by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
I don't want to sound hateful or mean-spirited, and I certainly don't want to step on anyone's civil liberties because I have plenty to do in just looking after my own, but . . .
I am becoming increasingly irritated with - or angry at - the people who ridicule science, intentionally place themselves and others at risk by refusing to take basic health precautions, and then expect first-class service at their local hospitals when they become ill due to their own negligent behaviors.
Yes, I understand the parable of the Good Samaritan, and I absolutely believe that we should always be alert to the needs of others, but doggone it I am bothered by the notion of a bed in an overcrowded hospital going to someone who has refused the basic preventative care of getting a free vaccination or wearing a face mask in a crowded setting - not if there is anyone else around who has followed the safety protocols and needs that same bed.
Yes, I realize that it does sound like a Nazi wet dream to have some government - or hospital - official sitting around choosing who gets to live and who dies, but when people have made conscious decisions to ignore basic safeguards, haven't they already opted themselves off of the priority health care rationing lists? To my way of thinking, they have.
As someone who pays health insurance premiums into a highly predatory system, it also bothers me that these same people who have ignored getting vaccinated, wearing masks, and social distancing, suddenly suck up large amounts of health insurance benefits when they come down with COVID, and will, in the long-term, increase the rates for everyone else.
Insurance companies should not pay benefits to people who have refused to take reasonable prevention measures.
And while I am ticking off my "dislikes," I am also angered with medical "professionals" who seem to have a dangerous disregard of science. I'm not just talking about the "doctor" in the US Senate who entertains the press almost daily with his quackery, I am also focused on working doctors and nurses who undermine efforts to curtail the pandemic with statements that are profoundly ignorant. Some have posted on social media their concerns about microchips being implanted in vaccines - total hogwash - yet when it comes from a doctor or nurse, regardless of how spurious the accusation or how weak their credentials, people of a certain mindset rush to proclaim it as evidence that their own ignorance is, in fact, cunning brilliance.
This morning there was a tale on the internet of a "surgical tech" whose employer, probably a hospital, had "forced" her to get a vaccination against COVID. She was comparing her situation in being forced to take a shot to the "holocaust." I guess that I suffered my own personal holocaust when I was in elementary school and forced to take those polio shots - and just didn't realize how hard my "rights" were being trampled.
Well, those polio shots were a good thing, nay, a great thing. They eliminated a dreadful disease that had impaired children and adults for generations. We needed to get those shots, and for the disease to be eradicated there was no room for dissent. I did not have a right to refuse the shot, and in so doing, place myself and others in danger.
And doctors and nurses who can't set their personal or political feelings aside for the health and benefit of their patients should be barred from the practice of medicine.
There, that's all. I've said my piece, for this morning at least. And it wasn't too radical, was it?
2 comments:
I think the denial by health care workers of the science around the Covid-19 is a function of a lack of critical thinking. Critical thinking is a way of inquiry and search for the answers. If you’re not a critical thinker, you are more susceptible to compartmentalization, cognitive biases, mental shortcuts, tribalism, etc. Health care is generally an "applied science”. There are some physicians involved in the scientific inquiry of medicine; but most medical breakthroughs, are made by academics and big pharma scientists. In other words, somebody else “does the science” and health care workers apply that knowledge. That doesn’t lead to critical thinking.
This may be a stretch because the study is about religion/secularism not health care. A study from Oxford Association for the Sociology of Religion, “Inquiry, Not Science, as the Source of Secularization in Higher Education” by John H Evans, examined whether science majors were less likely to be religious. He looked at “majors focused on inquiry versus those focused on applying knowledge—and find that majors focused on inquiry are more likely to secularize than those focused on application. I interpret this to mean that learning to inquire secularizes.” Many health care workers never picked up on scientific inquiry. They continue to compartmentalize their lives, particularly if there is even an inkling of politics involved. They make excuses they can feel comfortable with and then try to construct a narrative that makes them sound like they are the rational ones, i.e. the vaccine studies were rushed, we don’t know what we’re putting into our bodies, or my freedom trumps your health.
The problem is that America doesn’t teach critical thinking.
Thanks for posting that, Ranger Bob. It is so disappointing to see professionally trained individuals promoting concepts that are little more than superstition. You make a very good point with the need for teaching critical thinking skills in this country.
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