The Atlantic magazine has decided we should declare a “pandemic amnesty”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/covid-response-forgiveness/671879/

Fair warning, you may want to throw your electronic device when you read this.

This is the portion of this article I chose to focus on.

“The people who got it right, for whatever reason, may want to gloat. Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts. All of this gloating and defensiveness continues to gobble up a lot of social energy and to drive the culture wars, especially on the internet. These discussions are heated, unpleasant and, ultimately, unproductive. In the face of so much uncertainty, getting something right had a hefty element of luck. And, similarly, getting something wrong wasn’t a moral failing. Treating pandemic choices as a scorecard on which some people racked up more points than others is preventing us from moving forward.  We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty. We can leave out the willful purveyors of actual misinformation while forgiving the hard calls that people had no choice but to make with imperfect knowledge. Los Angeles County closed its beaches in summer 2020. Ex post facto, this makes no more sense than my family’s masked hiking trips. But we need to learn from our mistakes and then let them go. We need to forgive the attacks, too. Because I thought schools should reopen and argued that kids as a group were not at high risk, I was called a “teacher killer” and a “génocidaire.” It wasn’t pleasant, but feelings were high. And I certainly don’t need to dissect and rehash that time for the rest of my days.”

My thoughts on this.  I agree with the simple fact that yes, we do need to reunite as a community and stop the divisive behavior.  But my question is this: where was the “hey lets all get along” gang when they were verbally berating a 2 year olds mother for not having a mask on their toddler?  Where were they when they required vaccines at your job or face termination?  Did ANYONE BOTHER TO STAND UP THEN?  Where was the tolerance and love and peace then?   Did they fight for their colleague who was about to lose their paycheck for choosing to not vaccinate?  No.  They took to social media.  They verbally disparaged those who thought differently.  They called people murders, selfish, supremacists, “greedy little plague rats”, told people they hoped they died, told them they did not deserve healthcare services, told people their insurance shouldn’t pay for anything if they did not comply with vaccines and masks.  THE SAME PEOPLE who are now asking for AMNESTY????   Well where in the hell was this kind hearted generosity at when you refused to let your unvaccinated family attend a holiday event?  Or a birthday party?  Or when they said they wished the unvaxxed would just die already.  Did any of these amnesty proponents bother to fight for freedom of choice for the very people that they now ask to just “forgive and forget”?

What about the masks they forced on your kids at school?  The vaccines they forced to go to sports camp?  To attend college?  The semesters of college kids locked in their dorms doing virtual learning?  The parents who had to choose between teaching their kids at home or their job?  How many years are we set backwards in the educational system due to learning delays?  How many kids went hungry without school lunches?  Because a bunch of tyrants demanded we comply?  You want amnesty now?  How many nurses lost their job?  How many people DIED ALONE IN A HOSPITAL due to these amnesty seekers refusing family to be at the bedside?  Refusing the right to try any treatment?  Loss of income, loss of homes, they SHUT DOWN your small businesses!  Amnesty you say…….tell that to the person who lost their job, income, and their house due to a bunch of tyrant unwarranted demands.  How many people lost their substance abuse support group?  How many were trapped at home with an abusive spouse or parent?  You think amnesty makes that all ok?  What about the censoring of numerous physicians, nurses, scientists, and researchers who TRIED to offer some truth to people only to face censorship, suppression, and board certification revocation?  What about the threats made to healthcare providers to have their licenses taken away?  What about pharmacists acting out of scope of practice and denying to fill a prescription for someone?  Amnesty, right?

And the key point I go back to is this: those are are seeking this “amnesty” were not treated like 3rd class citizens.  Percentage wise, they were the ones acting like a hot mess fool yet THEY want amnesty NOW?  Because their narrative blew up in their face?  They do not want to be held accountable for THEIR words and actions, they just want those they treated like shit to forget and move on?  What about what they DID???  Frankly, they do not want to own what they did wrong.  They just want you to forget and move along.  This situation was far too big and affected so many people on a profound level that forgetting and moving along is not really possible.  Other actions must happen first.

If we have a hope and a prayer of “amnesty”, then every individual who treated their fellow humans like garbage for choosing health freedom need to start with an apology.  This isn’t a sweep it under the rug moment.  This is your big chance to eat a slice of humble pie and say sorry.  Admit where you made a mistake.  Own your actions and apologize for the dumb things you said and did.  Because for us to move on, it starts with I am sorry from the pro vax/mask/lockdown crowd who treated their opposite minded citizens like human garbage, and it requires those who were treated like garbage to accept the apology.  It is a two way street.  Those who want amnesty forget that those who have been ridiculed and treated so horribly will NEVER BE THE SAME after what has happened.  You cannot wave a magic amnesty wand and poof, everything goes back to ok.  You cannot bring back those who died.  You cannot recreate a holiday where some ate alone due to family denying them the right to join them at their dinner table.  You cannot bring back saying goodbye to a loved one.  You cannot undo the forced vaccine in someone’s arm.

Let’s recap a small sampling of what these “amnesty seekers” said about all of us that questioned the narrative:

I can promise one thing:  no one is going to just blow this off and forget.  Many amends must be made for amnesty to happen.   So if you were a sassy vocal pro vaxxed pro mask person who treated someone like garbage and posted the kind of trash above on social media because someone else had a different perspective on their personal healthcare decisions, maybe have a slice of humble pie and apologize to them.  That is how we move on as one community.  Not by ignoring the atrocities of the ones seeking amnesty here  and their expectation that those they treated like trash will just be ok with the deplorable actions and behaviors over the last 2.5 years.