I need you to know how sick and callous that "it will be good if they die" attitude is to me. I know you think it's just, but as an outsider who isn't as politically inflamed as you are, it looks truly sick.
I realized I wasn’t hoping death on the people who gleefully refused to comply with basic pandemic presentation measures. That was a sort of sick dark humor to help with the fact they were exhibiting anti-social behavior but we live in a a non-just world and so they would go unpunished. The only punishment coming their way was from nature, and I didn’t celebrate it so much as not find it in myself to care.
On reflection I was just angry they were violating the social compact and wished somehow not to have them in my tribe. I think that’s very human, we don’t tolerate society members that endanger the society especially in extreme moments. We were at war, I was sacrificing to fight, and they were effectively treasonous in that fight.
The biggest help was realizing they lived in effectively an alternative world with alternative fake facts.
I’ve mostly overcome that anger now that I’m not actively in a pandemic but it’s really hard to feel good about people that willingly endangered my grandma. I don’t know how society would fare in a more serious pandemic and that scares me. My trust in society has been permanently broken.
Saying that it’s okay for bonafide anti-intellectuals to meet the fate they’ve crafted for themselves despite all evidence is no sign of political inflammation. Be serious.
We don't withhold mercy because someone doesn't believe in receiving help, or because they play for the opposite "team". We do our best to help anyway.
A doctor doesn't withhold treatment because a patient believes God is responsible for healing them. We don't stop trying to eradicate Polio because people distrust vaccines. It can be a thankless uphill battle, but that's the human condition, and it's important to retain human empathy.
We shouldn't gloat when someone dies from Covid, just like we shouldn't gloat when someone dies from HIV AIDS. We're all in the human experience together, sharing this infinitesimal overlapping moment within the lightcone. It'll be easier to push together instead of treating everything as a tug of war. Sometimes that means being nice to people you disagree with.