Founded on the ideals of freedom and liberty, “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” were chosen for a reason. It is what led our founders to create a constitutional republic for America, as Benjamin Franklin warned, “If you can keep it”. Our government was created with three co-equal branches as checks and balances on each other and required the vote of “We The People” to elect its members in two of those branches. The legislature is designed to vote on bills that later become law after the executive’s signature. The founders intended to do this in full transparency, but that isn’t the case anymore. America’s fifty states have constitutions based on this same blueprint. Yet now, this country has fallen into the black hole of direction by executive mandate. Specifically, the healthcare mandates regarding masking and ‘vaccination’ through political executives and their appointed organizations, while being sold to the public by celebrities and legacy media. It’s no wonder Gallup recently published that 82% of 5000 polled Americans incorrectly knew what percentage of people with the Wuhan Coronavirus were hospitalized. Mandates may have taken away the “informed” in informed consent for most Americans, but what else has been and will be the cost of mandates?
Law enforcement agencies, the military, airline companies, hospital systems, and even schools have jumped in headfirst with vaccination mandates. They’ve done this without any FDA approval for any SARS-CoV-2 shots currently being administered. The only FDA-approved vaccine is the Pfizer COMIRNATY vaccine. In a letter dated 23 August of 2021, the FDA clarified that the COMIRNATY vaccine biologics license application was approved, and the emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine would remain in effect. The Pfizer-BioNTech shots are the only injections that Pfizer is currently administering, and because of this bait and switch by the FDA, many people have only grown less trusting of the jabs. Many are fighting back, at significant risk, against employers, schools, and the government.
Just last week, the NY Post reported dozens of Massachusetts state troopers were choosing to leave or be fired from their job over mandated injections. Of the 1800 employees, around 20% were refusing the shots. This 20% number continues to surface repeatedly as nearly 300 current Navy SEALS, an estimated 25% of our present force, have been declared undeployable for refusing the jabs. For perspective, this is the first time I’ve ever heard of the military even feigning acceptance of exemptions. Generally, if a service member would refuse to get a vaccine, they would be counseled and probably be charged with an article 92 under the UCMJ. That is perhaps why Representative Masse sponsored HR 3860, which has at least 24 co-sponsors now, to prevent any service member from being mandated to receive an injection for SARS-CoV-2. He claimed to have been contacted by multiple members of the active-duty military and our volunteer force, who would rather leave service than take the shots. Military members and law enforcement aren’t alone; nearly 600 United Airlines employees were facing termination over the shots as well after 2000 of United’s 67,000 man workforce requested exemptions to the jab. Currently, the number has dropped to 320, facing termination. That’s public safety, national defense, and public transportation; all put at risk due to mandates.
The most apparent employment sector of our country hit with mandates is the healthcare industry. The New York mandate, whose deadline was September 27th, saw that 20% number strike again. According to the new governor, an estimated 72,000 healthcare workers, about 16% of the state workforce, were suspended and face termination after standing strong against the mandate. If that wasn’t bad enough, New York’s Lewis County Health system saw 27% of its employees choosing termination over injection. These shortages in available staff resulted in at least one hospital shutting down maternity services. These staffing shortages are not contained in New York but nationwide. The cause is not this pandemic, which has long since passed in most people’s eyes; it is everything from burnout and pay issues to managerial issues. Healthcare workers have worked 12-hour shifts with required overtime long before the Wuhan Coronavirus spread across the planet. Healthcare workers are only tired of the hard work for less than adequate pay and supervisors who prefer to dictate and micromanage from home rather than come in and lead from the frontline. These employees would rather risk their employment and financial stability than give up their bodily autonomy.
In Ascension Heath, a seventeen state healthcare system advertises itself as a 501c3 Catholic hospital system that puts its employees and patients first. The truth is that the executives got their standard bonuses in 2020 while the staff’s annual raises were withheld due to a lack of generated income. The executives receiving bonuses while staff members were not getting any annual raises has led to a feeling of betrayal and more than twenty nursing openings at Indianapolis’ Women’s hospital run by Ascension Health. Ascension Women’s hospital is one of the state’s largest NICUs and Labor departments, with more than ninety NICU beds alone. Both Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck’s children were delivered there. These openings are all six weeks before their vaccine mandate deadline. Last weekend, one of Ascension’s rural hospitals was operating with 60% short-term contract and resource staffing. This healthcare shortage is being seen across the country before mandate deadlines have come. In Fredericksburg, Virginia, one hospital had 280 openings at the end of August and 500 openings last week. In Northern Michigan, one ICU has 80% or 160 shift openings. Nurses from Fargo, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania reported staff being brought in from foreign countries and paid mediocre wages to backfill openings. A Mobile, Alabama nurse has seen 200 Canadian employees brought in to fill hospital vacancies. The already present shortages have laid the groundwork for the collapse of the healthcare industry.
One Southern California nurse reported 30-50% of staff at her hospital have said no to the jab, and other team members that decided to take the injections were backing the rest of the staff. She went on to say that 40% of the ER staff in one of her local hospitals had refused the shots and were facing termination. My hospital is only at 45% vaccination compliance, with more than 60% of physicians system-wide still unvaxed. These mandates already took their toll on another Indiana hospital system. IU Health, Indiana’s largest healthcare system, had 1000 employees ready to walk after being denied exemptions at the end of July until the hospital begged them to use an appeal to reapply for exemption. The change in tone from administrators resulted in the termination of only 125 employees. Community health in Indiana had a similar story to IU and started accepting exemptions after so many staff refused the jab. North Carolina-based Novant Health, which has centers in South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia, fired 175 employees for not submitting to the vaccine mandate. Not only are hospitals mandating their employees take the jab, but one Louisiana hospital system, Ochsner Health, is forcing employees’ spouses to take the shots if they want to be covered under the hospital’s insurance. So now, even if a healthcare employee was willing to subject themselves to the shot to protect their family and their income, hospitals are attacking the family’s free will. As these mandate deadlines loom ever closer, we approach the destruction of the American healthcare system that we know over a shot that doesn’t prevent infection or transmission.
If the staff-shortened hospitals, embattled law enforcement agencies, the military, and airline companies aren’t enough, schools have thrown their hat in the vaccine mandate ring. Parents were already pulling their children out across the country for CRT and mask mandates. In Indiana alone, more than 60% of private schools saw a significant rise in enrollment from the 20’-21’ school year to the 21’-22’ year, with 15% seeing a jump of 150% in enrollment. This public school exodus was possible because of the expanded voucher program. Tennessee has been struggling to keep enough teachers and staff to operate its public schools. Maury County school district has 100 openings alone and has resorted to mass instruction in the auditorium. However, they still had to close the high school for several days due to staffing. That trend continues across the state, with 200 openings in Nashville and eighty teacher openings alone in Williamson County. Teacher shortages will only worsen as last week the San Diego Unified school board voted unanimously to require mandates for all students as the CDC authorizes the injections. San Diego was leading the way, as just a few days later, embattled Governor Newsom added the SARS-CoV-2 injections under EUA to the vaccine requirements for all California schools. New York City schools started Monday short of over 4000 employees due to DeBlasio’s mandate, according to the DOE. This number is at odds with plaintiffs seeking an injunction to halt the mandate and save 15,000 employees their jobs. California and New York might be the beginning, but as we’ve seen with these mandates before, they’ll keep expanding. Just like they’ve grown into access to businesses in Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York City, and San Francisco. They will continue and could cripple the U.S. education system.
The toll on the country from these mandates is a terrible one, but the cost doesn’t end there. How many of you have friends or family members that have let the fear and panic from this virus control their life? How many of you have then grown distant from those people? Finally, how many of you have lost relationships because you have decided to wait on getting these politicized injections? I have some friends, a couple of naval officers I served with, and even family members whose relationships are forever damaged and possibly lost because of opposing choices regarding the jab. I respected those two officers more than most, and they declared that healthcare workers who refused the ‘vaccine’ were “never serious about serving others and healthcare, to begin with.” Those words severely damaged our friendships as they have become personal attacks on those who didn’t fall in line. What’s worse than that is my brother, who declared that he would only welcome ‘vaccinated’ family members to his child’s birthday party.
So when asked about the cost of mandates to this country, I can recite the damage it has done to the nation’s public safety, national defense, public transportation, healthcare industry, and education system due to the tyranny taking over the country. However, the cost has a very personal toll as well. The physical cost of bodily autonomy may be most visible, but the financial burden due to employment and business restriction brings a psychological element to the price. Although the price of mandates to the country is tyranny and will likely result in an economic cost, the most tremendous damage to this country will come from the loss of liberty- what this country was founded on and fought for. The price doesn’t end there. The personal financial, physical, and psychological toll is only outweighed in value by the damage done to relationships. The only way to survive the damage done to this country in the name of mandates is to stand firm on principle and teach our children the importance of standing up for freedom, liberty, and personal beliefs. It will likely take a personal sacrifice of jobs, friends, and family members. The cost is nearly too much to bear, but the sacrifice has been paid before. America is worth fighting for, and she only needs patriots willing to pay the price of liberty to protect her.
