A Moral Dilemma

39 Pontiac Dream, Going Postal
“File:Peter Hitchens at SidneySussex.jpg” by Nigel Luckhurst is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

On Sunday last week (27th February), Peter Hitchens informed his readers that he had taken the Covid jab, which sparked fury amongst some and disbelief among others. Hitchens stated that ‘I did not do it for the good of others but for my own convenience. And I will have my second for the same purpose. A very important part of my family now lives abroad and I am deeply tired of not being able to see them.’

Many people saw it as a betrayal from someone who has been against this lockdown and the ludicrous restrictions from the start but I ask, have we been betrayed? He states, in said article, that ‘I certainly don’t want to put you off the jab. Indeed, I don’t want to put you off in any way. It’s your business, not mine, and not even the Queen’s.’ I’ve said, for some time, that if other people want to get the vaccine, that’s perfectly fine as long as they don’t impose it on the rest of us; people with genuine concern on the efficacy of a vaccine that took mere months to deliver to the populace. I don’t believe, now that Hitchens has taken the vaccine, that he will give up everything he has fought against and suddenly start persuading others to take this experimental jab. His reasons, though I disagree with them (and I’ll come onto that later in the piece), are his alone. If we agree to the rights of every individual then his decision was right for him.

Hitchens admitted defeat in this new normal we find ourselves in when he stated ‘the vaccination was a gloomy submission to a new world of excessive safety and regulation. I’d tried to fight against it but I lost.’ That doesn’t mean he won’t continue to expose the insanity that this government has forced onto the country, in which thousands of jobs have been lost, businesses continue to close at a rate of knots, where many schools are still fighting a war with its own unions while the education of millions of children continues to suffer and where mental illness is on the rise. I fully expect Hitchens to use his Sunday column, and his appearances on Mike Graham’s Monday slot on Talk Radio, to keep up his attacks on this government and its lackies who are propagating the most evil of policies.

So why do I disagree with his decision, and reasons, for taking the vaccine? Well, from my own perspective, I, and my other half, haven’t seen our mothers for over a year. First, it was lockdown that kept us away, and next it’ll be these damn vaccination passports, which I fully expect to come into law. We will be given the choice, by government, to live freely, which includes going to see our elderly mothers who reside in care homes, but only if we take the vaccine or be cut off from everything, including our family, if we do not take the vaccine. This should not be an either or. Hitchens added that ‘I get the strong sense that any sort of travel, and plenty of other things, will be impossible if I don’t have the necessary vaccine certificate.’ In a supposed free country like ours, the people should not be forced into that corner. No other illness brings with it a mandatory vaccine so why this one, especially for a virus which has a 99% survival rate? We dearly want to see our mothers and as for my own, we had to cancel our trip 5 times last year because of the ever shifting goalposts. We’d hoped to re-book the trip for this year but if vaccination passports are introduced, we’ll be pushed into a moral dilemma – force or freedom. As painful as it would be, we’d take freedom.

I admit, I was disappointed when I read about Hitchens taking this vaccine. He has been solid, for lockdown sceptics, on the rules and regulations we’ve been forced to abide over the last year but when the question of vaccination passports rolls out, who will we have to speak up for us? Not Hitchens because he’s taken it. Though I think he will continue to batter this government on lockdown restrictions, we have lost one of our leading voices in the fight against fascism, a fascism, I must add, that is being worryingly embraced across the country. He was forced into a corner and rather than fight that pressure, he wilted. What hope for any of us?
 

© 39 Pontiac Dream 2021
 

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