Goodbye, and good riddance By Leonard Pitts Jr. Syndicated columnist
"“If you want to leave, take good care, hope you make a lot of nice friends out there.”
— From the song “Wild World” by Cat Stevens
This is for those of you who’ve chosen to quit your jobs rather than submit to a vaccine mandate.
No telling how many of you there actually are, but lately, you’re all over the news. Just last week, a nearly-30-year veteran of the San Jose Police Department surrendered his badge rather than comply with the city’s requirement that all employees be inoculated against COVID-19. He joins an Army lieutenant colonel, some airline employees, a Major League Baseball executive, the choral director of the San Francisco Symphony, workers at the tax collector’s office in Orange County, Florida, and, incredibly, dozens of health care professionals.
Well, on behalf of the rest of us, the ones who miss concerts, restaurants and other people’s faces, the ones who are sick and tired of living in pandemic times, here’s a word of response to you quitters: Goodbye.
And here’s two more: Good riddance.
...
So if you’re angry, guess what? You’re not the only ones.
The difference is, your anger is dumb, and ours is not. Yours is about being coerced to do something you don’t want to do. Like that’s new. Like you’re not already required to get vaccinated to start school or travel to other countries. For that matter, you’re also required to mow your lawn, cover your hindparts and, yes, wear a seat belt. So you’re mad at government and your job for doing what they’ve always done.
But the rest of us, we’re mad at you. Because this thing could have been over by now, and you’re the reason it isn’t.
That’s why we were glad President Joe Biden stopped asking nicely, started requiring vaccinations everywhere he had power to do so. We were also glad when employers followed suit. And if that’s a problem for you, then, yes, goodbye, sayonara, auf Wiedersehen, adios and adieu. We’ll miss you, to be sure. But you’re asking us to choose between your petulance and our lives.
And that’s really no choice at all."
And we also bid goodbye forever to those who have made the wrong choice and paid for it with their lives.
May they vote no more.
