A Los Angeles Times columnist came under fire on Monday for publishing a column celebrating the deaths of those who are anti-vaxx or are opposed to mandates.
The headline of Michael Hiltzik’s column was “Mocking anti-vaxxers’ deaths is ghoulish, yes — but necessary.”
In it, he wrote:
It may be not a little ghoulish to celebrate or exult in the deaths of vaccine opponents. And it may be proper to express sympathy and solicitude to those they leave behind.
But mockery is not necessarily the wrong reaction to those who publicly mocked anti-COVID measures and encouraged others to follow suit before they perished of the disease the dangers of which they belittled.
Nor is it wrong to deny them our sympathy and solicitude, or to make sure it’s known when their deaths are marked that they had stood fast against measures that might have protected others from the fate they succumbed to themselves.
There may be no other way to make sure that the lessons of these teachable moments are heard.
Twitter users blasted Hiltzik.
You guys really know how to write them at the LA Times. pic.twitter.com/mHrU7X3TbF
— Accuracy In Media (@AccuracyInMedia) January 10, 2022
How does a piece laughing at Covid deaths, and thus the pain their loved ones go through, make it through the @LATimes editing process?
Awful. https://t.co/BySLIh4b5x
— Doug Heye (@DougHeye) January 10, 2022
This walking comorbidity https://t.co/5xnPOQBqOH
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) January 10, 2022
I’m gonna laugh and mock you when you die. I might take an ad out in the LA Times specifically laughing at your death. https://t.co/ZNedi58rZ8
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) January 10, 2022
As an obese elderly man, now is probably not a good time to be mocking anyone for dying https://t.co/XgVWQBhtEr
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) January 10, 2022
So disgusting https://t.co/T5sLHrUxg6
— Susan Ferrechio (@susanferrechio) January 10, 2022
Imagine mocking someone’s death and then having the audacity to suggest you’re doing it for other people’s safety.
The sanctimonious people who claim to care about you, don’t. They just like to pretend because it makes them feel superior. https://t.co/Ib2mD2B2dK
— Alana Mastrangelo (@ARmastrangelo) January 10, 2022
Imagine writing any of the following:
“Mocking overdose deaths is ghoulish, yes – but necessary” to stop people from doing drugs
“Mocking women who die at the hands of a domestic abuser is ghoulish, yes- but necessary” to stop people from staying in abusive relationships https://t.co/ztOu5rSo4H
— Brianna Lyman (@briannalyman2) January 10, 2022
It’s always the same dipshits. https://t.co/aQQmZUEAuj pic.twitter.com/nVKgNddPLu
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) January 10, 2022
Imagine being this horrible of a person. https://t.co/GAcatruSKE
— Travis Wilson (@travisWSN) January 10, 2022
