My favorite cousin in my wife's family has consistently been a pleasant, non-controversial person who never took a political position at any family gathering. Then yesterday she went nuts on Facebook, chiding anyone who hasn't had the shots as selfish, ignorant, dangerous and unworthy of medical care if they get sick. She said medical professionals are overrun and people with non-covid needs cannot get treatment as a result of all the rest of us who, through our refusal to get vaccinated, are allowing covid to mutate over and over again because herd immunity can't happen until we all get vaccinated.

We all know her facts are wrong on all counts, and I also know I won't succeed arguing that (1) it isn't a vaccine, (2) the shot has killed 45,000 so far, (3) people with natural immunity do better with covid than people with the shot, (4) hospitals have plenty of capacity, the hysteria is counting only beds designated as ICU beds without regard to the other 95% of the hospital's beds, (5) people with shots are getting and spreading covid variants, so more people with shots makes no one any safer.

BUT. This argument will work against her approach:

She is overweight by 100 pounds. She frequents donut shops and fast food all the time. No one has ever angrily outed her for making dangerous lifestyle choices that have made her a high user of medical professionals. Her selfish eating and nutrition choices have made her need knee replacements, back surgery, insulin use, heart troubles. She has hogged much more than her fair share of medical care directly as a result of her choices. How would it go if I posted on Facebook about heavy people in exactly the same way she posted about people who choose not to get the vaccines? What if I said she doesn't deserve medical care when she has her inevitable heart attack or diabetic side effects? Or when she gets covid21 because she has no natural immune system both from lifestyle choices and from taking the Pfizer shot?

How about calling out alcoholics the same way? Or drug users, or smokers, or reckless drivers? By her logic, why hasn't she gone nuts about those people who selfishly divert medical attention to their own life choices?

These people need to see that they have lived among people who make choices every day that have societal costs and if they want to call out selfish, ignorant, dangerous choices that make people unworthy of medical treatment, then they'd better be prepared to address themselves because FAR MORE people die of heart disease, lung disease, cancer, diabetes, strokes and early organ failure due to selfish lifestyle choices than covid19.

My wife's cousin has let the media turn her into a soldier without her knowing it, she needs to be told directly and loudly that her militant approach is not a path she wants to continue taking.