His View: It’s time to stop president’s tyrannical overreach

Last week, President Biden announced he is mandating all private-sector companies with more than 100 employees require their workforce to be vaccinated for COVID-19, or else be fired, tested weekly or fined $14k per violation. This ultimatum will affect more than 100 million workers, or two-thirds of the U.S. workforce. How is requiring an ID to vote oppression but requiring one to work compassionate?

This is another flip-flop for Biden, who nine months ago said the vaccine would not be mandatory for Americans. But it is an excellent political move. This unifies the Democrats who prefer heavy-handed, federal partisan politics over personal liberty (unless it is sexual, abortive, or drug-related) but divides Republicans who are split on vaccine mandates.

Biden powered his campaign trail with the ludicrous promise to subdue the coronavirus, and plans on doing and spending whatever it takes to achieve that absurd goal. Absurd, because it took more than 150 years to eradicate smallpox, while we’ve never eradicated polio, malaria, the common cold, flu, measles, mumps and other viruses. How he plans to eradicate this virus in his first term is a mystery.

While acknowledging that he has no constitutional authority to mandate this on Congress or the federal courts, Biden presumes he can do so on the private sector. Republican governors say they will fight this unprecedented federal overreach. Biden’s response: “If those governors won’t help us beat the pandemic, I will use my power as president to get them out of the way.” Good thing we got rid of dictator Trump.

Further, Biden’s remark to Americans, “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin,” shows the totalitarian mindset of the administration. Since when is the elected impatient with the electorate?

One in eight healthcare workers are refusing the vaccine and are threatening to walk off the job if it’s mandated. Many of those are young women afraid that the mRNA treatment will affect their unborn babies. Since they would never smoke or drink during pregnancy, why would they ever consider taking a novel, untested mRNA vaccine? Pfizer and Moderna say there’s no proof of their claims. These women shoot back: where are your long-term clinical trial data? Everyone knows who the lab rats are. And what recourse would they have? Moderna and Pfizer are protected from lawsuits regarding their COVID-19 vaccines until 2024.

Companies are already facing a severe shortage of workers. The American Hospital Association warns that the move to require vaccination “may result in exacerbating the severe workforce shortage problems that currently exist.” How can it not? I personally know healthcare workers who are leaving Washington state and moving to Idaho due to Gov. Inslee’s vaccination requirements.

For more than 18 months, Americans have ceded our liberties to bureaucratic tyrants at all levels of government. They destroyed the U.S. economy; roped off city parks and blocked beaches; banned fishing and hiking and locked us in our homes; shattered our supply chains; devastated small businesses; masked children; and destroyed education. They allowed government construction to continue while private construction could not. Educators were nonessential while liquor stores, tobacco shops and pot shops were.

Biden has no right to impose this anti-science, dictatorial requirement on the American people. Why do I say it is anti-science? Because the mandate contains no exceptions for those in low-risk demographic groups (those under 18) and no exemptions for those with superior natural immunity. Everyone who wants the COVID-19 vaccine already has it.

Those who have received the vaccine are at low risk from COVID-19 whether their neighbors are vaccinated or not.

Since the vaccinated can still transmit the disease as easily as the unvaccinated, transmission is not about vaccination status. So, there is no compelling reason to encroach on the liberties of those who choose to remain unvaccinated. The unvaccinated are only hurting themselves.

Enough is enough. By seizing undelegated power that should be reserved for the people, Biden’s vaccine mandate is both unconstitutional and tyrannical. It is well past time to draw a line in the sand concerning the overreach of the federal government.

I would encourage everyone to reread the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution and call your representatives to lawful action.

Courtney served 20 years in nuclear engineering aboard submarines and 15 years as a graduate school instructor. He now spends his spare time chasing his grandchildren around the Palouse.