It is easier to be a tyrant than to promote freedom; easier to defend it, than it is to fight it; but in either case, the latter is always the more noble.
On August 6th, Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY-15) introduced bill H. R. 4980 to the House that would enforce mandatory vaccinations for citizens traveling domestically on flight. As of August 17th, Ed Case (D-HI-1) is a co-sponsor.
The bill reads:
“(a) In General.—The Secretary of Homeland Security, acting through the Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, shall take such actions as are necessary to ensure that any individual traveling on a flight that departs from or arrives to an airport inside the United States or a territory of the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID–19.”
This bill comes at a time when California has recently banned state-funded travel to red states, including Florida, Arkansas, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia. These five are added to a list of the 12 states where travel has already been banned. Attorney General Rob Bonta has cited the reason for the ban being that these states are “directly targeting transgender youth.”
Despite Texas’ challenge to California’s ban, the Supreme Court has refused to hear the case. This is hardly surprising to conservatives, who have lost faith in the nation’s highest court when they refused to hear cases relating to election fraud.
Seeking to sanction states and citizens because of their ideological beliefs has been commonplace in the U.S.
In February, Joe Biden sought to impose travel restrictions on red states, including Florida, claiming that red states are experiencing higher deaths from COVID-19. Overall, Florida has had less deaths that New York and California; Texas and New York have had nearly identical overall deaths. Over this period, cases have ranged from 2-4,000,000. And this is only considering the largest states in the nation.
Since the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 has been politicized. From mask wearing to lockdowns and now to mask and vaccination mandates, political leaders, with the aid of their “experts,” have been shaping public policy to positively affect the complicit and negatively impact the dissident.
Mainstream media makes this strategy explicitly clear. On CNN, Don Lemon believes life for the unvaccinated must be severely limited: “Don’t get the vaccine? You can’t go to the supermarket… no ball game… you can’t go to work… no shirt, no shoes, no service.”
In April, medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen explicitly went on air and professed that, to those with concerns over the vaccine, “we need to make it clear that the vaccine is the ticket back to pre-pandemic life… We have a narrow window to tie reopening to vaccination status. Otherwise, if everything is reopened, what is the carrot going to be? How are we going to incentivize people to actually get the vaccine?”
Not pushing faulty science and speaking like a tyrant would be a great start.
The bill continues:
“(b) Exception.—In carrying out subsection (a), the Secretary shall ensure there is an exception to the requirement described in such subsection for an individual who is ineligible or medically unable to be fully vaccinated against COVID–19.”
Despite the claim that exceptions will be granted for those seeking to travel who are “ineligible or medically unable to be fully vaccinated”, we are currently seeing pregnant women denied medical care because they are unvaccinated, despite the risks, potential and unknown, that pregnant women face.
The only case that Dr. Fauci gives for why pregnant women “should” get the vaccine is that if they become infected with COVID-19, then they could potentially face hospitalization; however, he has spoken nothing to the adverse effects of the vaccine. The CDC has also recommended that pregnant women receive the vaccine, with data claiming a miscarriage rate of 13%.
Whatever one’s personal views on receiving the vaccine, it becomes hard to think that airlines will allow unvaccinated pregnant women on their flights. If pregnant women can no longer be exempt from vaccination by one swift word from Dr. Fauci and the CDC, then who can?
This section of the bill is a logical addition if it had any real-world application, but it is, in practice, an empty concession.
The last section reads:
“(c) Definition.—In this Act, the term “fully vaccinated against COVID–19” means receiving all recommended doses of a COVID–19 vaccine that is licensed under section 351 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 262) or authorized for emergency use under section 564 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 360bbb–3).”
In other words, “fully vaccinated against COVID-19” means receiving any and all recommended doses, whether it’s one shot, two shots, or a booster shot every six months; whatever the CDC and Dr. Fauci begin to push for will become mandatory. Put another way, regardless of the science that showcase potentially adverse effects with the vaccine, the words of the “experts” who shill for big pharma, and whom politicians decide to listen to, is what truly matters.
In this way, this last section is flexible. The Secretary of Homeland Security could deem anyone a threat simply because they “disobeyed” the medical decisions conferred to them by politicians and unelected “experts.” These “experts” can shape public policy despite never being elected.
With the passage of this bill, we’ll be taking one more step toward politically and medically segregating a significant portion of the U.S. population as “undesirables” and, worse, “terror threats,” as the DHS recently called any opposers to COVID-19 measures in their bulletin targeting conservatives.
