I’ve had many conversations with people who don’t involve themselves too much in politics and feel pressure regarding the vaccine on a few fronts. For one, they don’t know if they trust it enough to have it injected into their bodies quite yet. The vaccine is still new to humanity and while FDA approval is on the horizon, many feel that injecting something into their bodies without seeing its long-term effects is unwise.

This is a perfectly reasonable response to a vaccine, or with anything for that matter.

Some are just in positions where getting the vaccine isn’t necessary and don’t want to get it because, as they look at the data, they recognized that the variant strains currently making their rounds aren’t necessarily something they feel the need to worry about. Contracting the delta variant, for instance, will likely be a non-issue for them and they would much rather take their chances with the virus than get a vaccine that may or may not protect them.

If your reasons are the ones above or something completely different, one thing should be respected. This is a free society and doing what you want is a huge benefit to that. This is how America works. You make a decision for yourself and you sink or swim depending on that decision. Making a decision because you felt pressured by others to do so is not a good reason to do anything.

But the people making these decisions are being hounded by others to get the vaccine, be these others friends, family, news personalities, or strangers online. Some of these people have altruistic reasons for putting pressure on people to get the vaccine, and some people only think they do. Both of them need to understand that at the end of the day if a person says “no,” then that should be good enough. If you have presented your case as to why and they refuse then that’s their business. You don’t have to like it, but you do have to respect it.

My body, my choice, after all.

But to the people who have doubts, concerns, and questions, it needs to be made clear that you’re not crazy and the fact that our mainstream media is attempting to make you seem so is absolutely ludicrous. The fact that saying “I’m not sure about injecting something that may come with risks into my body” makes someone an “extremist” doesn’t exactly speak well of how our society deals with herd thinking. You can’t disagree, lest you be painted as a villain.

But this isn’t villainy. In any other situation, this would be considered rationality. Wisdom and caution are cousins and decisions based on fear are often considered ill-advised. Now we’re supposed to throw all of that out of the window and just embrace the words of people who clearly don’t have our best interests in mind and paint people hesitant or unwilling to get the vaccine as “extremists,” unwilling to do “the right thing.”

The funny thing about Americans is that, unlike other countries, we have rebellion in our blood. Telling us we have to do something is the fastest route to getting told to shove it, and the degree by which we’re forced is usually matched in the degree by which we resist. We’ve proven this many, many times in the past with a few wars to show for it.

The bottom line is that if you want to convince Americans to do something, the worst way to do it is to tell them they better do it or else. You’re just going to get a lot of American’s responding with “say when.”

Many of the people resisting getting the vaccine aren’t anti-vaxx, and our media has confused society into thinking that not getting it means you’re only doing it for political reasons. That’s not remotely true. Some people don’t need it, some people don’t trust it, and now some people are off-put by the force involved and question the vaccine altogether.

And they should.

If an idea is so good that it’s beyond question then why do you need to force it? If you feel the need to force it, then maybe it’s not as good of an idea as you think.

Respect the decisions of free people. You don’t have to like it, but you do have to abide by it.