid from me.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree, Jim!
ReplyDelete"I am all out of fucks to give."
ReplyDeleteMe too. At this point I just play the song by Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq, whenever the subject comes up.
https://youtu.be/Vqbk9cDX0l0
-Paul Cooper, former QM3(SS)
I couldn't read it out loud, it would have depressed my spouse too much. But, as usual, brilliant rhetoric. Once more, you have expressed my thoughts, so much better than I could articulate them. Thank you, sir.
ReplyDeleteI'm not going dance in the streets, but I will smile grimly and quote you, "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes." What bothers me the most is the stress they put on the medical system and caregivers, while people who actually NEED care for non-covid or people who actually did everything right, yet still got it, are left out in the cold.
ReplyDeleteI'm avoiding people like, well, like the plague, hoping to remain healthy so I can continue to see my 95 year old mother face to face. I have no empathy for anyone who jeopardizes that.
ReplyDeleteTrumpism is a death cult really. It's Jonestown, but in slow motion.
ReplyDeleteDarwin approves this message.
ReplyDeleteyou are a LEGEND mate! Pate (a Yank in the UK)
ReplyDelete100% agree. #Vaxenfreude.
ReplyDeleteCan you please write a similar article/FB post/tweet about Robert F. Kennedy Jr and other leaders of the anti-vaccine movement? They deserve this type of open scorn.
ReplyDeleteSpot on!!
DeleteSuicide by snot. Not a pleasant way to die, having your lungs fill with mucus and become too stiff to expel the gunk, but the covidiots had a choice -- and they chose to be idiots. Like you, I gave up on fucks to give quite awhile back. The only thing that bothers me these days is the collateral damage the covidiots are causing as they slowly remove themselves from the gene pool.
ReplyDeleteMan, I love you and the way you write. I look forward to your thoughts...so spot on.
ReplyDeleteI am in awe of your writing ability, which seems to just get better with each new exposition. Thanks
ReplyDeleteThe only issue I take with this is you calling yourself "callous" when your post clearly reveals you to be a deep and loving soul. Pain and outrage come from caring, not from not caring. May the world be full of more people as "callous" as you.
ReplyDeleteThe thing people say about feeling bad for the families? Pfft, the families are almost exclusively of the same ideology as the petulant suicide. That's why I just don't give a flying blue rat's arse about them either.
ReplyDeleteTo quote Bill Hicks "We lost a moron! Good!"
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's something about being in combat. The randomness of death of the innocent...& the fellow soldier. So, when it comes to not taking the small steps you can to protect yourself & your family, empathy evaporates. And, when lies are spread that kill the gullible, a cold joy fills the soul. Like when you get to take out a particularly nasty piece of work.
ReplyDeleteThank you Jim. There is no one on Twitter or FB, or any other social media that says what is on his mind and is always right. I have lost many friends and relatives, not to the disease, but to the stupidity of not believing in science and not caring about their fellow human beings. Thank you for your service to your country and your followers.
ReplyDeleteI've always been an empathetic person but this situation has taken it to the limits. My field of fucks is fallow (or outright barren). I may not rejoice but I certainly don't cry over this group as they contract and die from this illness in a world with an effective and FREE vaccine.
ReplyDeleteWell said.
ReplyDeleteBravo, Jim. Nailed it as usual.
ReplyDeleteThe guy from Washington? That moron was my state Senator, the same guy that arranged a Trump rally at our county fairgrounds in 2015 (still don't think they were ever paid), after there was a protest on SR529 (main route to the fairgrounds, as well as one of the 4 border crossings in my county) introduced a bill to make blocking traffic to protest "economic terrorism". He was in Central America when he posted asking for monoclonal antibodies to be sent to him as he had tested positive. What was he doing down there as a Washington State Senator? Fuck if I know, I saw no reason for him to take that trip on the taxpayer's dime. He died taking up space in a hospital in Florida. I do not feel the least bit sorry for him. I do feel a bit bad for his daughters, who loved their father, other than that? Zero, zip, nada.
ReplyDeleteStupid, selfish, blah blah blah...the rest of you have said so much that I agree with. Thank you Jim for giving me a place to vent on this.
Amen. So tired of trying to reason with these types. So ticked off that I'm perceived as wrong or a sheep when I try. I've been feeling callous and uncaring about their preventable deaths for a long time now. If they don't care about helping others stay alive and I don't care if they stay alive,then are we the same?
ReplyDeleteOne word:
ReplyDeleteBRILLIANT!
You have written what the majority of us feel and your words need to go viral.
Bravo, Jim. Bravo!
Thanks, Jim.
ReplyDelete