Turn the Totalitarian Tide
May 18, 2020
During the question and answer session on May 15, after his announcement of Operation Warp Speed, Trump said “…we’re looking for a full vaccine for everyone that wants to get it. Not everybody is going to want to get it.”
Breathe a trifle easier on that score, leaving aside in this blog any criticism of this operation. Trump sees a vaccine as optional. That is a plus. But big risks to freedom remain. Jacobson v. Massachusetts 197 U.S. 11 (1905) rules that the 50 states can enforce compulsory vaccinations. Individual states may NOW make a vaccine mandatory. Trump may change his mind, or some future president or Congress may make vaccinations mandatory at the federal level.
States have displayed the political will illegally to cause businesses to shut down, through force or the threat thereof. What’s to stop them from forcing vaccinations, especially when the Supreme Court has made it legal?
Government at any level can pass new totalitarian laws that build upon existing totalitarian foundations. They can create tie-ins. They can say that unless you are vaccinated, you cannot register your car or renew a license or use public transportation, or visit a doctor, or enter a restaurant, or attend an entertainment event, or get a marriage license, etc. Governments can extort you into vaccination in a hundred ways that tie some crucial activity into a test, the test being that you’ve been vaccinated.
Many other totalitarian tests can be invented, such as you get no license to drive unless you trade in all your cash for digital money. You are not allowed outside unless you wear a mask or wear an identifying bracelet or can be tracked by a chip implant, etc. Any inventive totalitarian can come up with hundreds of totalitarian controls over our lives.
Rights are at risk. Freedoms of all sorts are at risk. Advances in technology are raising these risks. They can be counteracted. They must be counteracted. They will be counteracted.
Freedom cannot rely upon a few words spoken by a president. Americans who want freedom are called upon to stop the totalitarian tide and turn it. They are called to invent the means, and there are many possible.
A Perfect Storm