I was thinking about the best way to get some yellow stars made for people who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19, to reflect the way that society will increasingly isolate and denigrate them, when I found that protesters in Germany had already started wearing such stars… until the German government banned the practice.
Some of the stars carried the slogan ‘Impfung Macht Frei’, or ‘Vaccination makes you free’ — which is a play on the words that appeared over the gates of Auschwitz: ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’, or ‘Work makes you free’.
No one is proposing — yet — that people who refuse to be vaccinated should be rounded up into camps and worked or gassed to death. But they will be barred from certain kinds of travel, from attendance at many kinds of public events, from entering the bulk of public accommodations (i.e., restaurants, hotels, retail shops, and so on), from attending public schools, and from some kinds of employment.
We know this, because measures like these are already being implemented in places like Israel (which allows its Health Ministry to give local authorities personal details of residents who have not been vaccinated) and Denmark.
And with America’s chronic case of ‘Europe envy’, it won’t be far behind.
The idea of officials being able to demand ‘Papers please!’ used to be one of the ideas most repulsive to Americans across the political spectrum. Now, they seem to be rushing to embrace it — along with a number of other totalitarian programs.
I can’t think of anything sadder than this: In our panic to deal with a disease that may end up killing 0.2% of Americans, we’re going to end up killing 99.8% of America.
