In October of 1936, Dale Carnegie published the self-help book How to Win Friends and Influence People. In 2011, it was number 19 on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential books. It is a book that Dr David Shafran has apparently not read.

‘Selfish or stupid.’ Rejecting COVID vaccine puts healthcare workers in real danger.

By David Safran^[1]At least as of 2:36 PM, the Herald-Leader spelled the author’s name ‘Safran’ at the beginning of the article, and ‘Shafran’ at the end. | July 21, 2021 | 10:42 AM | Updated: 11:04 AM EDT

“If you can get the vaccine, and decide not to, then you’ve made your choice: Don’t ask for sympathy or money when you get sick”. Conservative columnist Bret Stephens offered that comment in the NY Times on July 19 as an alternative when referring to President Biden’s ill-received comment about people “killing America” by not getting the vaccine.

Sounds great, and I agree to a point. But unfortunately, thanks to a federal regulation with the acronym EMTALA, which stands for Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, the comment, like our president’s, is empty. The law was passed in 1986 with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by President Reagan. It basically states if the hospital receives payments from Medicare, a person had a right to be seen, or from the other point of view, a doctor is forced to see and take care of a patient, whether or not they could pay the bills. Physicians learned to call EMTALA the Anti-Patient Dumping Act, as they could no longer refuse to see uninsured patients, or more likely “dump them” on a bigger hospital. Private hospitals got around the law by closing their emergency rooms.

Now, with the environment of healthcare completely different, I would like to rename EMTALA the People’s Inherent right to Selfishness and Stupidity Act. As we are seeing in this country, when it comes to Covid, unvaccinated Americans are either for the most part selfish or stupid.

There’s more at the original, and even more in the last paragraph, but I ended my copying at the most important point. Dr Shafran specifically, and the Lexington Herald-Leader editorially, and Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) generally speaking, are all trying to persuade Kentuckians who have not yet chosen to be vaccinated to go ahead and take one of the freely available COVID-19 vaccines. But perhaps, just perhaps, calling the people they are (purportedly) trying to persuade “stupid or selfish” might not be a method of which Mr Carnegie would have approved.

Of course, while Dr Shafran was very explicit in expressing his beliefs, Herald-Leader columnist Linda Blackford couldn’t contain her snarkiness:

The political divide is no help, of course. Tuesday morning, (Louisville Courier-Journal) reporter Olivia Kraus noted that House Education Chair Regina Huff had deleted a tweet in which she compared Dr. Anthony Fauci’s vaccine advocacy to the Jonestown massacre. We used to be a nation of science. Now (as the world burns down around us) we let conservative news shows convince us that the vaccine is depositing microchips into our arms so Google can figure out what you had for breakfast, as though it didn’t already know this from your phone. One in five Americans believe the microchips, according to a new poll by The Economist and YouGov.com.

Mr Carnegie could sell ice water to Eskimos; I have my doubts that Dr Shafran or Mrs Blackford could sell ice water in Hell.

If you want to influence people, to persuade people to your position, the first thing you need to do is not be an [insert slang term for the rectum here.] You don’t need to be Max Boot, saying that the President should order people to get vaccinated, and that those who refuse should be cut off from all social life. You don’t need to be Jen Psaki, saying that the Biden Administration is working with Facebook to censor “misinformation,” or that if you are banned from one social media site, you should be banned from all. The American people don’t take well to censorship.

What you need to do is identify with people, to show them your concern and your respect for their thoughts, feelings and beliefs. You need to demonstrate an attitude that they’ve won if they bought what you are selling, not that you’ve won if they do. And you must show that you respect their choices, and their right to take those choices, even if you disagree with their decisions.