Category Archives: Epidemics/Pandemics

When reason sleeps madness rules

Death of Truth, Decline of the west, Epidemics/Pandemics, reason, The Sleep of Reason

 

If you want to know more about what happens when people get in the habit of believing whatever they want to believe entirely without evidence, look no farther than the United States. Look right now.

The United States is in the midst of a pandemic. Recently the United States daily death rate has gone over 3,000 people. Every day more people die from Covid-19 than died in the 9/11 crash into the Twin Towers of New York. Yet what are Americans doing about it? They are going crazy!

The United States is now filled with Covid-deniers joining their climate change deniers. People are attacking each other over the issue of masks. Many people ignore the evidence that masks help keep people safe. One of the consequences of this is ugliness and violence.

As the Associated Press reported,

“Arguments over mask requirements and other restrictions have turned ugly in recent days as the deadly coronavirus surge across the U.S. engulfs small and medium-size cities that once seemed safely removed from the outbreak.

In Boise, Idaho, public health officials about to vote on a four-county mask mandate abruptly ended a meeting Tuesday evening because of fears for their safety amid anti-mask protests outside the building and at some of their homes. One health board member tearfully announced she had to rush home to be with her child because of the protesters, who were seen on video banging on buckets, blaring air horns and sirens, and blasting a sound clip of gunfire from the violence drenched movie Scarface outside her front door.

“I am sad. I am tired. I fear that, in my choosing to hold public office, my family has too often paid the price,” said the board member, Ada County Commissioner Diana Lachiondo. “I increasingly don’t recognize this place. There is an ugliness and cruelty in our national rhetoric that is reaching a fevered pitch here at home, and that should worry us all.”

 

South Dakota has recently rocketed to the top of the United States in Covid-19 caused deaths, but that has not brought the health officials any respite from the local crazies. Instead, things have got worse. In Rapid City the mayor and City Council Members were harassed and threatened over a proposed citywide mask requirements even though the proposal failed to gain support. It seems that as the city and really the country see a surge in American deaths and new Covid-19 cases the people are turning away from evidence and reason in favour of noise and mayhem. Meanwhile the Governor, Kristy Noem has been loud in her opposition to mask requirements. Amazingly, people who showed up at a City Hall meeting  vigorously endorsed the do-nothing approach even as doctors warned them that the only hospital in the western part of the state is in a crisis state for lack of space. Patients were being flown out of the South Dakota, but the public does not want to wear masks. Ignoring science, the people said the dangers of the virus are overblown and mask requirements violate their liberties.

In Boise people also threatened politicians leading to 3 arrests outside the homes where they were protesting. In Gallatin County in Montana protesters gathered for 2 consecutive weeks outside the Bozeman home of county health officer Matt Kelly to voice their vociferous objections to his regulations requiring state-wide mask wearing.

Reason doesn’t rule in much of the United States; madness rules.

Coronaviruses of the Mind

Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics, Philosophy/Ideas, reason, The Sleep of Reason

 

I have been trying to explain why we are not entitled to just believe anything at all because we want to. If we do that we encourage ourselves and others to be credulous. People should only believe what the evidence supports.

Part of the problem is that people pass on their superstitions and their prejudices and irrational beliefs to their children. Added to that, ordinary people in ordinary situations can infect others with their irrational beliefs. Irrational beliefs are never innocent. Such beliefs often have seriously harmful consequences.

Philosopher Arthur Schafer “sees irrationality as a kind of infection.” If we didn’t before, we now know how dangerous infections can be. The same holds for infectious beliefs. For example, Lewis Weiss the Reeve of the R.M. of La Broquerie said if he did not feel sick he could not pass on Covid-19 to anyone else. The science says he is wrong. He should listen to the science or he might infect others who in turn can infect even more people. That is how a virus works. Weiss’ belief, just like the coronavirus, was not innocent. In fact it was dangerous.

When the evidence is not clear, people should suspend belief. But people love to take a leap of faith. This is exactly why irrational beliefs are so dangerous. They can spread like a virus leading to others believing what you believe, even though there is no evidence to support that belief, but even worse, can lead others to believe other irrational beliefs because they have been conditioned to do that by the culture of belief. I think that is what happened recently in the United States. Trump believed (or at least claimed he believed) that the recent election was laced with voter fraud and had been stolen from him. He had no evidence for that, as was shown repeatedly in various courts. Yet many people came to believe that. As a result these people won’t believe in the legitimacy of Biden’s election. That could have very dangerous consequences in a country as polarized as the U.S.

Because of our long-standing habit as people in both Canada and the U.S. and many other countries, “Credulity is a rampant disease in modern societies,” according to Arthur Schafer. Not only that, but it is one of the most dangerous diseases our world has ever faced.

Particularly where an issue is complex, such as Covid-19, or a complex election, it is very easy to confuse people. We are not a skeptical rational society, even though our very capacity to survive, not just flourish, is dependent upon our diligently, conscientiously, and thoughtfully looking at evidence to support our beliefs.

As a result Schafer concluded said those who feel a liberal tolerance to those who espouse superstitious or irrational beliefs (beliefs that are not supported by evidence) have got it wrong. “It is not permissible to believe whatever makes you feel good,” says Schafer. It is ethically wrong. And we ought to be willing to say so. According to Schafer those who take the attitude that it is permissible to believe whatever makes one feel good is sort of like stealing. “Such beliefs are equivalent to stealing from your fellow citizens by making yourself credulous.” says Schafer. That weakens society and we all suffer as a result.

We have to remember that giving up reason and evidence, as the only valid basis for beliefs, is not just unwise it is dangerous. If we base beliefs on sacred texts, authority, or wishful thinking we can come to believe absurdities. Voltaire got it right when he said, “Those who make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Perhaps a better current example, might be, those who can make you believe an absurdity can make you believe that the coronavirus is not dangerous.

We have to remember that irrational beliefs can have very serious consequences. We should not do anything to encourage them. We ought to do everything we can to stamp them out. We should be cultivating a spirit of questioning, of careful scrutiny of evidence, of diligent searching for the best and most reliable evidence, and of conscientious analysis of arguments based on evidence. We should listen to experts, but do so critically, not with blind acceptance. We should do everything we can to foster critical thinking for it is in such horribly short supply and our lives depend on it. If we could not see that before we can certainly see that in the midst of an international pandemic. That’s why it is unethical to believe without evidence. The rational life is the ethical life. The superstitious life is based on moral flaws. We should choose the ethical life.

The Ethics of Belief

Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics, Philosophy/Ideas, reason, The Sleep of Reason

 

In the United States Covid-19 has become the leading cause of death in adults. In other words, it causes more deaths than heart disease. What is really disappointing about that is that we could have done much better, had we paid more attention to science instead of theories without a sound evidentiary basis. Why do we do that?

We should know by now that when times get tough our best instrument at our disposal is usually critical thinking. At such times we need to weigh the evidence and data carefully, apply our best reasoning powers, set aside our prejudices and biases, and reach the best conclusion we can in the circumstances. We must ignore faith, feelings, instincts, guesses, hunches, and most important wishes. We live in a society where this is not commonly done. People usually prefer the opposite approach. This is particularly true in the United States, but it is true everywhere.

A while ago I learned from a University of Manitoba philosophy professor, Arthur Schafer, about the dangers of this approach. He said there is such a thing as the ethics of belief. Schafer in turn based his theory on what he had learned from a 19th century English philosopher by the name of William Kingdon Clifford. I had never heard of  him before.

Clifford argued, that to believe anything because it comforts you, or makes you feel good, or sustains you in life, or makes life a little less intolerable, is not just epistemically wrong, not just intellectually wrong, but actually one of the worst crimes that you can commit. It is a travesty and has some horrible consequences. We will get to those. According to Clifford this is a morally wrong. As Schafer agreed saying,

“ when we believe things because they make us feel good, rather than because we have good evidence for them, Clifford argues that we make ourselves credulous people.”

 

That is wicked according to Clifford and Schafer. If we are credulous people we can easily believe stories—like the story that Covid-19 was deliberately produced by Bill Gates in order to gain control of our minds and make profit by selling a vaccine entirely without evidence. Or we can believe that the end of the pandemic is “around the corner,” even though there is no evidence to support that belief. Or we can believe that the recent American election was stolen by evil Democrats despite the fact that there is no credible evidence to support the claim. If we are credulous we can believe anything because it makes us feel good. And that is a very dangerous thing.

 

According to Schafer “our society which many of us think of as secular, is actually “impregnated with a lot of irrational superstitions.” Now Schafer puts all kinds of things into the category of irrational superstitions such as religious beliefs. All of them. Now I know many of my readers will not accept that. I don’t want to tackle those beliefs now. Save that for another day. But I do want to tackle the beliefs people have had about Covid-19 entirely without evidence to back them up.

We have tolerated those beliefs. Often we have smiled at them or even mocked them. We have had such an easy target in the White House. We have had another easy target here in Steinbach with the crazy beliefs held by the nearby Reeve of the Rural Municipality of La Broquerie. Or the nearby Church of God Restoration. These are not beliefs we should tolerate. I have criticized them, but my criticism have been much too timid.

This is the attitude of tolerance. This is a liberal good—a very high good at that. Usually. But it is not acceptable in times of a serious health pandemic. Usually, we tolerate the fact that others have irrational beliefs. We tolerate that they believe any kind of superstition no matter how nonsensical as long as they don’t try to impose it on us. This is not the time for tolerance. According to Schafer “there are no innocent beliefs.” That is because all beliefs have consequences.

Many liberals hold that I have the right to believe whatever I want, so long as I don’t harm anyone else. Schafer says that by believing irrational things we are exposing ourselves to serious potential harms. As long as we would harm only ourselves that might be acceptable. But by our actions we are also  exposing many others to serious harms  through our credulity. That we are not entitled to do. That is morally wrong.

According to Schafer,

“we should not believe anything except those propositions for which we have good evidence and that the confidence we place in our beliefs should be proportional to the amount of evidence that supports them.”

He says we have a moral duty to engage in the hard work of looking at science, or our own good work, in order to consult the best available evidence conscientiously and honestly before we commit to believing. We have to be open-minded. That means that we have to be willing to accept evidence that contradicts our cherished beliefs or those propositions we would really like to be true and we must be willing to discard or modify them if the evidence entails such actions. Only on that basis are we entitled to believe something. Only on that basis can a belief be ethical.

Schafer says that if we believe a statement without evidence because we want to believe that, we are conditioning the mind to do that again. It will then tend to believe another statement without evidence just because we want to believe it is true. This is really a kind of slippery slope argument. Credulity leads to ever more credulity. It is not possible to sequester such beliefs in order to avoid contamination. Contamination will follow inevitably from our acceptance of beliefs without evidence in one case. Our mind is so trained to think that this is acceptable.

Professor Schafer gave an interesting example from his experience as an ethics consultant with hospitals. If you accept beliefs, such as religious beliefs, without evidence, you are more likely to believe that you should let their children die rather than giving them a needed blood transfusion. I don’t know if it’s true, but I was told the members of the Church of God Restoration don’t believe in modern medicine, trusting instead, without evidence, that God will take care of them. One irrational belief leads to another and that other may be seriously harmful.

This is what has happened with regard to Covid-19. The minds of too many people had been trained to accept irrational beliefs and hence misinformation has spread through our countries and disarmed people from looking instead at the actual evidence and taking reasonable precautions based on the best evidence.

Religious Freedom on trial again

Epidemics/Pandemics, Human rights, religion

Another church hit the news in Manitoba. This time it was the Springs Church. Though from Winnipeg, Steinbach has a lot of connections with the Springs Church. Many Steinbachers attend it and are members in it.

The church  felt it was unfairly treated by Manitoba Health orders requiring all church gatherings to be virtual. In my opinion, they actually had a stronger argument than the Church of God Restoration in Steinbach. All they wanted was permission to conduct church services in the church parking lot through a broadcast  and loudspeaker with promises that they would not allow participants to use the washroom facilities and would not permit socializing. So if anyone had to go they would have to go.

They even had some scientific evidence that the chance of the virus spreading if people remained in vehicles with windows up there was very low. The province though feared members would socialize and then the damage would be done and it could not be undone.

It was unusual, but the court agreed to hear arguments from lawyers for both sides on a Saturday so that a decision could be made before Sunday services.

The church argued the most recent Manitoba public health order, which required religious services to be only available online or via broadcasts, violates their members’ freedoms of religion and association under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The order also bans public gatherings of more than five people, whether religious or not.

Springs Church asked on behalf of its members for a temporary stay of enforcement of the order so that drive-in services could continue until a full hearing on the charter issue could be held. Their lawyer argued the drive-in services do not pose a threat to public health, since attendees are told to remain in the vehicles while a pastor speaks from the stage. I must admit this argument makes some sense.

The province’s lawyers argued the restrictions on in-person gatherings whether religious or not are required to slow the spread of COVID-19. Until recently, Manitoba had for a while the highest per-capita rates of new infections among provinces. And Steinbach was at the top of the list in Manitoba.

It should be remembered that this was a preliminary motion. That means it was a temporary order allowing parties to present more time and arguments later if they wished Sometimes courts like to act quickly. More often they like to meander towards the truth. Being a recovering lawyer, maybe that is where I get my meandering tendencies.

The Springs Church requested a stay of legislation. As a result the church had a high onus of proof. It is not enough to prove that they are right in their argument. They also have to prove they would suffer irreparable harm if the preliminary injunction against the government was not granted. That is hard to prove. And according to the Court of Queen’s Bench Judge they failed to prove it. I agree with that decision.

Justice Joyal decided that the Springs church failed to show sufficient evidence that being able to sit in a car while listening to a church is required to practice their religion while they could sit at home and participate remotely form there. Isn’t one as really good as the other? Are their religious freedoms really being significantly violated?

It must be remembered that because this is a preliminary motion, once the trial is held, if it is held, the church could still win the case.

It was also interesting that on Saturday Manitoba had the highest number of deaths in one day—19 in the history of this pandemic. I really think Manitoba health officials should not be wasting their time arguing with churches in court. Their energies could be better spent fighting the pandemic. I really think Christian churches should think more about others and demonstrate that they take seriously the words of their God to love others as they love themselves. I think so far members of this church have only demonstrated that they love themselves.

 

Where is the love?–Faith and public health collide near Steinbach

Epidemics/Pandemics, Human rights, religion

 

 

Steinbach was in the news again. Religion did it again. Last week, the police confronted more than a 100 vehicles at the Church of God Restoration south of Steinbach yesterday. The members of the church had been warned that if they tried again to flout Manitoba’s Health orders against religious gathering they would be ticketed. So the police warned them not to gather or they would be ticketed. The RCMP went one step farther and blocked off the driveway from the adjacent highway after the maximum 5 vehicles drove onto the parking lot of the church. Earlier, the same church was fined $5,000 and their pastor $1,296. It was the pastor’s second such fine. Under current Manitoba public health orders all faith-based services must be conducted virtually. The church is certainly taking what they perceive to be their rights seriously.

One of the congregants made an interesting argument:

“You can go back into Winnipeg and go to Walmart, and there’ll be 800 cars in the parking lot, just like there is in Costco, but we can’t go in this parking lot because it’s deadly? What if I put a Wal-Mart sign on that building, would that make it better?” Dube said.

Yet, are they really analogous? At Wal-Mart is there a danger that people will socialize as they wait in line to get their groceries?

The Minster of the church, Tobias Tissen, was not backing down. He said he was going to continue to have Sunday church services. This is what he said:

“Really, these police officers that are here blocking our entrance, they’re not blocking us, they are blocking God … by laying fines upon us, handing out tickets — mister officers, do you realize you are doing that to God?” he said.

Can anyone block God? Is that possible? According to Manitoba’s top public health official Dr. Brent Roussin who is charged with the responsibility of making these public health orders,  “faith-based gatherings had been identified as proven resources of Covid-19 transmission.” As well as saying that, Dr. Roussin added this by way of justification:

“We know that from the literature, from our own experience, that prolonged, indoor gathering such as faith-based gatherings are high risk for super-spreading events.’

Dr.) Roussin why we can’t be here?” Allard, one of those in attendance asked.

The province’s top doctor reiterated on Friday that faith-based gatherings have been identified as proven sources of COVID-19 transmission:

“We know that from the literature, from our own experience, that prolonged, indoor gathering such as faith-based gatherings are high risk for super-spreading events.”

Another visitor who asked not to be identified and who it seems was not a member of the church at all, made perhaps the most interesting argument of all when he said,

“The gym provides essential services for me. It helps me to boost my immune system. The church provides essential services for those who believe in God — it’s essential to them … some would say it’s more important to them than food and water.”

This argument is analogous to those who argue that schools should be kept open even though they do pose a health risk, because schools are essential for the health of young people. Is it not reasonable to suggest that for some people religious services including a communal or even social aspect, are essential to maintaining mental health?

One of the attendants took the actions of the province as a challenge saying,

“I hope they try to make an example out of me. I hope the Crown attorney keeps this ticket alive. Don’t drop the ticket, come at me — we’re going to set a precedent.”

One thing that disturbs me about all these arguments made by self-proclaimed Christians. What about love thy neighbour as thyself?  I always thought that was the most important part of religion. I did not see any concern for others among these conservative Christians. That makes me distrust their assertion that their claim is based on religion.

Where is the love?

Public Health vs. Religious Freedom

Epidemics/Pandemics, Human rights

 

The issues between the Church of God Restoration outside of Steinbach and public health officials have raised some interesting issues relating to freedom of religion. How far does it go?

Members of the church and their supporters have said Manitoba’s laws that make the wearing of masks compulsory in public places and require faith-based institutions to confine their gatherings to virtual on line gatherings which they believe violates their Charter Rights to Freedom of Religion as well as their right to mobility, security, and personal liberty.

Recently, University of Manitoba Professor of Law, whose course on aboriginal rights I audited a couple of years ago, had this to say in response:

“These organizations might be correct that Charter rights have been violated, since the threshold for establishing a rights violation is low. Idiosyncratic religious beliefs and practices are charter-protected as long as they are genuine. Yet court challenges to the face-mask and business-closure laws based on charter rights violations are bound to fail.”

She recently published an article in the Winnipeg Free Press and I want to expand a bit on what she said.

It is not enough to say that Charter Rights to Religious Freedom have been violated. That is only the first step in the analysis. That is because the Charter recognized that no Charter Rights are absolute. We live in a pluralistic society so rights always have to be balanced against the rights of others. It is never as simple as the supporters of the Church of God Restoration are making it out to be.

The Canadians Charter specifically provides that a Charter right may be justifiably violated if a restriction imposed by the government is a “reasonable limit” that is “demonstrably justified” in a “free and democratic society.” If a law passes this test even if it does infringe on Charter right like freedom of religion it is nonetheless lawful.

When rights clash a court may be called upon to determine how the conflict should be resolved.

The Province of Manitoba takes the position that its public health orders are justified because they are necessary to protect the public from a serious international health pandemic. The first question judges ask in such a situation is whether or not there is a “pressing and substantial need” for the government to respond to a problem. Charter violations will not be permitted for trivial needs. Is there any doubt that the current problem is both pressing and substantial? Not in my mind, but no doubt, in the minds of the protesters the need has been greatly exaggerated. But they must present evidence of their claims in court if they want to successfully challenge the admitted infringement.

People making claims in court, will learn that they must present evidence. Courts make decisions based on evidence. Making wild claims to the media may work when you are trying to persuade the public, but courts demand evidence. We too should demand evidence. I have not seen any evidence that supports the claim that Covid-19 is not a serious problem. Have you? As a result I think the church and its supporters will lose on this part of their claim. So the second step goes to the province. This is a serious health problem that deserves a serious response. But this does not end the dispute.

The third step in proving the province’s case is that government response must be proportionate to the harm done to the supporters of the church. The supporters of the church have had their Charter rights violated so the government response must be proportionate to the harm suffered. The province can’t wildly overstep in other words. I think most of us would agree that the admitted harm done to the church members is proportionate to the harm they have suffered and proportionate to the seriousness of the harm done to the public. Again evidence would be needed for a court to decide.

Fourthly, the province must establish in court  with evidence, that there is a rational connection between the means to achieve a goal and the goal itself? In other words, does the public health order imposed by the Province of Manitoba actually help solve the serious health problem Manitoba faces? If not, and it is just there for show for example, the law would not pass as a valid violation of a Charter right. This is a bit more difficult to prove. The province would have to prove to the court’s satisfaction, again based on evidence, that the measures it imposes are really needed to curb the pandemic and would in fact help to keep the public safe.

There is still a fifth step the province must overcome. The province must prove, again based on evidence, that there is no less intrusive way to achieve its goal of protecting the public. For example, is it possible for church members to meet in a way that maintains social distancing? If the province is able to prove there is no other reasonable and viable way of achieving its goal the public health order in the circumstances it would survive the Charter challenge as a reasonable limit on the member’s religious freedom in a free and democratic society. I admit I have some doubts on this score, but suspect the province could bring sufficient evidence to bear to convince the judge that less intrusive measures would be inadequate.

 

I think this is a very rational approach. Letting ignorant pundits on the Internet tell us what to do would not be a rational approach.

I want to make one last point that courts will often defer to governments who have to make decisions in pressure packed environments such as an international health pandemic when governments are trying to protect vulnerable groups such as us old guys. Such decisions really should be made by public health experts and related professionals such as economists and others debating freely with the best available data in front of them. It would not be right for a single judge to make such a decision. Nor should it be made by radical protesters who ignore science at the expense of everyone else.

 

Not happy with American Election

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, Epidemics/Pandemics, racism, Trump

 

People asked me if I was happy about the elections results of 2020, The answer is obvious—of course I was. But am I satisfied? Not by a long shot!

In the 2020 presidential election of 2020 approximately 73 million Americans voted for Donald Trump after seeing him on television and reading about him every single day. No person in the history of the world has become more famous or well known. Trump can bask in that thought. That is what narcissists  and demagogues do.

No American can say they were deceived about who Trump was. Trump cannot hold back because he always thinks he can sell us on his narrative. That is what he did his whole life as a real estate developer. Every American knew exactly who they were voting for. And who did they vote for? This is not a pretty picture.

 

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew had lied to them about the severity of Covid-19 pandemic because he did not want to alarm them. So he lied instead, thus lulling them into a false sense of security so they failed to take precautions to protect themselves, their loved ones, and the communities in which they lived.

 

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew was a white nationalist who refused to renounce white supremacy and instead asked the Proud boys to ‘Stand back and stand by” a call that they accepted as an endorsement.

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew voted for president who mocked handicapped people.

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they who they knew thought that because he was a star he could freely grope any woman he met.

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew  tried to pressure a foreign country (the Ukraine) to do him a personal favor of investing one of his political opponents by withholding funds that had been approved by Congress and which the Ukraine needed to protect itself from Russia.

Approximately 74 million Americans voted for a president they knew claimed that as president he could do whatever he wanted fo nothing he did was illegal.

Approximately 73 million Americans voted for a president they knew abandoned long time American allies (the Kurds) who were under attack by the Turks, thus forcing them to turn to Russia for protection, proving that “these colors run” contrary to American propaganda.

What does this say about America?   That is the real question.

 

Don’t Blame but Criticize

Death of Truth, Epidemics/Pandemics, Evangelical Christianity

 

A local Mennonite Pastor in Steinbach, Kyle Penner, whose views deserve respect, recently wrote an article in the Winnipeg Free Press after all the negative press our community has been receiving as a result of the actions of some of the more conservative members of our community. Not all I must point out. Some conservative Christians were interviewed and demonstrated their scepticism about the accepted science about the coronavirus. In a free society everyone is entitled to give his or her opinion. But that doesn’t means they are exempt from criticism. Nor should they be. Even on matters affected by religion. Penner was upset because people were blaming the conservative Christians online in a non-Christian spirit.

Penner’s opening paragraph struck home:

“We are dying here. So please, everyone who has suddenly got it in for Steinbach: get off your high horse and lead with compassion instead of smugness.”

I must admit that opened a wound. I have probably been guilty of smugness in relation to these conservative Christians. My bad. But does that end the matter?

I want to be compassionate. I feel for the people who have become ill. I feel for the their families and loved ones. I feel for the people who might feel guilty about perhaps being the spreader of the coronavirus. I feel particularly sympathetic and grateful to the health care workers who have been working tirelessly to protect us. And that is exactly why I believe the conservative Christians deserve to be criticized. Not drawn and quartered, but firmly and clearly criticized.

It is precisely the conservative Christians and others like them who have been denying the Covid science often in favor of dangerous disinformation about the coronavirus. They have refused to wear masks or maintain social distancing. They have not been respecting our health care workers. The words and actions of these Covid deniers have been causing irreparable harm to others in the name of dubious claims from the Internet which they have been given an unseemly religious or constitutional gloss. They have lulled others into a false sense of security. They have helped to erode truth. They claim they have the religious freedom to gather and decide whether or not they will wear masks, thus endangering the lives of others.

They have contributed to the terrible heaping on of extra work on our health care system and it’s professionals  and with it extra risks of serious harm, and they have been doing that in the name of God. By their reckless actions they have created serious health risks to thousands of other people young and old and particularly the most vulnerable members of our society. Those actions do not deserve acquiescence; they deserve criticism. That criticism should be delivered with compassion and kindness, but it must be delivered firmly. These people with their misguided views are a serious public health hazard. Their misinformation should be challenged or we are also contributing to that danger.

I don’t want to be a part of any mob laying blame for the pandemic on the conservative Christians. I believe their influence thankfully is not great. But it not non-existent either.

Mr. Penner says be kind and compassionate. I agree completely. That’s why we can’t let the conservative Christians off the hook on this one. Criticism is deserved.