An editorial cartoon in the June 19 Telegraph shows two rows of people lined up at two separate drinking fountains. One is labeled “vaccinated,” and the other “unvaccinated.” The cartoonist owes readers an apology. If Marjory Taylor Green can squeeze one out for comparing mask requirements in the House of Representatives to the Holocaust, the artist can manage one for comparing vaccination rules to Jim Crow segregation. I’ve turned the image in a dozen different directions and can’t find any other interpretation.

The comparison is offensive, because there is no comparison. Jim Crow was the violent oppression of people of color. It was the institutionalization of racist ideology in every aspect of American life – work, housing, voting, banking, health care, education – even the right to marry whomever we chose. COVID rules are not oppression; they’re a reasoned response to a highly communicable disease. We can choose not to be vaccinated, and even to flout mask and gathering mandates, as the anti-mask geniuses in the State Legislature did. But all decisions come with both benefits and costs, and even in the Land of the Free, very few can escape living with the consequences of the choices we make. If my vaccinated family suddenly starts attracting ball bearings, being tracked by Bill Gates, or sprouting tendrils because our DNA has been manipulated, we have no right to complain, because those were the risks we took when we made our decision. If anti-vaxers are excluded from some businesses, concerts, or other events, that’s likewise a cost of their decision.

Living with consequences isn’t oppression, and tantrums about vaccines or masks in grocery stores, school board meetings, and airplanes at 30,000 feet are not principled demonstrations against injustice. They are an expression of the primal rage of toddlers finding out they can’t have both the cookie and the cupcake. If we choose to ride a bus, go to a store or restaurant, or gather at an event, we’re also choosing to abide by their rules. If we choose to challenge those rules, we are also choosing to be escorted off the premises. This is a simple concept a disturbing number of Americans seem not to have learned in their formative years.

Let’s stop stoking the rage machine. The Social Contract is not subjugation. It is a set of rules and guidelines essential to living in community with one another. Accountability for our choices is not oppression. It is a necessary cost of our freedom to choose. America is 238 years old. It’s time to grow up.