Sharing some frustrations about individual rights and responsibilities
An octogenarian newspaper guy sharing frustrations with Opinion page readers perhaps is something like preaching to the choir, because I imagine you good readers have received the covid vaccinations and are willing to put on masks if the data suggests that’s the right thing to do.
There we have it – doing the right thing for the common good, accepting personal responsibility, based on reliable information from credible sources such as our own physicians, and other trusted persons we know. Reliable sources include the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), the nation Center for Disease Control and Dr. Anthony Fauci, and news organizations including The Sun News, The Associated Press, Reuters, major television networks.
My biggest frustration is with the misinformation, and especially the disinformation. Reliable news reporters and editors do make mistakes. For the most part, we acknowledge them, and make efforts, usually feeble, to correct them. In 60 years of newspaper journalism, I have never reported as fact something I knew not to be correct when I wrote it.
WHOSE ‘RIGHTS’?
I am gobsmacked by the individual rights claims of not having the Covid 19 vaccination because the person saw on social media, likely Facebook, that the vaccinations have not been tested, or “the government can’t tell me …” or whatever.
Those who have been vaccinated have a right not to be exposed to the delta variant that’s putting unvaccinated people in hospitals. It is utter selfishness for medically eligible folks not to have the vaccination. It is beyond selfish for unvaccinated persons to refuse to wear a mask when they are around others.
Another frustration is the complaint that the CDC, and Dr. Fauci, have changed their recommendations about wearing face coverings. This frustration, to a degree, goes to the politicization of the coronavirus pandemic. Republicans who have demonized mask wearing, and tried to discredit science, ought to be ashamed.
I’ll stipulate that Fauci’s messaging has been confusing at times, and it’s appropriate to be critical of that aspect. It’s wrong, however, to politicize the coronavirus by using fabrications.
FACTS ALTER PLANS
As to changing recommendations, imagine a military campaign. I recently read a terrific biography, “Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel” by Daniel Allen Butler, so North Africa in World War II comes to mind.
British 8th Army commander Gen. Bernard Montgomery plans to attack Rommel’s Panzerarmee Afrika. Montgomery learns Rommel has moved his tanks. Montgomery surely does not attack where Rommel was. When the battlefield facts, or the scientific data, change, so do the plans. That should not be difficult to grasp.
Bad information is not a new problem – the Internet has long spread fabrications of all sorts – but the social media have greatly exacerbated the spreading of lies, including those of the most recent former president.
CHECK THE SOURCES
Some of my neighbors may be a bit put out by my questioning sources of information shared at happy hours, but they know why I ask about sources, and not only with regard to the coronavirus.
Gov. Henry McMaster has talked about individual responsibility, while refusing to issue an executive mandate requiring masks. The state education budget specifically prohibits mask requirements in all school facilities. School districts around the state are left with only the authority to encourage masks.
The governor and legislators miss – or refuse to accept ‑ the point that mandates and ordinances help folks do the right thing. The Sun News reporting showed more masks in Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach, which required coverings, than in unincorporated Horry County, which had an ordinance but did not extend it. Mask wearing fell off when the County Council refused to extend its ordinance.
Mulling my frustrations, I recalled something from William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”; an online search showed the line (Act 1, Scene 2) by the Roman nobleman Cassius to his friend: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves.”
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D.G. Schumacher is a senior writer on The Sun News Editorial Board.
This story was originally published August 7, 2021 at 6:00 AM.