Reform Schools

Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism.

― Samuel Butler

Nearly half the Trumpsters, says CNN, are refusing vaccination. These unbaptized threaten herd immunity.

So I think it's time to quarantine them, for all our sakes.

The most effective quarantine, in my opinion, would be reform schools.

I know I sound like Mao (he made extensive use of reform schools to intern nonbelievers, and his attempts at "cultural cleaning" earned him a shady reputation).

But what choice do we have? We believers simply must stand up to nonbelievers—even if it means they're inconvenienced by a brief getaway to the gulags.

Besides, reform schools can provide terrific classrooms where we can reeducate the Trumpsters. Critical race theorists can teach all the courses. They'll love that.

Trump, after all, is a fascist strongman, and the longer I watch his adherents' antics, the more ready I become to abandon my nice guy attitude.

Think about it: Trumpsters aren't aggrieved; they're evil; and there are only two ways to deal with collective evil.

The first is nonviolence. 

In his 1960 essay "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence," Martin Luther King described how he dealt with Jim Crow injustice through nonviolence (satyagraha). Nonviolence relies on guilt to overwhelm an opponent. It "reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality," King wrote.

But Trumpsters, like psychopaths, are guiltless; and so we must turn to the second way to deal with collective evil: violence.

Sure, the nice guy in you might object, but recognize violence gets a bum rap. A little surgically applied now and then can work wonders. Just ask Mao.

Unlike my friends—who're preparing to flee to Europe—I'm ready to see the Trumpsters rounded up and packed off to reform schools. The sooner, the better.

You with me?

POSTSCRIPT: Happy Birthing People Day.