MAYBE VACCINES AREN’T
THE POINT AFTER ALL
My last post asked why the Coronavirus pandemic has “been treated differently from other public health crises.” Why the continuing talk of lockdowns, internal passports, and other extreme measures, when we know that…
“fatality rates for this plague are much less than for other serious diseases.”
In particular I asked why the passionate push for everyone to take vaccines that have shown they don’t protect us from either catching or spreading Covid, and which can have side effects that are seriously damaging, even fatal?
Commenters on that post offered a variety of theories, many having to do with “power,” “control,” “de-population,” encouraging “dependency,” and other Orwellian motives. “Money” was a recurring line of speculation.
(One commenter got metaphysical, suggesting that taking the vaccine is a prelude to accepting the mark of the beast.)
Relevant as any of those factors might be, none in itself seems completely to the heart of the matter. What’s the ultimate goal? How do such tactical purposes play into the long game?
Is there a long game?
Last Thursday night I watched Joe Biden’s announcement of an aggressive inoculation campaign. And aggressive surely is the correct word to describe it, given all the targets, orders, and threatened penalties he laid out.
Right in the middle of his speech, I experienced a kind of Zen moment.
Zen moment?
Allow me to explain.
During Zen Buddhist training, the initiate is given an insoluble puzzle, a paradoxical problem known as a koan, on which to meditate. A well known example is…
Imagine the sound of one hand clapping.
The purpose of the exercise isn’t to arrive at a logical answer, but to prompt what’s called satori. This is an awakening, an existential insight, a moment of intuitive enlightenment.
Joe’s patently false claims for vaccine effectiveness and safety were certainly paradoxical. They totally contradicted reports of the life-shattering reactions and the growing numbers of re-infections and vaccine deaths coming in from around the world.
But they served as a kind of koan for me, bringing me to a moment of existential insight.
My satori was the thought that this whole inoculation effort isn’t about vaccines at all.
Who cares whether they work? Who cares if they’re hazardous? The point of all this is something quite different. And Joe revealed it clearly.
In fact, his clarity during the whole address was surprising. There were a few pauses and word stumbles, but those were minor. Overall, he was quite focused, and he didn’t wander off message (he was obviously well coached, and probably pumped full of Aricept).
The announced vaccination mandates — excuse me, I guess we’re not supposed to say “mandate” anymore; too politically awkward —
The announced vaccination requirements are not intended as effective public health measures. Rather, they’re to be used as tools with which to undermine the authority of state governments.
That is to say, to destroy Federalism, the separation of powers specified in our Constitution.
In other words, the current regime isn’t content to merely ignore the Constitution, in the way Barack Obama did. The Bidenites have declared open war on it.
Joe left no doubt about the administration’s focus on states. He announced that the attack will be launched first in public schools…
“I’m calling on all governors to require vaccination for all teachers and staff. Some already have done so, but we need more to step up.”
You can be sure this wasn’t a request for gubernatorial cooperation…
“My plan also takes on elected officials and states that are undermining you and these lifesaving actions. Right now, local school officials are trying to keep children safe in a pandemic while their governor picks a fight with them and even threatens their salaries or their jobs …. if these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic, I’ll use my power as President to get them out of the way.”
Get them out of the way?
He ain’t foolin’ around…
“The Department of Education has already begun to take legal action against states undermining protection that local school officials have ordered.”
Joe doubled down the next day, repeating his message at a DC middle school — as reported by Gateway Pundit…
“‘What is your message to Republicans who are calling your vaccine requirements an overreach? Who are threatening to challenge it in court?’ a reporter asked Biden on Friday.
“‘Have at it,’ Biden said.”
Faculty and staff needn’t worry, of course. In a sop to the teachers unions, Joe assured our nation’s educators that they won’t be caught in the crossfire…
“Any teacher or school official whose pay is withheld [by those mean ol’ GOP governors] for doing the right thing, we will have that pay restored by the federal government 100 percent. I promise you I will have your back.”
So there, Ron DeSantis!
Take that, all you obstructionist Republicans!
Of course, the bureaucratic assault on state, county and municipal authority isn’t new. The Department of Education has been directing (if not running) the functions and curricula of school districts for years. Likewise, OSHA has preempted local health and safety regulation. And need one even mention federal land use restrictions and environmental directives?
But Joe is now completing this encroachment effort by mandating — excuse me, by requiring — oh, what the hell, by demanding that companies with more than 100 employees insist on inoculation as a condition of employment. Mustn’t overlook private enterprise.
Thus the pandemic becomes a useful tool for bypassing the states and localities. Making them totally irrelevant. And that, it seems to me, is the long game: FEDERALIZE EVERYTHING.
As they say in lefty circles…
Never let a crisis go to waste.
This is only the beginning, of course. Once the precedent has been established that Washington has authority over all aspects of life, there’ll be no stopping the power grabs.
According to the Epoch Times, the Department of Health and Human Services has already announced establishment of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity, designed to…
“adapt ‘lessons learned’ from the government’s COVID-19 response to address the effects of climate change on public health.”
One can only imagine those lessons and their creative application by bureaucrats of unbounded creativity. The implications for centralized coordination are staggering.
Ah, well… Goodbye separation of powers. Goodbye Constitution.
We’ll no longer be the United States of America.
Just America.
The upside is that states are already pushing back. As reported by the Epoch Times, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem spoke for Republican governors across the country when she tweeted…
“My legal team is standing by ready to file our lawsuit the minute Joe Biden files his unconstitutional rule. This gross example of federal intrusion will not stand.”
Kristi was seconded by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who wrote that his administration will…
“pursue every legal option available” in order to halt what he called a “blatantly unlawful overreach.”
Along with Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, who insisted the…
“Biden-Harris administration is hammering down on private businesses and individual freedoms in an unprecedented and dangerous way. This will never stand up in court.
“This dictatorial approach is wrong, un-American, and will do far more harm than good. How many workers will be displaced? How many kids are kept out of classrooms? How many businesses fined? The vaccine is and should be a choice.”
On the private side, walkouts are occurring at companies and organizations insisting on vaccination. Hospitals are already feeling the loss of doctors, nurses, and other health personnel.
Not that such a show of unity and resistance dims the hopes of ambitious Democrats currently channeling their inner Mussolini.
White House senior adviser Cedric Richmond expressed his confidence that Biden is willing to “run over” any governors who get in the way of this totalitarian juggernaut…
“The one thing I admire about this president,” he said, “is the fact that we are always going to put people above politics. And we’re going to fight for those who really need our help.”
Ah yes, people above politics. An old song, ever new.
Well, God bless our GOP governors and local resisters. May He favor their cause. It’s our last line of defense against this wave of tyranny.
What used to be so quaintly called “states rights” have been steadily worn away since the Civil War. The current assault on the Electoral College — that under-appreciated guardian of the states and the separation of powers — is very much part of this relentless trend.
But maybe things are changing.
Perhaps the tramp-tramp-tramp of people on the march, finally reasserting the people’s prerogatives, is the key to our shared existential moment.
Maybe a loud NO!, shouted in unison across the land, is the sound of one hand clapping.
____________
Those calumnies directed at the vaccine-hesitant continue, as I mentioned in my last post. Here’s a typical blast. And do take time to read the note above the cartoon…
Update
After posting this essay I came across a meme, currently circulating on Facebook, which quotes the famous essayist Henry Louis Mencken (often referred to as the “Sage of Baltimore”). It’s a perfect expression of the Bidenesque impulse…
____________
The Daily Wire offers a good overview of what Republican Governors are saying about resistance to the Biden Administration’s unconstitutional overreach…
One can’t adequately address the vaccine question without considering the Church’s teaching on inoculation, a subject about which there is much confusion. Eric Sammons, editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine, attempts to shed some light on the subject…
“Modern people tend to believe that if something is good, then it’s also good to mandate it. That attitude, however, is contrary to Catholic moral teaching, which is solidly founded upon the acceptance of human free will. Freedom is a fundamental moral principle. If someone does something that is an objectively wrong act, but is forced to do it, that mitigates and possibly even removes the sinfulness of the action. Likewise, if someone is forced to do something good, that also mitigates its moral goodness. Without freedom, there is no morality.”
Read Sammons’ thoughts at…
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2021/vaccine-mandates-violate-catholic-moral-teaching
Funny how certain ideas assert themselves again and again. Funnier yet when you discover how many times what seems like a new idea has been put forth before. The Irish Sentinel draws attention to a 2011 essay with the provocative title…
Depopulation Through Forced Vaccination:
The Zero Carbon Solution
Yes, it’s a bit overheated, and a little on the conspiratorial side. Nevertheless, it’s one of those things that make you go Hmmmm…
We can take solace in the fact that Joe Biden isn’t the most extreme vaccine advocate. Writing on PJ Media, Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, draws attention to Steve Cox a candidate for Congress in California’s 39th District. Mandates are too namby-pamby for Cox. He advocates a more direct response to vaccine hesitancy…
“Whenever anyone says ‘we all die from something’ (or a variation thereof) to justify not taking precautions to help protect others in this pandemic, we should be allowed to shoot them. ‘Why are you crying? We all die from something.’ For you, it’s that bullet in your gut.”
Tom says
Whoa!
You got it Bill. This is the truth spoken aloud. Thank you and God bless you.
May I lend my hand to yours so that our mutual clapping may be heard above all this nonsense?
Bravo!
Sidney says
From: Facebook…
It is certainly war on the Constitution, which Biden places himself above as the God-given, in his mind, grand leader of our country!
Al says
a pseudonym in an echo chamber
the sound of no hand clapping
Bill Kassel says
Deep, Al. Very deep.
Have you been studying Zen again?
Al says
hip waders and shovel at the ready
Rose says
Excellent insight, Bill. There is indeed a long game — it started in the Garden of Eden and got momentum from Karl Marx.
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Gwen M. says
From: Facebook
This is a superbly on-point article exposing the true goal of Joe Biden: to undermine Federalism and destroy it. We will become America … and not the United States of America.
My hope for the midterms is that the Republicans will take control of the House and Senate, and replace RINOs with insightful individuals who will be on guard against the stealth intrusion of socialist, destructive agendas.