Over the past many months, we have heard people talk a lot about people’s individual rights being violated by mask and vaccine mandates. This is a free country. Therefor people say, “if I’m not worried about getting a form of the COVID virus that is my business and nobody else’s.” I heard Cam Newton say something like this today in light of his being released from the Patriots for not complying to the teams rules re: COVID safety.
This all raises a question in me: In this same free country, we have other individual freedoms restricting laws we believe are good. I am not free, for instance, to have over .08 percent alcohol in my blood and drive a vehicle. If I do so I can be seriously penalized, even spend time in jail and the law does not care a whit if I think I can drive just fine with that much booze in my system.
When driving impaired, I am not just a danger to myself. I am a danger to other people on the road as well. What is the difference between this legal restriction and social mandates that I be vaccinated from COVID in order to live freely around other people in the world?
COVID-19 is a deadly virus that can hurt and kill others as badly as any drunk driver’s car. It’s time we made this discussion more about rights and safety of others than we do about our personal rights to live dangerously.
The Rev. Jim King
Portland
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