OPINION:
Florida is poised to become the first state in the nation to put an end to any and all state-imposed vaccines to children, including those that have been generally accepted and administered for decades, such as polio and MMR, i.e., measles, mumps and rubella. And predictably, the left is going nuts, warning of lives lost and death counts and dire circumstances.
But the leftists have only themselves to blame for Florida’s action. If Democrats hadn’t been so tyrannical — and happily so — during the COVID years, then the distrust of America’s health bureaucracies wouldn’t be so great.
Democrats swung the political pendulum wide to the side of controlling citizens’ lives, and now it’s only natural for the citizens to swing it back the other way, to the side of individual choice and freedom. What is more personal and private than the choice of medical treatments on one’s own body?
Democrats dismissed that concept under COVID. They embarked on a crusade, a crazy, lunatic fringe crusade, to lock down those who refused to get the COVID shot — the multiple COVID shots — to wear the face mask — to wear even multiple face masks — to stay home, stay off the streets, stay out of schools, stay out of work, stay away from church and stick firmly in Obedience Mode to whatever prevailing wisdom, or whim, of bureaucratically issued clamp on freedom became the preferred pick of the day.
Question the emergency use authorization of the COVID shots, and whether they were experimental in nature? Get booted off YouTube.
Ask about the efficacy rates of the shots that kept changing over time — moving from claims of 90-plus percent protection guarantees to 60-or-so percent protection guarantees to below 40 percent protection guarantees in a matter of months? Weeks, even? Got tossed from then-Twitter.
Wonder aloud why police were chasing a runner down the empty beaches of California and arresting maskless passengers aboard subways and handcuffing pastors who dared keep open their churches — even though they weren’t breaking any laws, because no laws had been passed restricting movement during COVID, but rather only emergency orders? Get thrown off Facebook.
Get fined.
Get fined to the collective tune of millions of dollars, all for the crime, err, “crime” of failing to obey a government order, a government dictate, a government whim.
For years, Americans suffered the obfuscations of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the so-called infectious diseases expert, as he told Americans to hop this way, no wait, skip that way, no wait, jump over that hoop — and then denied his false and misleading non-scientific “science” was responsible for stripping citizens of their God-given rights; that he was only the scientist, not the politician; and yet, simultaneously, that he “was science” and those who didn’t listen to him were putting in peril the health of millions — his list of abuses against the American people is long.
For years, Americans suffered the Joe Biden administration’s use of COVID to keep people in their homes, to keep on the good side of teachers’ unions by keeping shut the schools, to mandate shots to supposedly free citizens as conditions of traveling, working, gathering in groups — unless, of course, the group was gathering for a Black Lives Matter rally, in which case not only were face mask requirements tossed to the side, but so, too, health standards on sharing bottled drinks with strangers.
Odd, too, was the fact that under Biden, the American citizen had to obey whatever COVID-tied rule that was created for that given day — but illegals crossing the border were not only given free passes on shots, but actually bused, utterly unvaccinated, to points north, east and west of the border, and housed in hotels and schools at taxpayer expense.
If the shots worked, why were so many “vaccinated” people testing positive for COVID, again and again and again?
If the shots worked, why would Citizen A’s refusal to take the shot impact the health of Citizen B?
If the shots were completely safe and effective, why didn’t Pfizer want to release the data used to develop and test the shots for 75 years? Why, why, why — we still don’t know the answers to all.
So of course Americans are hesitant to shoot up their kids with drugs the bureaucrats claim are safe and effective.
So of course there’s a backlash brewing against the very bureaucracies that are supposed to use truthful science and trusted data to bring the American people the very best medical advisements.
So of course some of the very citizens in America who watched with great alarm as the Democrats exploited the fear of the virus to seize nearly all the rights and liberties that are considered sacred and to be cherished — so of course these citizens want to make sure the Democrats can never again do the same; that they can never again use the medical world to control the people.
“Florida to become first state to end all vaccine mandates, including in schools,” CNBC wrote.
And to that, Sen. Roger Marshall, Kansas Republican, said: “I think that’s a bridge way too far. But I think this is an overreaction because people don’t trust what the CDC has been telling them.”
Well, maybe it is an overreaction and maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s just a way of making clear that parents and individuals have the right to decide what medical treatments to take, and what medical treatments to refuse — which is really a right that was already guaranteed to American citizens. Unfortunately, Democrats forgot that. Egregiously, Democrats ignored that.
And now the whirlwinds of an awakened free people are being reaped.
Democrats, leftists, Marxists — they brought Florida to this point. And hopefully, they will bring other states to do the same.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
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