Neudorf defence of anti-vaxxers unacceptable
By Letter to the Editor on November 17, 2021.
Editor:
In his Nov. 12 column, UCP Lethbridge-East MLA Nathan Neudorf shamelessly invoked the memory of our country’s war dead as a launching pad for defending anti-vaxxers’ supposed right to inflict risk of illness and death on our community.
I find it beyond the pale to hook an opinion apologizing for the irresponsibility and selfish behaviour of anti-vaxxers onto the coattails of our national day for remembering the selfless sacrifices of our veterans. His decision to devote a 750-word essay defending anti-vaxxers on this, of all days, carries echoes of the anti-vaxxer protesters who took over the Remembrance Day ceremonies in Kelowna on Thursday.
Unfortunately, Mr. Neudorf’s piece was not just tasteless and insensitive. Mr. Neudorf writes that because their elected government has chosen not to “infringe upon a person’s fundamental freedoms with respect to mandating vaccinations of its citizens, then we should not now allow other entities to infringe upon them.”
This is illogical and dangerous.
It means that if you own a business or run a service organization and you want to protect your staff and clients from unnecessary anti-vaxxer spread, Mr. Neudorf would prevent you.
In other words, for Mr. Neudorf and his UCP, the anti-vaxxers’ right to mingle among us trumps our right to choose whether to protect ourselves from the risk they pose.
This is downright foolish. Whatever rights anti-vaxxers have, they certainly do not encompass the right to expose the other 80-plus per cent of us to their irresponsible decision.
We cannot subjugate responsible citizens’ health and safety rights to the unbridled freedoms of a selfish and misinformed few.
Fortunately, we have a strong field of nomination candidates ready to take on Mr. Neudorf and the UCP in the next provincial election as the Lethbridge-East NDP candidate.
I am one of those candidates and I am ready to stand strong to protect the rights of the vast majority of us who have made the right choice to protect themselves from those who haven’t.
Over the last 18 months of my second term on city council, I worked with other councillors to take up the mantle when the UCP abandoned us to the second, third and fourth waves.
I sponsored and strongly defended the City’s face-covering bylaw against the opposition from Mr. Neudorf’s UCP and their allies on City Council.
We can’t let the UCP’s singular defence of anti-vaxxers’ rights threaten our health and local economy in Lethbridge with an unnecessary fifth wave.
If the voters of Lethbridge-East entrust me with the honour of representing them, I will work diligently to set priorities straight and give public health its due respect.
Rob Miyashiro
Former City Councillor, 2013-2021
Lethbridge-East NDP nomination candidate
-1
You are one of those candidates? Do you intend on having a hotline to Spearman so if a decision has to be made you can call him? Amazing how some people can distort their own history, but perhaps that’s because no one will distort it for them?
Good to see the former councillor and defender of the drug dens ramping up his NDP rage and gaslighting techniques for the upcoming election. It will be fun seeing which one of the, at the moment four candidates, can “out rage” each other. Look for a steady stream of NDP like raging and ranting at every turn. Sort of sounds like Greta, how dare you. Time for people to stand up and put them in their place. Get ready for a rage of the week.
Myashiro said:”I am one of those candidates and I am ready to stand strong to protect the rights of the vast majority of us who have made the right choice to protect themselves from those who haven’t.”
So your intent is to only represent the “Rights” of those that think like you? Good to know! I am not an anti-vaxxer and am fully vaccinated but I believe it is peoples right to choose. So I can presume you are also Pro Life and would stop a woman from seeking abortion too ? So now that we know you only represent the rights of who you feel deserves you, I guess we can move on!
Rob ,what are you proposing to protecting yourself and others from?
You strike me as one who isn’t well protected as you’ll be in line for your 3rd,
4th, 5th – – –
PS. Follow the money
haha! you enter a comment and are net neg 2 at present; i note appreciation of your entry and garner a net neg 7 🙂 such sm*rt people that know how to press the + and – keys. one day they may be able to formulate an opinion that expresses substantiated thought. one day….
well said.
Typical whatabout response: comparing women’s reproductive rights to population health protection against a highly contagious virus. Please see my other comment re: inability to analyze anything rational.
Interesting how the Old and Older School and bucky are trying to nudge the conversation away from the gist of the letter: that is, that Mr. Neudorf was politicizing an important time for reflection. And then to try to equate this value for freedom to the perverse libertarianism that underwrites the alt-right and his political base.
Mr. Miyashiro is correct in making this plain. And I applaud his efforts in promoting a caring society. We can use it.
the time for reflection is upon the cost of freedom. the right one’s body is the most basic and inalienable of all freedoms and rights. perhaps no does not mean no to you, but it does for many others. rather sickening that so many people are so easily willing to give over a most essential freedom to the increasing power of the state, especially in the name of mandated/forced/coerced animal cruelty vaxes.
Boy mr. miyashiro with such a great attitude to your proposed constituents,leaving 20% out of the count! I know I can’t place a vote for you ,by the way am fully vaxed myself