To The Editor,

A nurse’s question. “Why do the protected need to be protected from the unprotected by forcing the unprotected to use the protection that did not protect the protected in the first place?”

Since the authors of the editorial seem secure in their views and opinions of the so-called protesters perhaps they could answer that question, and a few more. Such as:

Were any of these ‘activists’ asked why she/he would jeopardize their livelihoods over something so presumptuously simple as a couple of jabs?

Another question. From the author’s, and readers’ points of view, can a moral line be envisioned which you would refuse to cross? Any true faith which, because of personal values and mores, would/could not be abandoned even to mortal cost? Or is willingness foreseen, to bend in any direction for the sake of state-provided safety?

If there is acknowledgement that a point where retreat is no longer an option does exist, then the difference between self and protester is a matter of degrees. If there is no command or mandate issued by state which would not be willingly obeyed for the greater good, society has a problem.

I wish to point out that making enemies with neighbors is not wise. Even less so when those picked to be enemies are the ones with fortitude enough to risk all for their values. These animosities will not go away easily, and tables can turn. Those who have to compromise, selling their being for need of food and shelter, will not be an asset to the ones who forced that situation.

And it should also be considered that even one missing cog in the smallest gear of a great machine can cause the whole contraption to fall apart.

To equate ‘climate change deniers’ to all who have strong objections to state dictating what must be injected into their bodies is to denigrate those peoples’ very personal values.

For some, to follow science is to walk a dead end road; a Judas goat leader that turns aside at the last moment to leave a soul alone. Better perhaps to stay true to faith and conscience which holds through all of life’s journey and does not disappear when most needed.

Science is a good servant but a poor master.

Gordon Fraser

Champlain