Arch Stanton

Here are two communications that I recently received.  The first was by email, the second by text:

FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKIN VACINATED YOU STUPID TWISTED BRAINWASHED HUMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And,

Without being rude here, why do we have to get vaccinated?

Both were in reference to a rule in my parks.  Applicants for residence need to show proof of vaccination in order to be approved.  I have learned to put the requirement up front in the Craigslist ads, because some people have gotten angry when they found out about the requirement after they have paid their $20 application fee.

The second question came from a guy who is the cousin of the new maintenance guy at the park in central New York.  His WOG is the niece of someone who has lived in that park since the previous administration, and they would like to buy his home.  New Maintenance Guy appears to be quite a mensch, so I gave his cousin the benefit of the doubt.  Here’s how I replied:

It is a public safety measure.  It would not be fair to your neighbors for you to not take reasonable precautions against a communicable and deadly disease.  It is also for my sake – it would do neither of us any good if you spent a month out of work in the hospital with a disease that can be easily prevented.  You should get vaccinated regardless of whether you move in.  The vaccine is safe, free, easily accessible, no-risk, high-reward – and you owe it to your neighbors to prevent the spread of a preventable disease.

The cousin replied, “OK, thank you”, got vaccinated and texted me proof thereof within an hour.

The first message was a bit more off-putting.  It was signed “Arch Stanton”.  A search for that name revealed two sources.  One is a bit character (if you can call him that) in the Spaghetti Western The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.  The gold that is dug up and stolen that puts the plot (if you can call it that) of the movie in motion is buried in an unmarked grave next to a grave marked with a wooden cross with the name Arch Stanton and a date of death in 1862 on it.  The second is the name of an album by the stoner rock band Karma to Burn.  I believe that the second is a reference to the first.

(I have always liked spaghetti westerns, but do not know much about them.  I understand that The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (il buono, il brutto e il cattivo, in the original) was filmed in Italy, Mexico and Spain, and that many of the desert scenes were filmed in Spain.  I have reason to believe that the wooden cross with the name Arch Stanton is still on location in Spain and that visitors can take selfies next to it and post them on Instagram, Tumblr and Tick Tok.)

Regardless – my Arch Stanton – they guy who named himself after the dead spaghetti western extra, or the stoner rock album – is a dingbat.  He belongs to the same group as the guy who said that the vaccination rule violated the Geneva Convention, people who protest DUI laws because they interfere with what they put in their body, people who refuse to buy liability insurance for their cars, members of NAMBLA, date rapists, and people who throw beer cans into other people’s yards.  These are the people who confuse their freedom with my nose.

And that is a third reason for the vaccination requirement.  It is not a primary reason, but it is a salubrious epiphenomenon.  If an applicant will not listen to reason about an issue as clear-cut as the need for vaccinations, they will not listen to reason about, say, the need to mow their lawn, clean up their garbage, fix their skirting, get rid of their pitbull, or move their meth-cooking operations away from land zoned for residential use.  There are plenty of anti-vaxxers who make good residents – Dee Dee and Refines Gold are both anti-vaxxers – but in today’s political climate, it is best to be extra careful about how you vet potential residents.  It is cheaper to let a unit lie fallow for a few months than to rent it to a crappy resident.

Here is how I answered Mr. Stanton:

Sorry – what is this about?

I have not heard from Mr. Stanton since.  But I think that he has already sucked all of the logic out of his position and fed it to me in his first post.