Last winter the flu cases were down dramatically because of distancing, masks and the start of the vaccine. If the people of this country had taken these facts seriously and continued distancing, masks and the vaccine we would not be in the mess we are now. Sympathy? NO. Thinning the repuklican herd.

It's so easy to take an apathetic viewpoint...it really is. Its so simple to say to yourself...they were stupid, ignorant, morons who were eliminated by their own actions...very Darwinian we can say. But what if it is your own child ... What if it is ANY child? What if it is someone who you know to be a decent person but was turned "to the dark side" by one of their children (who happens to be a misguided nurse)? What say you then? What happens to your instant judgement when it is someone you love? What happens to our humanity and our compassion? What happens to all the love we feel that we want to share? Do we turn our backs? Speaking as someone who lost one son from a trajedy 12 years ago and now his brother not getting vaccinated and becoming deathly sick ... I can't simply say anymore that I don't care about all these people dying...i hate that they are being slaughtered in the name of political expedience. I HATE that anyone has to die needlessly. I HATE what this country and world has become. We are the purveyors of death and the harbingers of an apocalyptic mindset that is hell bent on destroying all life. We have lost sight of our human goals...to save one another from suffering and lift each other from the bonds of slavery and oppression we were founded on. We are still slaves of a master who can simply be defeated with a simple ballot but until we bond as one and throw off the chains that bind us we will continue to do their bidding. I for one refuse to continue the hatred...it makes no sense to destroy ourselves when we have it in our grasp to help one another. Sometimes it takes more than may seem reasonable as an effort but wouldn't that effort be worth it if it were your own child...or any child...or someone you know to be a good person...even if misguided?...the point is we have to find a way...we can't be judge, jury and executioner...its so easy to point a finger...thats what the other side is doing...we know they are wrong and we also know that two wrongs don't make a right. We need to BE the change...I lost one child...I am NOT losing ANOTHER...I am NOT losing a step-daughter because of misinformation...I am NOT LOSING A GOOD NEIGHBOR because if misinformation. I am a good person who wants to help spread the good...not reamplify the bad. I have chosen the ones I want to help LIVE...i can't help everyone but I can help some...we all need to choose who we CAN help and get out and do it...and that goes for getting people registered to VOTE...if we are so much smarter c.... than we need to use it and help effect a change. Otherwise we are just tooting our own horn...in the meantime people die needlessly. Namaste

I think it's a bit like an adult playing on the highway. It's a bit hard to feel sympathy wben they get cleaned up because they not only put themselves in harms way, but put everyone around them at risk too.

They choose to be ignorant and risk death. It's on them. In denying mask efficacy and vaccine safety/value, they put others at risk as well as themselves. They deserve what they get.

You have to remember that however good it is, to always find some empathy for those who suffer and die. And it is of course. Yet in the end, every loud and proud anti-vaxer is doing their best to, and is probably successful in, persuading or forcing many others to imitate them. That at least makes them in effect, guilty of manslaughter, probably, in most cases, multiple counts, and if they are not truly convinced anti-vaxers themselves, but are faking it for power or profit, then that becomes effective murder. It would never "stick" as they say, in a court of law, and they are therefore only moral not a legal crimes, but it does, make what sometimes happens, natural justice, so that there is no need to fell any guilt if we do not in fact feel sympathy.

These past 20 or more years the ideological differences between them and us have grown. We are both so convinced that our way is right, it is the only way to be, we can no longer regard the other side dispassionately and listen for the truth of their belief. Understand that the us and the them are shifting groups of individuals who either agree with us our disagree. There is no rational discourse, it is all heated rhetoric. IF you change your mind/learn more/evolve your base groups scorns you and you may lose your identity before you are ready to. People really get dug in to being afraid of change, of education, of evolving. It is quite irrational. And that is why there are people dying of covid who have refused to be vaccinated. Our last less than illustrious president didn't do a damn thing towards reconciliation or breaking down barriers. He was all for more rigid barriers, and this is the price the nation is paying for that horrible decision. I am/was a true bleeding heart compassionate liberal. But my well of compassion has dried up and my give a damn got up and went. My mind screams let the suckers die, they brought it on themselves. My mouth and fingers try to make it less scathing than that, but really... Karma is a bitch and she is working overtime. Yes, I have a dearth of compassion, and I worry for me and for the rest of the world. This isn't going in the right direction, but I'm too tired to do more than notice it is going to hell.

I'm allowed to feel however I please about whomever I choose.
For those who, quite stupidly, refused the vaccine, refused to wear a mask, and consequently contracted the virus, and died, I have ZERO sympathy.
They ignorantly and deliberately put themselves and others at risk.
I cannot be reasonably expected to have any sympathy or empathy for those people.
Truthfully, I don't care one bit what anyone else thinks about me because of it.

It's evolving beyond simple compassion fatigue now. Lots of ethical discussions are going on about whether to even admit the unvaxxed into hospitals. The fact is, the unvaxxed typically need far more time in the hospital, far more care, often an ICU bed for an extended period, and still end-up dead. The break-through cases of the vaccinated, on the other hand, can be in and out in a fraction of the time, rarely get near the ICU and almost never see the morgue and the refrigerated body trucks. The unvaxxed are taking valuable overwhelmed hospital space needed by accident victims, cancer patients, childbirths and others, who were more careful about Covid and their fellow humans. Dr Spock would simply state, "It's an easy logic question". I'm 100% fine with overburdened hospitals requiring proof of vaccination before admitting Covid cases. They should post big signs: "No Vax Proof, No Service".

Those who put the rest of us at risk of death or disability as a shallow expression of defiance certainly don't deserve sympathy. We can suppress our disgust for only so long, and that point is now passed.