Because you're introducing a word (bad) that I haven't been using and I don't feel like it would be productive for me to go that route. I'm trying to choose my words carefully with such a sensitive subject.
Whether you use the word or not doesn't change the idea being expressed: if some reasons are unreasonable, and being unreasonable is bad, then some people's reasons are bad.
I generally prefer acknowledging an uncomfortable truth over avoiding it. Implying a thing without saying it is how politicians approach this stuff, but we're not politicians, and I think we have a moral obligation to speak candidly about this. Sensitivity is fine and appropriate when we disapprove of things that don't affect us, but this is a public health issue with a clear impact on others.
I feel much like you do, but not everyone's brain works the same way and I'm trying to refrain from criticizing people who react to a lot of different things because of emotion. You look at things in an extremely logical manner which I very much appreciate, but for some people their feelings are more important. I'm normally one to discount this sort of thing but I'm not always sure it's the right thing to do.
I don't want to discount emotion, because I think its incorporation into decision making is actually very logical. Sometimes our gut is operating based on fear and emotion and trauma, but sometimes it's articulating something reasonable our minds can't.
I think it should be clear this isn't one of those situations, though. This is a straightforward risk assessment about the vaccine. If we're not willing to criticize something as clear-cut as this, we're basically saying everyone gets a pass from criticism (and social pressure) based only on their feelings.
I don't think that's a good idea, and I don't think it's actually respectful of those people, either. I think it's disrespectful, because it treats them like children who can't be expected to do better. It is respectful of people to let them make their own choices on difficult matters and/or matters that pertain primarily to them, but it's the exact opposite to let them off the hook when they behave in demonstrably irrational and reckless ways.
I do think the majority of people should get vaccinated, but I wouldn't tell a person that they should get vaccinated. I believe a person should make the decision on their own
But hearing from others is one of the ways people make those decisions! No choice happens in a vacuum. Vaccine skeptics sure aren't taking this kind of hands-off approach, either.
Trusting people to make their own decisions does not imply we shouldn't influence them: it's just the opposite. Good faith arguments and social pressure is exactly the thing you need when you decide NOT to force people to do something. The fact that we pick our leaders in a democracy doesn't mean we don't argue about who they should be, it means that arguing is actually more important. It's the same thing here: BECAUSE people are not forced to get the vaccine, we're obligated to make the case for it in public.
and the only advice they should follow, if any, would be from their physician.
Well, their physicians are obviously going to overwhelmingly tell them to get it, so I think we can safely assume the people not getting it are
not following that advice.
They're 2 completely different things but maybe it wasn't clear as to why I'm saying that. As you suggested before, this would strictly be a hindsight thing, and I thought of it because of these two young guys I heard of that had complications from the vaccine. My concern is that maybe they did not want the vaccine but were forced to by their employer, and I have no idea if that's the case. I think it would be tragic for someone to develop serious problems from the vaccine who only got it because they were pressured or forced to do so. Of course everything about the pandemic is tragic, but I see this as sort of a side effect from it.
It's also a tragedy when someone doesn't get vaccinated out of fear and stubbornness (and I really think it's the latter a lot more than the former), and then passes it to someone vulnerable. And that seems to be happening way, way more.
It doesn't seem like a lot to ask that we at least point out the risks to people and not just accept whatever apprehension they have as inherently valid, when all the information we have strongly suggests they're putting themselves and others in far more danger based on an unwillingness to confront reality.