Long ago I was very committed to my Methodist religion. One of the parables that the great teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, gave to his friends and believers posited a "Good Shepherd". This shepherd was rather well to do. He had 100 sheep but, one day, he found that one had gone astray so he took the rather perilous step of leaving the 99 sheep that had stayed in the flock to go find the 100th sheep that had gone astray. While he was hunting for the strayed sheep anything could have happened to the other 99. Nothing, as far as we can tell from the parable, happened to the 99 that stayed together while he was away. In any case, this "Good Shepherd" so cared for that 100th sheep that he rejoiced on finding it, brought it back to his main flock and drove the whole hundred home. Generally this parable shows god's love and forgiveness for the sinner who goes astray while ignoring some very risky behavior by the "Good Shepherd".
I mention this parable, this little bit of New Testament lore, because there's been a lot of very odd talk about "sheep" lately.
In January of 2020, the United States began to see the effects of a new, deadly and unique virus designated as Covid-19. The then President of the United States, our Failed Orange Führer, decided to take this global pandemic personally and said, out loud, that it was a hoax designed to make him look bad. Of course, we all know that viruses know somewhere in their cytoplasm who is President of the United States and have a bias against neo-fascist Republiscum. Also, this predicates that it would somehow be possible for anything or person to make the Failed Orange Führer "look bad" given all that mighty work he himself had done to make himself and the nation "look bad". That "hoax" took over 600,000 American lives before the Failed Orange Führer left office.
The "hoax" of Covid-19 upended the lives of millions of Americans and continues to do so. Since the beginning of this year, 2021, we have safe and effective vaccines against Covid-19. Over the past year we have been told to take some reasonable measures to avoid spreading the virus or contracting it ourselves. Most of those measures have worked reasonably well in places where they have been generally adopted. Once the Failed Orange Führer made preventing Covid-19 a political act a lot of his followers made it their duty to protest and flaunt measures to reduce the virus' spread. The result has been that many of these Anti-Vaxxers and Anti-Maskers and Covid-Deniers are now clogging the emergency rooms and Intensive Care Units of the hospitals in the states where this madness is most rampant.
I generally ascribe to the view of the great John Donne:
...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
Yet I have reached a point beyond which my forbearance does not reach. I am heartened by each tolling of each death's bell.
There is a joke about the Baptist/Christian/Evangelist faced with a flood. At successive levels of the waters' rise a canoe, a motorboat and a helicopter come to his rescue but each time he waves the rescuers off because his deep and unshakeable faith always insists that, "The Lord will provide!" Of course he drowns in the flood and, coming before his god he demands to know why he, a man of great faith, was allowed to drown. His god answers, "I sent you a canoe, a motorboat and a helicopter, what more did you expect?"
To the Anti-Vaxxers, Anti-Maskers and Covid-Deniers, I say, "Fuck you!" You were told to social distance. You were told to wear a mask to limit transmission. You were given multiple safe and effective vaccines and you were too fucking stupid to take those reasonable precautions so when you end up in an ICU on a ventilator for the last days of your miserable, ignorant and self-indulgent lives, tough shit! Die already and stop draining resources better spent on people who had 2 brain cells to rub together.
Frankly, if it weren't a violation of a medical professional's most basic oath, I would say that there should be some triage in the Emergency Room: if you've been vaccinated, you get the best care available. If not vaccinated, so long! Go home to die you pathetic imbecile! Don't overwork the medical staff or waste a bed in the hospital when the outcome you tried to achieve so assiduously is upon you.
As a good Liberal/Lefty I feel bad that I feel that way. I give about 15 minutes per day to mental self-flagellation for being so callous. The remaining 23¾ hours each day I shall smile at the removal of one more idiot from American society.
That said I will return to the parable of the "Good Shepherd" because the Anti-Vaxxers, Anti-Maskers, Covid-Deniers like to think of those who mask up, are vaccinated and take the deadly Covid-19 virus seriously as "sheep" even as they themselves follow the Judas Goats of the Failed Orange Führer and their evangelical preachers to death from Covid. So who are the "sheep"in this situation? Are the sheep the millions who are vaccinated against a deadly virus and who are, therefore, able to resume a semblance of a normal life? Or are the "sheep" the gullible imbeciles who are filing through the chute to the slaughter because they are so utterly and unalterably stupid that they can't see they will meet their end at the slaughter house blades shining before them? I'll give you 1 guess as to how I define "sheep".
Having written this I think I can smile ruefully for the next 96 hours before I need to do a 15 minutes of penance.
