The name of this blog is Pink’s Politics. The name comes from my high school nick-name “Pink” which was based on my then last name. That is the only significance of the word “pink” here and anyone who attempts to add further or political meaning to it is just plain wrong.

Showing posts with label Vaccine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vaccine. Show all posts

Monday, September 13, 2021

Biden Knows What He Is Doing, And He Is Doing It with Glee

Yes, Biden’s behavior clearly exhibits major signs of senility, but until he is removed from office via the 25th Amendment or otherwise, he is responsible for what he is doing.  And what he is doing is upending the core principles that make America what it is.

Gleefully dismantling the Constitution

Biden and his administration admit that their attempted use of OSHA to enforce a vaccine mandate is a workaround the Constitution, essentially admitting that they know they do not have the Constitutional authority to create such a mandate.  Yet they do it anyway.

But this is not the first or only attempt on Biden’s part to circumvent the Constitution.  Biden admitted that it would be unconstitutional for him to have the CDC mandate an eviction moratorium, yet he did so anyway.  He has claimed total federal authority over states in regard to abortion by having his Attorney General file suit against the state of Texas.  Perhaps most egregious is his support for packing the Supreme Court – turning it into a political body and thus destroying the checks and balances between the three branches of government.  Those checks and balances are a critical piece of our Constitution and its protections of our rights.

Biden attempts to justify his failure to follow and uphold the Constitution by blaming things like the pandemic or Trump or the people who oppose his various policies, but these are all just smoke that cover his unprecedented and unpresidential power grab.

First, let’s remember that our country is based on the idea of limited federal government.  The Tenth Amendment provides that “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  The Constitution explicitly grants each branch of the federal government a limited set of carefully defined enumerated powers, while reserving most other powers to the states.  Some clauses such as the Commerce Clause have been interpreted in a way that gives the federal government broader control over some issues, but the basic principle of a limited federal government has not changed.   

The federal government cannot exercise unlimited control over the states.  Not even in an alleged attempt to stop a pandemic. 

As an aside, it is hard to argue that the Biden OSHA mandate is realistically about protecting our health when all non-citizen border crossers (legal and illegal) are exempted, all employees of businesses with less than 100 workers are exempted, all retirees are exempted, all members of Congress and their staffs are exempted, and other exemptions continue to be revealed.  Moreover, Biden asserts that the intent is to protect the already vaccinated from the unvaccinated; one wonders: If such protection is necessary, then what is the purpose of a vaccination anyway?  The pandemic is nothing more than a cover for an unconstitutional power grab.

Biden took an oath to uphold the Constitution, yet he completely ignores and violates it.  He proudly acknowledges that he is doing so.  And while he destroys the very core of our democracy, he angrily attacks those who object as he sows and cultivates dissension and hatred.

Gleefully creating a country whose people are dependent on authoritative government

Along with seizing unconstitutional power, Biden’s authoritative regime seeks to create rules and programs that will establish a dependency of all of us on the federal government.  The problem with these socialist style programs, however, is that they are paid for by the people’s tax dollars which, in large part due to the dependence on the programs they are funding, often run out.

Marc Short, Mike Pence’s former chief of staff, stated, “I think if you look at the number of the amount of spending over the last year between the COVID tax relief, the infrastructure package and now this [3.5 trillion spending bill], you'll be talking about $12 trillion dollars, which in essence would be one hundred thousand dollars given to every family in America if you were to send direct payments.”

Think of that.  Think of the taxes, the debt, the money printing that will need to happen.  These bills and others in the works by the Left would govern your life from pre-birth to death and beyond.  The Left would have guaranteed incomes, guaranteed health, guaranteed childcare, guaranteed transportation, guaranteed housing, guaranteed meals, pretty much everything you might need or want guaranteed by the government. 

Of course, the quality or amount of each thing guaranteed is not guaranteed and will of necessity diminish with greater demand and/or fewer tax dollars.  And when you have given all your money to the government you will be forced to take whatever it is they choose to give you.

Beyond dependence on the government via a variety of “assistance” programs, the government creates more and more rules to govern every aspect of your life.  These rules will make all the decisions for you so that you do not have to.  The rules decide what you can and cannot do/say/eat/believe, etc.  They remove the difficult anxiety of some decision making and cause more than a few to think that they are just one regulation away from total bliss which only a big government, authoritarian “nanny state” can provide.

They will do this in the name of concern for your welfare, but what these “nanny state” rules really do is take away your key freedom of choice. 

In this country we have individual freedoms protected by our Constitution.  The concepts of individual liberty and personal responsibility are key to America’s greatness and her survival and are also the antithesis of big government.  Authoritarian regimes tell their citizens how and what they can think, do, believe.  In America we have the freedom to make those decisions for ourselves.

The pandemic (like any good crisis) has not gone to waste for the Left and the Biden administration.  This administration would have you confuse freedom with safety and happiness and keep you in a state of anxious fear.  Using uncertainty and fear they have been able to create a climate in which many are more willing to relinquish personal freedom for safety and certainty.  Those who do not are characterized and criticized as selfish.

With such fear and then personal shaming the Left believes you will more willingly turn your freedom over to the government for their false promise of happiness in return.  But it doesn’t work that way.  When we relinquish our personal liberty, we relinquish who we are and instead leave it to an authoritarian government to define us.

While of course we need some government rules and regulations, we also need to retain our freedom and our responsibility so that we can continue to have a government of/for/by the people rather than a government of authoritarian control.

Biden clearly does not see it that way.  He gleefully would cow everyone into submission to his vision of whom you should be and how you should behave.  If you do not comply, he calls you selfish and pits the more compliant citizens against you (for example telling the vaccinated that those who have chosen not to be vaccinated, perhaps because of serious health reasons, are threatening the vaccinated even with murder).  Biden often equates his dissenters with terrorists.

Don’t fall for it.  Freedom may not be safe or easy or certain; it by necessity includes uncertainty and the anxiety that comes with being responsible for one’s own life choices, especially when those choices are not clear or easy.  But freedom allows you to be who you are rather than simply an animal confined within the cage of government control.


Gleefully putting American values last

Honor and exceptionalism are words that have often been used in conjunction with America.  “American exceptionalism is the idea that the United States is inherently different from other nations. Its proponents argue that the values, political system, and historical development of the U.S. are unique in human history, often with the implication that the country is both destined and entitled to play a distinct and positive role on the world stage" (Seymour Martin Lipset).

While not perfect, America has generally been seen as the “good guys”, the country that stands for such things as human rights, individual liberties, honesty, and honor.  Biden seems to think all that is a joke. 

Within our country Biden is dismantling not only our Constitution but is also demeaning and destroying concepts such as personal liberty, personal responsibility, individual achievement, and equality (the fact that “equity” is the antithesis of “equality” has been the subject of previous posts).  He has destroyed jobs and is destroying the economy while inflation is out of control.  Despite his claims for unity, he puts divisive identity politics on steroids as he pits every group he can define against one another. 

But he is also destroying this country on the international stage.  He presents an administration of apology, weakness, and concession rather than one of pride and power.  And honor he gleefully trashed as he completely botched the Afghanistan withdrawal, then repeatedly lied about what he had done, and then ignored and left as essentially prisoners of war an undetermined number of civilian American citizens.  Honor be damned, Joe seems proud of what he has done.

Save America from Biden

It sure seems like Biden hates America; he is certainly doing everything he can to destroy it.   His power grabs are clearly authoritarian.  His diminishment of us puts us in danger internationally.  And he seems to immensely enjoy what he is doing.

As a leader he is a terrible example.  He cannot uphold his oath of office.  He lies about everything.  He laughs at America and its people and calls them names.  Yes, he seems to enjoy what he is doing.

It is hard for me to write this, because to cover all Biden’s un or anti-American behavior would take far too many pages for a blog post, and yet I know and fear that most Americans are in large part unaware of his actions and his lies due to the media’s protection and lack of negative coverage of him.  So we just let him go on with his dishonest and destructive behavior while those who are looking see America falling.

The blood of a dying America is on Biden’s hands, but also on all those who fail to see what is happening, who gladly turn over their rights and freedoms to a man who does not respect them but will simply use them for his own delight and power.

Biden knows exactly what he is doing, and he is doing it gleefully.  But do you know what he is doing, and do you care?



Friday, September 10, 2021

Just a Few Questions

The Biden Vaccine Mandate seems to be a complete power grab with no truly sound basis in its alleged purpose of protecting health.  Questions such as those I list below reveal the illogic of Biden’s likely unconstitutional mandate.

  • If the vaccine is really so great, why do the vaccinated need protection from the unvaccinated?
  • If the alleged health concern requires a mandate for all Americans, why is there no requirement that immigrants crossing the border into our country be vaccinated?
  • Why does Biden’s mandate not allow an alternative to vaccination in the form of regular negative Covid tests which certainly provide as much protection to others as does being vaccinated?
  • Without the alternative of providing a negative Covid test, what is someone with a valid exemption to the vaccine requirement supposed to do?
  • Without the alternative of providing a negative test, isn’t there a curtailment of First Amendment religious rights for those who have valid religious objections to the vaccine?
  • Those who have chosen to get the vaccine and to advocate for it must trust its efficacy, so what difference does it make to them if someone else is vaccinated or not? That is, when did they become their Brother’s Keeper to the extent that they take away their Brother’s right to choose for himself?
  • Why is the government so focused on the vaccine and its mandate as opposed to exploring and expanding access to treatments for Covid that have proven effective in the limited extent to which their use has been allowed? Is it that the vaccine is more profitable?
  • If Covid is so dangerous, why is the death percentage rarely reported (as opposed to the number of deaths which, if all cases were reported, may be, and often is, below 1%; the death percentage varies depending on age and other risk factors, but is generally well below 10%)?
  • What is the real purpose in creating two opposing identity groups of vaccinated and unvaccinated, making one out to be the root of all evil, and pitting the two groups against one another?
  • Both the vaccine and the virus provide risks; those risks vary from individual to individual.  Why not let each individual, in consultation with his or her health provider, assess and balance those risks for themselves in the context of their individual health status and lifestyle, and make a realistic decision based on those factors as to whether or not to take the vaccine?

These are all valid questions.  But the biggest question of all is:  What is the real reason that the Left is so obsessed with making everyone subjugate themselves to their demand of vaccination?  What is their real reason for wanting to remove the right of one to choose for him or herself?

Let’s remember that when it comes to abortion these are the same folks who assert “your body, your choice.”  They will leave that choice to the individual even when it comes to the question of ending the life of a separate individual who is as yet unborn.  But they would give you no choice over your body when it involves taking a vaccine with known risks especially for some individuals and which provides only questionable protection from a virus which for most is a mild disease and whose death rate is only about 1% (a lot less than the 100% death rate of abortion).

Moreover, the unvaccinated, if one believes the Left’s other assertions, are not endangering the vaccinated.  Because, if we need this vaccine to protect us, then the vaccinated are protected.  Under this thinking, the unvaccinated are only putting themselves at risk, and isn’t that their choice?

But, you may say, what about the hospital space taken up by Covid patients?  Well, what about the hospital space taken up by any number of patients that have made other and more clearly risky life choices?  Does the Left plan to condemn everyone who has not lived the perfect life or perhaps made a choice that they do not approve of?  This while they from the other side of their mouths tell us we must care for and treat humanely those who, by their own life choices, have placed themselves in less than desirable situations.

So, once again the hypocrisy of the Left becomes exposed.   This is not really about Covid.  This is about their narrative and their power hungry need to impose their narrative on all others.  Those who do not comply become enemies of the State.  And our President who calls for Unity is the first to condemn all those who do not comply. 

These are frightening times, especially when, with the help of the biased media that also loves both a crisis and the Left, the masses have been fomented into a frenzy of fear of this disease and, in their attempt to allay their own anxiety will simply do as they are told. 

A better remedy would be to start thinking!

When one submits out of fear to a mandate that requires relinquishment of personal freedom and choice, one has essentially conceded that one is willing to give up that personal freedom entirely in order to simply feel less anxious.  Such people are willing to be controlled in order to feel safe.  A tiger in a cage is also safe from any predators he might face in the wild, safe from hunger and uncertainty.  But what kind of life does he live in a cage?  Certainly not a life of freedom.

As for me, I will continue to consult with my health professional, read actual studies, and make my own decisions.  I will choose whether and when to be vaccinated and boosted, whether and when to wear a mask, as I assess my own individual risk factors.  If this places me in a group of leper-like second class citizens, so be it.  I retain my integrity, my freedom, and my soul.




Friday, March 12, 2021

Lullaby of the Left

A lullaby is something that is sung to someone to get them to sleep.  It calms (lulls) them with soothing sounds.  When we want children to sleep we sing them a lullaby.  Once they are sleeping we can perhaps do some things that their awake presence would keep us from getting done.

What I think is that we are all being lulled by the media’s lack of hysteria about political issues and specifically in contrast with the previous administration.  For four years we were kept awake with the constant frenzy of hyperbolic claims about the dreadfulness of the president’s words and actions.

Now, we hear calm words like “unity” and “humanitarian”.  There is no frenzy, no turmoil, no histrionics.  In fact, there is almost nothing.  A calm.  Nothing to see, nothing to hear.  Just go to sleep.  Pay no attention to what is really going on.

So what is going on?  First, there is a crisis at the border.  A humanitarian crisis as well as an immigration crisis.   We have a border which President Biden has insured is so porous that it in effect does not exist.  Even his advisor, speaking in Spanish so apparently not primarily to Americans, “mistakenly” announced that our borders are open.   Pay no attention though.

Hundreds of thousands of unvetted immigrants, many unaccompanied minors, are released into our interior without even a cursory check on health (including those whose state tests later show as positive for Covid) let alone any real questions about reasons for entering.  What Biden once called cages are now overflowing at over 100% capacity.  While admitting anyone who actually gets to our border, we are also sending millions of dollars to those who remain in countries that do not provide for them what is available to American citizens. 

We are told this is just Biden the humanitarian, taking care of the world.  Nothing to wake up over.  Don’t concern yourself with the very unhumanitarian effects of overcrowded cages, unaccompanied and trafficked minors, deadly consequences of huge caravans and lengthy treks, along with the overwhelming effect on this country and its citizens.  Things are fine.  Afterall, detention centers are now “welcome centers.”   Just go to sleep.

Cosmetic changes abound as part of the lullaby’s pretty pictures.   The Act which destroys women’s sports, mandates radical curriculum in schools, denies the scientific distinctions between sexes replacing them with gender choice and other similar mandates, is called the “Equality Act.”  If anything, it destroys the equality that is supposed to exist of and for all Americans.  But nothing to see, the name should calm you, go to sleep.

The 1.9 Trillion Covid Relief Bill primarily has nothing to do with Covid Relief.  Fewer Americans will get stimulus checks.  But it provides funding for any number of Leftist agenda items.  Just one example: there is a “racial justice” portion that provides 4 billion in debt relief to farmers of color.  Apparently white farmers with debt are not entitled to relief.  This seems a blatant violation of the Civil Rights Act which prohibits discrimination based on, amongst other things, race, color, and national origin.  But beyond that it is in effect a payment of reparations and some activists are celebrating it as just that.  But, go back to sleep, nothing to see here.

The Voting Rights Bill effectively destroys any hope of election security or integrity.  Any efforts to insure that only those entitled to vote actually vote are referred to by the Left as attempts to disenfranchise people of color.  That’s like saying enforcing a no cheating rule on a test is wrong because it prohibits everyone from getting an A.  But, just accept the cosmetically pleasant title: “Voting Rights.”  Ignore the fact that it actually disenfranchises legitimate voters by diluting the effect of their vote.

Moreover, this act fundamentally changes voting in that it takes away a state’s power to control its own elections as it creates a set of national voter registration and mail-in voting standards with the feds, not the states, keeping those rolls up to date.  It is grand dictatorships that allow the central power to govern elections; America is built on the concept of very limited federal power and a retention to each state of those powers not specifically designated to the federal government.  But, no worry, nothing to see here, move on and go back to sleep.

Last night in his first speech to the nation since his inauguration, President Biden did not mention anything about the above actions taken while you were sleeping or the rest of the Left agenda lurking for when you awake.  He has yet to make himself available for questions on any of these matters, including whether it is his agenda or if he is just providing his signature.

His speech only addressed vaccines and possible opening following Covid.  After essentially blaming his predecessor for Covid and giving then-president Trump no credit for his Operation Warp Speed that got us the vaccines in early December, Biden essentially took full credit for ending Covid as he told us we would unite and be able to have small groups gather on July 4th – maybe.  He made a big deal of telling us that every American would be registered for vaccine by May 1; he more softly admitted that it did not mean that we would get the vaccine by then and there was no indication of when that might actually occur.

The above are just summaries of some of the more major “accomplishments” of the Left while the people have been sleeping.  They have put us to sleep with their cosmetic coverings and their soothing words, words like humanitarian, unifier, good, quiet, peaceful.   But if you really listen, their lullaby is less sweet than some we may be more familiar with; it seems rather more like this old Icelandic song:

Beeum, beeum, bambalow, Bambalow and dillidillidow.
My little friend I lull to rest.
But outside
A face looms at the window.

That face is the Left. But don’t look there. Just go to sleep.  Pay no attention to what the Left is doing while you sleep.  Because if you do, you are likely to find yourself in shock as you awake to Biden and the Left’s “Brave New World,” a world that also had a pretty cosmetic motto (“community, identity and stability”) for its dystopian existence.