Last year I removed a bunch of people after the BLM riots. I know how communism works and could see that these people would be the ones to rat me out if it ever came to it.
So my list of friends is drastically lower, and most are pretty right wing. Well this friend of mine, who a couple years ago got a job at a hospital making sanitation policy, came at me about a question I had regarding medical staff being threatened over vaccine hesitation. I didn't understand why they would threaten to fire staff if they were already so severely strapped.
Long story short, instead of answering the question, he came at me emotionally and talked about some of what he saw. I replied with my concerns about the authoritarian measures being taken, the VAERS reporting, the flu cases disappearing, etc.
His reply was long, emotional, and honestly painful. He accused me of having an attitude that killed people, that I had no empathy and didnt care about people dying. I've been sitting here for a few days thinking about it. Granted I don't see what is happening in some of these hospitals.
I'm sure there are places where things ARE bad. But damn it if this division isn't heart-wrenching. I'm not gonna convince him that he can't see the forest for the trees, and he's never gonna convince me that the vax is the right thing to do. It just sucks that someone would essentially accuse me of killing someone. But worse, it sucks I am losing someone I considered to be a good friend over an issue of medical freedom.
There are two issues which you're trying to wrestle with here with your friend I think. The first one is whether you care about the well-being of others, the second is whether you believe covid vaccines to be a measure which are generally improving outcomes for people at a societal level. Many people conflate these two issues as a way of trying to persuade others to take an action they would like them to take.
You can be clear to your friend about your concern for others, and the form that concern takes. What you wish for others, what you do for others. This is personal to you, and is indeed a solid basis for judging whether or not an individual is someone we want to be friends with.
You can also be clear about your evaluation of whether taking a vaccine is genuinely your best way of helping others. Its not clear to me personally that it is. I'm glad they exist, and that people who want them have access to them. Some people feel safer when they take them - I had a long conversation with my sister about this yesterday which really helped me understand her reasoning. They feel that they and their families and their neighbours are safer if they have the vacccines. That is absolutely their choice to make. Others don't draw the same conclusion. They worry about long-term safety, about government manipulation and lies and the reasons for it, about financial conflicts of interest, about escape variants, about dependence on Big Pharma, about the longer-term risks all these issues might bring to a society, the threat of totalitarianism.... These are also genuine concerns, and are a different way of caring for ourselves and those around us.
As individuals, we have the right to prioritise risk according to our personal circumstances. We cannot function as a society if we are not able to tolerate people coming to different conclusions to ourselves, especially on the the issues which are most important to us.
My sister yesterday told me that she realises she will have to have a vaccine at least every year - she doesn't care about that, it's not important to her. She has been having a flu vaccine every year for a decade (which shocked me as she is only 45) and she isn't worried about that either. I don't agree with it, but I don't love her any less for it - it is the way she has assessed risk in her life.
The only thing that really annoys my sister is people trying to sow division. Framing the other as somehow evil because they want to do things differently. We are completely agreed on this as being something we want no part of. We are agreed that it is as ok (if difficult) for us to make different decisions about this as we have about hundreds of other things in our lives.
There are all kinds of points you could make to your friend to help them see that moralising against you on this issue is something that ultimately will bring about the very kind of harm that they are trying to prevent, but perhaps empathy is the way to go if what you want to do is preserve the friendship? It sounds like they are scared, experiencing something that is traumatic to them, and they are trying to regain control of a frightening and confusing situation by controlling those around them - I think this is a very normal response, especially if it is being encouraged by a sophisticated propaganda campaign and frequent frightening personal experience. You could perhaps let them know your own feelings - your own confusion, fear, longing to contribute to life in the way that seems best to you (just guessing here - I don't know how it really is for you...) and ask them to trust in your heart and perhaps see that your role to play in all of this is a different one to theirs but no less important...
Praying for you and your friend, that you can stay connected to each other and be stronger together than you would be apart.