If you only pay attention to the government and establishment media COVID-19 panic machines, you might not know that the US is experiencing fewer than 1/3 as many new daily cases and hospitalizations as in January and fewer daily deaths than at any time since March of 2020.

No, I’m not saying things are great. They aren’t. But neither is the situation even close to as dire as is being sold. The “Panic! Everyone Panic! Please, dear God, won’t you all PANIC!?!” narrative we’re being fed doesn’t reflect the real numbers. The near-daily flip-flops coming from supposed public health “experts” at the Centers for Disease Control and other centers of “public health expertise”  are a function of politics, not science.

And that politics is angling more and more toward a major escalation of government vaccine mandates which would legally restrict the ability of the un-vaccinated to work, travel, even shop for groceries or dine out.

The whole idea is both immoral and impractical.

Before you peg me as some kind “anti-vaxxer,” let me be clear: I’m vaccinated (in fact, I’m a clinical trial volunteer for one of the vaccines). Most of my close family members are vaccinated. Many (I hope most) of my friends are vaccinated. I’d like to see everyone get vaccinated. But not through force or threat of force.

There’s no moral difference between sticking a needle in someone without consent and sticking a penis in someone without consent. We have a word for the latter, I’m pretty sure.

Yes, those who support vaccine mandates have all kinds of excuses for wanting to hold people down and stick needles in them. Just like rapists who claim they were “entitled” to “marital relations,” or that the victim was asking for it by dressing a particular way, or actually needed it to “correct” her sexual orientation, or whatever. To bowdlerize an old saying into more family-friendly form, excuses are like armpits. Everybody’s got a couple and they all stink.

As for the practical case, there seems to be heavy overlap between the people calling for vaccine mandates and the people who think the January 6th Capitol riot was the worst thing that ever happened in American history.

There’s also heavy overlap between those who refuse to be vaccinated and those who supported (and in many cases continue to support) the January 6th rioters.

Does the former group really believe that announcing a mandate will cause the latter group to shrug its collective shoulders, say “well, fine, then,” and line up for shots?

The actual likely result would be multiple re-enactments of January 6th, across the country and for an extended period, without  the desired result of 100% or near 100% vaccination.

Think it can’t happen? It’s already happening elsewhere. As I write this, I note accounts of clashes between protesters and police in France and Germany over the same issues. Italy, Greece, Australia … the list goes on.

Instead of currying panic and threatening force, American government and media should stick to facts and persuasion.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

The 1619 Project “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.”

Naturally, that reframing has enjoyed quite a bit of pushback, much of which amounts to wrestling over whether the US Constitution, as originally written and ratified, was designed around the goal of protecting the institution of slavery.

“Nikole Hannah-Jones and other 1619 acolytes,” Dr. Brion McClanahan writes at the Tenth Amendment Center, “have been consistently pushing the idea that the Constitution was a ‘pro-slavery’ document.”

McClanahan disagrees — and not just with Hannah-Jones, but also with the namesake of the institution I write for. American abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison referred to “the pro-slavery” Constitution as “a covenant with death and an agreement with hell,” calling for “no Union with slaveholders.”

“The Constitution,” McClanahan claims, “was neither proslavery nor anti-slavery. It was neutral. … slavery was left up to the constituent members of the Union.”

There’s no kind way to put this: McClanahan manages to get it completely wrong even while mentioning the evidence of his error and admitting that that evidence (“the 3/5 clause, the fugitive slave clause, the 20 year lease [sic] on the international slave trade”) “at least seem[s]” to disprove his claim.

It doesn’t “seem” to disprove his claim. It disproves his claim, completely and beyond redemption.

A document which specifically gives additional representation to slave owners based on how many slaves they own is not “neutral” where slavery is concerned. It’s not just pro-slavery, it’s foundational social engineering in favor of giving slavery’s supporters a permanent extra measure of political power.

A document which singles out fugitive slaves as the only “stolen property” specifically required be returned  (from states where that property ISN’T legally property) is not “neutral” where slavery is concerned. It’s exactly the opposite of the “states’ rights” doctrine McClanahan invokes (without naming) on his “neutrality” argument’s behalf. It’s a federal intervention against such “states’ rights.”

The Constitution offered one, and only one, temporary exception to Congress’s power to “regulate commerce with foreign nations.” Want to guess what that one exception was? It wasn’t importation of coffee or linen or foie gras. It was importation of slaves. That’s not “neutral,” that’s pro-slavery.

There are worthwhile arguments to be had over the extent and longevity of institutional racism in American history, and we’re certainly having those arguments in a big way right now.  But this isn’t one of those worthwhile arguments.

Where the Constitution touches on slavery, it was, irrefutably and beyond a shadow of doubt, crafted for the benefit of slave owners and with the goal of perpetuating slavery.

Falsifying our history isn’t a sound way of improving our future.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

In a rare moment of moral clarity, US Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) points out that “America’s daughters shouldn’t be drafted against their will.”

As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the usually bellicose Cotton voted against advancing the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act after committee chair Jack Reed (D-RI) added an amendment requiring women between the ages of 18 and 25 to register with the Selective Service System.

It’s good to see Cotton on the right side of an issue, as happens occasionally (very occasionally). And the NDAA, being mostly unrelated to anything resembling actual “national defense,” deserves to go down hard for many, many reasons.

But where’s Cotton’s opposition to requiring MEN to register for the draft?

In the early 1970s, the US armed forces transitioned to an “all-volunteer force” after drafting 2.2 million men into its Vietnam war machine between 1964 and 1973. About 1.5 million Americans were drafted for the Korean War, 10 million for World War 2, and 2.8 million for World War 1. Draft registration ended in 1975, but resumed in 1980.

Fortunately, even during the darkest days of the “nation-building” fiasco in Afghanistan and the naked aggression of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, Congress quailed from reinstating the draft and allowed the military to lower recruitment standards instead (perhaps explaining how a sociopath like Tom Cotton became an infantry officer).

But nearly half a century after the last involuntary induction, the shadow of potential conscription still looms over young Americans.

In fact, many states have moved against the ability to resist draft registration as a form of civil disobedience (as a brave handful of Americans, including prominent libertarian commentator and personal mentor Paul Jacob, went to prison for doing in the early 1980s) by automatically registering males who apply for driver’s licenses or state ID cards. Both of my kids received postcards from Selective Service “thanking” them for registering, even though they never did so (the state of Florida did so “for” them).

Supreme Court rulings to the contrary notwithstanding, conscription is clearly unconstitutional under the 13th Amendment: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

And even if it wasn’t unconstitutional, it would still be slavery and slavery would still be wrong.

Instead of registering women for potential slavery, draft registration should be ended, entirely and permanently.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY