Those who show up at COVID debates wearing yellow stars forfeit the right to be heard
At this week’s Springfield City Council meeting, about 15 of those in the crowd who had come to oppose the oppression of a non-binding resolution encouraging vaccinations showed up wearing big yellow Stars of David pinned to their shirts and dresses.
Not just anti-science, but antisemitic, too, those stars told us.
And since the disgusting comparison of lifesaving COVID-19 public health measures to the murder of 6 million Jews is now a regular feature of these mad protests, it’s time to take such displays for what they are, which is the mark of a hate group.
The resolution that those who had come to heckle and jeer were comparing to the Holocaust said this: “Vaccination is the leading prevention strategy to end the COVID-19 pandemic and should be strongly encouraged for all eligible individuals.” No wonder they were reminded of the Nazis’ attempt to systematically exterminate a people.
One member of the council, Angela Romine, who has falsely suggested that the vaccine is more dangerous than COVID, was the hero of the mostly unmasked crowd, while those who spoke in favor of efforts to beat the pandemic were mocked.
One citizen who spoke said that getting vaccinated makes you more likely to get COVID. Her proof? In Israel, she said, there are more vaccinated than unvaccinated people getting infected. (Since the majority of Israelis are vaccinated, yes, there are more cases among those who’ve had their shots. The woman did not mention that hospitalizations have fallen off a cliff since most people got vaccinated.)
Another speaker approvingly cited former President Donald Trump as the source of her discredited belief that hydroxychloroquine is the key to ending this pandemic.
When a member of the council asked why health authorities the world over would have said the vaccines are both safe and fantastically effective if that were not the case, the mob roared that they were clearly being paid to lie. Of course, conspiracy theories and Jew-hating have always gone together like soup and a sandwich.
Council members were taunted for five hours. And after all that, that even this timid resolution passed 8-to-1 could be seen as an act of bravery by Springfield officials.
A similarly rowdy (though not star-wearing) crowd at the St. Louis County Council this week got their way when the council voted down a mask mandate. Those who spoke at that meeting also compared public health measures to tyranny and several speakers said, as one woman put it, that there’s no proof that “COVID-19 and its supposed variant actually exists.”
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, of course, is suing to block mask mandates, including ours in Kansas City.
And while Schmitt wears no yellow star, the divisions, conspiracy theories and yes, deaths that his completely unscientific opposition to public health interventions in our state have only encouraged those who do.
