Another one bites the dust
He’s the guy who calls himself “Mr. Anti-vax.” He tweeted a prediction that four months after the 2020 election people would be saying, “Coronavirus, what’s that?” In his most recent tweet to Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried, who likened getting vaccinated against coronavirus to fighting the Nazis only much, much easier, Mr Anti-vax said, “Should say, ‘Now the US Government is acting like Nazi’s[sic]. Get the shot.’”
Meet Marc Bernier, another Florida “radio personality” who thinks you’re stupid for wearing a mask, who thinks it’s anti-American to get vaccinated, who has been an anti-vaxxer and Pro-Trumper and spreader of the Big Lie from the very first. He’s interested in your civil rights and he wants to make sure that America remains free from all this scientific coronavirus nonsense.
I would love to debate Mr. Bernier on these issues on Twitter but unfortunately I can’t. It’s not because his Twitter account has been taken down, not because he said something that violated Twitter’s terms of service (though he probably has), but because Marc Bernier died this weekend. On Saturday to be precise. Of coronavirus.
I’m afraid I played a little joke on you, brothers, and sisters. In my first two paragraphs I spoke of Bernier in the present tense — as a sort of polemical “Weekend at Bernier’s,” if you will. I did it because I wanted to illustrate in a shocking way how quickly coronavirus kills people.
Yes, the self-styled “Mr Anti-vax” has gone to that great lib-owning radio show in the sky. He took Patrick Henry’s thundering admonition, “Give me Liberty or give me death!” to its ultimate conclusion. You might say he owned himself in the most humiliating way possible. He became the ultimate rube cliche, the guy whose famous last words were, “Hey everybody, watch this!”
This is how stupid people die. This is what Drs Dunning and Kruger meant when they said the dumber some people are the more confident they become in their own beliefs. This is the price of ignoring science and believing your own thin, easily refuted propaganda. This is why wearing a mask, social distancing, washing your hands and getting vaccinated isn’t a political issue, it isn’t open for debate, it isn’t a martyr’s hill to die on, it’s a scientific fact and a matter of life and death.
If it was just people like Mr. Bernier who died from their own stupidity then I couldn’t care less. Like the guy who killed himself in a homemade rocket to “prove” the earth was flat. But unfortunately people like Mr. Bernier take innocent people with them, innocent bystanders who become infected because some moron without a mask infected them. They are provoking anger in some people where no anger would have existed at all had they been left alone to decide for themselves. They are turning a health issue into a political one. It’s not.
Coronavirus isn’t a member of any party. It will kill you, your children, your friends and neighbors and it doesn’t give a crap what you think or what you believe. It behaves exactly like scientific truth, like the law of gravity, and all the propaganda and lies and government decrees on earth won’t change it one little bit. And it’s getting nastier, more virulent, more deadly every day.
Marc Bernier’s state (excuse me, former state) of Florida leads the nation in hospitalizations, with more than 16,000 Floridians hospitalized. Ninety five percent of the state’s ICU beds are now filled. For the 3rd straight week in a row Florida has had more than 150,000 new cases of coronavirus, including 26,000 children under twelve years of age.
There have been a total of more than 43,000 deaths in the state. Marc Bernier’s death is another one, but it’s far, far from the last. Despite the evidence of their own eyes, with people dropping dead right in front of them, the literally terminally stupid will continue to spread this anti-science excrement until millions have died. When they finally wake up to scientific reality it will be too late. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.