If there were an award for audacity and stupidity, I would highly recommend state Representative Jim Walsh, Republican from Aberdeen, as the next recipient. Anyone who would even vaguely compare getting a possibly lifesaving COVID-19 vaccination to the Holocaust has absolutely no sense of honor, or understanding of history.

The Jewish populations in Europe at the time of the Holocaust were forced to wear the gold star so that they could be easily identified, marked for discrimination and torture, and eventually faced extermination. They were not given any choice in their fates.

A COVID-19 vaccination, on the other hand, is meant to save lives, reduce hospitalizations and generally stop the spread of a pandemic that has killed more than 600,000 people in this country alone.

Sorry Jim, but your refusal to publicly admit whether you are vaccinated, or not, simply shows that you, like many other Republicans, do not have this country’s best interests at heart. If you cannot bring yourself to the point of recognizing that a vaccination is a good thing; that it may save thousands of lives; that it is not a form of “government impingement of freedom,” then it would be best that you resign your position as a state representative.

In my mind, you are no longer representing the people of Washington State, you are simply carrying out the Republican Party strategy of “Do nothing unless a Republican proposes it,” come Hell or high water.

Larry Wakefield

Former Aberdeen resident

Lacey