COVID vaccines are not the enemy — ignorance is | RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.

In trying to avoid a jab in the arm, the anti-vaxxers have become a real pain in the neck.

In the months since the COVID-19 vaccines became available, I’ve tried to be patient and understanding. This only gave the opposition time to dig in their heels. The country is now more divided by the cure than it ever was by the disease. Insufferable fools have become so full of themselves they probably worry a single needle stab would pop them like a balloon full of hot air.

Last week, a federal appeals court put the brakes on a Biden administration vaccine mandate requiring all businesses with 100 or more employees to ensure — by Jan. 4 — that their workforce is fully vaccinated or undergoes weekly testing for COVID-19.

The second option is meant to persuade people of the sensibleness of the first since, in many cases, the costs for the tests fall on the employee. If you want to close your mind, you had better be ready to open your wallet.

Speaking of closed minds, the elephant in the room is that most vaccine opposition is coming from Republicans. The resistance includes a handful of GOP governors who will likely seek their party’s presidential nomination in 2024 and who seem to think that opposition to vaccine mandates is a winning issue. Public health be damned.

Within 24 hours of the announcement of the Biden vaccine mandate, 26 states had sued to block it.

Now we see one of the major problems baked into this country: Too many Americans want to have their cake and eat it too.

It’s as if someone sat down Generation X and the millennials — those who are now between the ages of 25 and 56 — and told them early on that the way to win the game of life was to enjoy all the benefits without incurring any of the costs.

Want to be a police officer? Awesome. You’ll get civil service protection so you can’t be fired on a whim, guaranteed raises thanks to a strong union and a gold-plated pension when you retire. There’s just one catch. We’re going to need you to roll up your sleeve.

See, the job is to protect and serve. And you can’t very well protect the public while running the risk of exposing them to a deadly virus that has already killed more than 750,000 Americans since March 2020.

Some people want the perks of being a public-sector employee, but not the poke.

While there are still no national statistics showing the vaccination rate for America’s first responders, individual police and fire departments across the country have reported figures far below the national rate of adults who have had at least one dose — which stands at 77 percent.

In Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City, police unions have opposed vaccine mandates. In Denver, police officers sued to block a vaccine mandate, but a judge struck down the challenge.

You can see why this would be confusing to the public. Law enforcement is, after all, a profession that exists to ensure that the rest of us obey the rules, from trespassing laws and speed limits to prohibition against violent crimes. And here you have a big chunk of the individuals charged with enforcing the rules asking to be exempted from the rules.

You’ve heard how doctors make the worst patients and how teachers are often the worst students. Here’s another one: It turns out that authority figures sometimes have problems with authority. Who knew?

As if that were not confusing enough, people are probably also scratching their heads over the fact that so many parents are fighting vaccine requirements at public schools. After all, for generations, it’s been the case that parents can’t even enroll their children for the first day of school without showing proof of immunization against a half-dozen other diseases. What’s the big deal about adding one more to the list?

Our leaders have failed us again. Americans are hearing a lot these days about rights, but not enough about the responsibilities that come with exercising them. We’re so eager to assert the autonomy of the individual that we’ve lost sight of the price that one pays to belong to a community.

This isn’t liberty and freedom. This is selfishness and madness. And unfortunately, there are no shots for those ailments.

Ruben Navarrette’s email address is crimscribe@icloud.com. His podcast, “Ruben in the Center,” is available through every podcast app.