A classic updated for 2021
"No one is an island entire of itself; every one
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod is washed away by the sea, the whole
is the less, just as if a promontory were, just as if
any homeplace of your friends or of your
own were; any one's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in humankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for you."
I don't want them to die.
Not even the MAGAts.
Not even the mean stupid selfish fearful people who have put us all at risk for their stubborn insistence on lies and folly.
The price of stupidity should not be death, but unfortunately it sometimes is.
When dealing with a deadly pandemic, that goes from "it sometimes is" to "it often is."
I don't even want the cynical criminals who benefit from sowing chaos and dissent and misinformation to die.
Although I do want them to be held accountable for the harm they are doing.
They're not at much risk, of course.
They did get vaccinated, before they started spouting lies to the fearful and credulous about vaccination.
Most of them have the resources to stay safe, while those they've deceived are dying in hospital corridors.
I want them held accountable.
Not dead.
Their dupes may never realize the price of that smug sense of "we're right you're wrong", even on their deathbeds.
And I don't want them to die, either.
I don't want the white supremacists to die. Or the homophobes. Or the misogynists.
Or the xenophobic fools terrified of hordes at the borders.
No, I don't want even them to die.
I want them to live. And maybe someday learn.
And if they can't learn, to at least get to the place where they are pretending not to be hateful assholes again.
Because hateful assholery is once again out of style. Frowned upon, in fact.
Live, my fellow humans. Get the vaccine.
The tolling of the bell is becoming too frequent.
And ever more painful by the lack of necessity.
You CAN live.
Those who died last summer didn't have the same choice.
But you can choose.
Sign out of the Facebook Group. Turn off the television.
Call your doctor, call your health department.
Get the vaccine, and live.
You can hate me again later.
It works better when you're alive to do it.
I promise.
lovingly,
Bright
