"You have knuckled under now that the consequences of your childish behavior have been made clear to you by the fresh graves of other Americans who were doing the same stupid thing.

But I know you need your feelings to be taken care of, because if there's one thing that a proud freedom-loving American can't handle, it's regret. So good job getting your shot, champ. You sure were a brave boy, and don't you worry yourself one little bit about your dead neighbors. They're all gone now, and you don't suck."

God forbid we abandon any chance to look down on our neighbors.

I, OTOH, convinced one of my non-vaxing friends to get their first shot Saturday. That makes five of them in the last two months. I found that patience and a distinct lack of smarmy self-righteousness went a very long way to getting the job done. Which, after all, is the point.

May not do much to the numerator, but it's better than nothing.

Most effective when persuading your friends?

Give me a fire team of Marines we’ll have this fixed in a month.

Let me choose those Marines myself it’ll be a couple weeks