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| Israeli performer holding up his Green (vaccination) Passport (Jerusalem Post) |
There is no comparing what happened to our people to any other atrocity happening in the world. No matter how terrible it might be. There just isn’t. Just ask any Holocaust survivor what they went through. If I understand correctly - in addition to the six million Jews that were slaughtered, there were about six million that survived. Each one having experienced their own unique horror.
The depth and breadth of those horrors were so terrible that they were not to be believed – until it was exposed by the allied forces who liberated the concentration camps and death camps. And what they witnessed only scratched the surface of the worst of man’s inhumanity to Man’. As more details started trickling out this became more apparent.
That along with masses of archival footage of Nazi atrocities committed against us is now available for the whole world to see. Ironically most of those images were filmed by the Nazis themselves who just loved to film and archive everything they did. But even those films barely scratch the surface. The horror stories that my own family faced are too horrible to tell. Had they not witnessed them, they too would not be believed.
The world had gone mad. Entire countries had become mass murderers (or collaborters) who first tortured before they killed en masse. Or who used our people as human guinea pigs in torturous medical experimants before exterminating them.
I could go on. But I think I made my point. Which brings me to the latest abominable use of the Holocaust: Comparing the idea of vaccine passports to Jews being forced by the Nazis to wear a yellow armband with the star of David (Magen Dovid) on it. So that they could more easily round us up when they wanted to torture and/or kill us. The penalty for being caught not wearing a yellow armband was death.
The complaint about vaccine passports is as follows. The idea is that one will be able to download an app saying they have been fully vaccinated against COVID. This will enable them to have freedom to lead a more or less normal life by substantially reducing (but not eliminating) the risk of infection or at least eliminate its serious consequences in those few vaccinated people that somehow get it anyway.
I happen to think the idea is a good one. One that was first implemented by Israel and some states are copying now. But here – from the Jerusalem Post is what the naysayers are saying about those left unvaccinated (which is still most of this country):
Political activists are comparing the idea of “vaccine passports” to Nazi Germany, with many invoking the yellow Stars of David that Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust.
Not only is this comparison outrageous, it does not even discriminate in any way based on racism or antisemitism. No one is being singled out or mistreated as inferior. This is about trying to open up the country as safely as possible. And incentivizing people to get vaccinated with a goal of achieving herd immunity.
What about people that don’t have smart phones because they can’t afford them or for some other reason? They can’t get the app. Aren’t they at an unfair disadvantage?
I hate to use a cliché but it fits. ‘There is more than one way to skin a cat.’ Apps need not be the only way to get a vaccine passport. One can get an ID issued by the government that can be used as easily as a credit card or any app.
What about people that cannot get vaccinated for health reasons (e.g. allergies to vaccines). How is that fair to them?
If someone has a legitimate reason not to be vaccinated they should be able to get a passport too. They too will be at lower risk in an environment where everyone else is vaccinated. As a group they are too small to prevent herd immunity. It is precisely for them where herd immunity becomes important. The only people that should not be able to get a passport are the antivaxxers. They have no health issue preventing them from getting it.
But isn’t their freedom being limited? The answer is yes. But freedom must be limited when it endangers the public welfare. If the antivaxxers reach a critical mass they can prevent the herd immunity that will eventually fully open up the country.
They have the freedom to not be vaccinated if they so choose. But in my view - doing so means giving up the right to mingle freely among people that have been vaccinated along with those who can’t be for legitimate reasons. They have the right to be stupid. But they do not have the right to inflict their stupidity on the rest of us.
Bottom line for me is that I favor vaccination passports. Implementing them has zero to do with the Holocaust. If properly done I believe that we will get to herd immunity a lot sooner.