As a doctor in a COVID unit, I’m running out of compassion for the unvaccinated. Get the shot

Anita Sircar

The Los Angeles Times

Originally published 17 Aug 21

Here is an excerpt:

The burden of this pandemic now rests on the shoulders of the unvaccinated. On those who are eligible to get vaccinated but choose not to, a decision they defend by declaring, “Vaccination is a deeply personal choice.” But perhaps never in history has anyone’s personal choice affected the world as a whole as it does right now. When hundreds and thousands of people continue to die — when the most vulnerable members of society, our children, cannot be vaccinated — the luxury of choice ceases to exist.

If you believe the pandemic is almost over and I can ride it out, without getting vaccinated, you could not be more wrong. This virus will find you.

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If you believe if I get infected I’ll just go to the hospital and get treated, there is no guarantee we can save your life, nor even a promise we’ll have a bed for you.

If you believe I’m pregnant and I don’t want the vaccine to affect me, my baby or my future fertility, it matters little if you’re not alive to see your newborn.

If you believe I won’t get my children vaccinated because I don’t know what the long-term effects will be, it matters little if they don’t live long enough for you to find out.

If you believe I’ll just let everyone else get vaccinated around me so I don’t have to, there are 93 million eligible, unvaccinated people in the “herd” who think the same way you do and are getting in the way of ending this pandemic.

If you believe vaccinated people are getting infected anyway, so what’s the point?, the vaccine was built to prevent hospitalizations and deaths from severe illness. Instead of fatal pneumonia, those with breakthrough infections have a short, bad cold, so the vaccine has already proved itself. The vaccinated are not dying of COVID-19.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has mutated countless times during this pandemic, adapting to survive. Stacked up against a human race that has resisted change every step of the way — including wearing masks, social distancing, quarantining and now refusing lifesaving vaccines — it is easy to see who will win this war if human behavior fails to change quickly.

The info is here.

Catholics' involvement in death penalty killing spree is scandalous

James Keenan & William Montross, Jr.

National Catholic Reporter

Originally published 11 DEC 20

Here is an excerpt:

Study after study demonstrates that the death penalty is infected with racial bias; the federal death penalty is no different. Indeed, in 1994, a mere six years after the implementation of the "modern" federal death penalty, the racial disparities compelled a congressional committee to conclude, "On the federal level, cases selected have almost exclusively involved minority defendants."

We are witnessing this Advent a modern-day lynching.

Each of the defendants in these cases was involved in crimes that resulted in the deaths of others. Some of the crimes were gruesome. But who these people are warrant a closer look.

Bernard was a teenager when he was an accomplice to the murder of a young couple, both youth ministers, on the Fort Hood military reservation in Texas. He did not fire the killing shots — a co-defendant, also sentenced to death and subsequently executed — did.

Bernard, a young black man, was tried in Texas before a jury in which all but one juror was white. His attorneys did not even make an opening statement at his trial and during the penalty phase — where the jury chooses between life and death — the same attorneys offered no witnesses on his behalf.

One of the federal prosecutors who earlier secured Bernard's death sentence later sought to have his life spared. Angela Moore writes that her subsequent "experience with teenagers who have committed violent crimes, especially boys of color, has taught me much about the recklessness and fragility of adolescents, as well as their ability to mature and change."

She also finds "another troubling fact revealed by recent research is that people tend to view Black boys — like Brandon — as more blameworthy than their white counterparts" and that "Black teens like Brandon are systematically denied the 'benefit' of their youth, which is outweighed by their race in the eyes of police, prosecutors, judges and jurors."

The info is here.

Have some evangelicals embraced moral relativism?

Corey Fields
Baptist News Global
Originally posted February 16, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

The moral rot we’re seeing among white evangelicals has been hard to watch, and it did not start in 2016. Back in 2009, an article in the evangelical publication Christianity Today bemoaned a survey finding that 62 percent of white evangelicals support the use of torture. Despite a supposed pro-life stance, white evangelicals are also the most likely religious group to support war and the death penalty. Racism and sexual predation among elected officials are getting a pass if they deliver on policy. Charles Mathewes, a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, put it well: “For believers in a religion whose Scriptures teach compassion, we [white evangelicals] are a breathtakingly cruel bunch.”

Here’s a quote from a prominent evangelical author: “As it turns out, character does matter. You can’t run a family, let alone a country, without it. How foolish to believe that a person who lacks honesty and moral integrity is qualified to lead a nation and the world!” That was written by James Dobson of Focus on the Family. But he wasn’t talking about Donald Trump. He wrote that about Bill Clinton in 1998. Is this principle no longer in force, or does it only apply to Democrats?

As Robert P. Jones noted, the ends apparently justify the means. “White evangelicals have now fully embraced a consequentialist ethics that works backward from predetermined political ends, refashioning or even discarding principles as needed to achieve a desired outcome.” That’s moral relativism.

The article is here.