Do I have to write this...?
Dr. Emily Oster's article awakened something in me....and many others, too...
In the grand scheme of things, I probably don’t have to write this. I don’t know that I’m bringing anything new to the table by doing so, but for so many reasons, I am compelled to tap this out because it flits and bounces around my brain all the time these days. I promise that these pages will not be totally given over to writing about the absurdity of the past two-plus years. I promise that because I can’t do that to myself, let alone you my faithful reader. But I also know that it is not too fine a point to say that the lockdowns, mandates, lies and compromise of public health that marked 2020-2022, have left deep and impactful scars on me and my family, as they have everyone’s (you can see my previous post to read some of the reasons why for that…)—and so this particular fiery little demon needs exercised.
Dr. Emily Oster wrote this piece for the Atlantic Monthly in which she calls for an “amnesty” from the pandemic—in her words, we have to stop arguing about it, “forgive each other” for what we may or may not have done… and move on with our lives.
In her article, she admits to being particularly ugly and egregious, shaming people who refused to get vaccinated—even tweeting with ideas about ways to do that, and having her kids yell at other kids, “social distancing!” while wearing masks. Outdoors. If you want to hear more of her non-mea culpa, do read her plea.
And I could be snarky and pithy, as is occasionally my wont, and say (like I admittedly wrote in the comments of her article on the MSN pages), “When totalitarians in past years were caught doing what they do, they didn’t ask forgiveness. Most had the decency to just march to the gallows or run off to some foreign country and hide…” But I am not going to do that. Well, not as such…
What I am going to do is speak as a voice among, apparently, many others and vent this frustration in my pages here to say to Dr. Oster, “No, ma’am, I cannot do that. I am not prepared to grant you amnesty until you admit what you did. A plea for that kind of amnesty requires contrition on your part, and others like you, who now know it is too late to hide your cruelty, lies and dissembling about everything from where the virus originated—to whether or not the vaccines work and are dangerous. Our freedoms, our children’s schools, their mental health, our careers, our own healthcare needs outside of Covid, our faith in the liberty that being an American grants us—all of these things were taken from us. What did we gain? Well, for me-the only upside is that people are a lot more distrustful of public health institutions.
No, I cannot do that. I join the ranks of so many who commented on the thread where I did, and who said they still felt a bit too terrorized by the past two years to be ready to forgive and forget.
But what I will do is continue to work through it, to pray and to contemplate what role forgiveness will eventually play, as it surely must—while also calling out what happened. My family and I lost a great deal during these last two years, all of it a result of the restrictions and the refusal to provide decent medical care by doctors who, in our opinion, violated not just law—but their oath to their professions. I’ll get to forgiveness someday. While I’m at it, I’ll continue to pray that somehow sanity returns and individual liberty once again is paramount over fear, lies and control.
So, do I have to write this? No. Lots of writers far better than I already did. But I feel just a bit better now and the firery little demon is a bit less fiery for me now.
This voice, the “Everyman,” the “rank and file,” who are not the normally vocal and contentious, who normally go quietly about (our) business hoping primarily to be left alone must be heard. There must no longer be “silence of the lambs” led to slaughter by the alphabet-soup of government agencies who govern completely without oversight or public awareness.
Our freedoms were stolen and cannot be taken for granted any longer. Freedom is never free and the time of taking it for granted has ended. Vigilance is required going forward against the Emily Peter’s and Anthony Fauci’s of the world.
Thank you for sharing this. Please keep speaking up and offering encouragement to those like me who normally remain quiet but are now required to stand.