Dem Assails Idea of Natural Rights
This week, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va) took issue with the American Declaration of Independence's assertion "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
"I find the notion that human rights are granted by God to be extremely troubling," Kaine said at a Senate hearing. "The belief that some invisible God could be the source of a person's rights is what the Iranian government believes. The sparseness of the grant of only life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is miserly in comparison to the rights that governments can grant. It's no wonder that the early American era was said to be one of 'rugged individualism.' We are now in an era of mutual collectivism where government has granted the rights of guaranteed welfare, housing, education, health care and hundreds of other rights. Instead of thanking God, the people of America should be thanking those members of the government who have turned the country toward a brighter, more progressive future."
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex) observed "all the extra 'rights' being created by Democrats like Sen. Kaine impose costs on others. Someone else is taxed in order to fund the welfare, housing, and other goods and services he wants government to hand out. This is very much like the plantation culture of pre-Civil War America where black individuals were forced to provide food and housing for whites who held them as slaves. It took the deadliest war in our history to stamp out that injustice. The genius of America's Founders was to embed the great principle of individual freedom into our Declaration of Independence. The Democrats' plan to make people dependent on government will destroy that individual freedom."
Kaine tried to refute Cruz by insisting that "the vast majority of individuals aren't competent to run their own lives. They flounder under the sort of freedom Sen. Cruz would impose on them. They want the security that the welfare state gives them. The innovators that create wealth are harnessed for the good of all by Democrat policies. Common folks capable of holding down a job work for the innovators. Those incapable or unwilling to hold down a job are provided a minimum standard of living. It's the most humane solution attainable in our modern world. We shouldn't muck it up by allowing the excessive freedom that a rigid adherence to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness would force on society."
In related news, some bureaucrats in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) who were entrusted with the responsibility to assist victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks were fired after it was discovered that they were logging on to pornography websites during working hours. Sen. Kaine argued that "first of all, there's nothing wrong with pornography. Many psychiatrists see it as a useful outlet for pent-up sexual desires. Second, even if we were to wrongfully assume that pornography is bad, the presence of a couple of bad apples in the FEMA bureaucracy doesn't disprove my case for the welfare state."
Florida to Ban Mandated Vaccinations
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced that he will work with Gov. DeSantis (R) and the state legislature to repeal all laws mandating vaccinations. "The state should not be forcing anyone to get vaccinated," he said. "Look, if vaccinations work they will protect the person being vaccinated from both getting the disease and transmitting it to others. Doctors will remain free to recommend vaccination. Individuals will remain free to choose vaccinations for themselves and their children. We just don't need or want government to force anyone to get vaccinated."
Dr. Susan Kressly, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, disagreed, saying "we are concerned that eliminating the mandate that people be vaccinated whenever the medical experts determine that they ought to be as Gov. DeSantis and Dr. Ladapo want to do will put children in Florida public schools at higher risk for getting sick, and have ripple effects across their community."
In Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis said "we will also sidestep ridiculous federal restrictions on covid vaccines. Pharmacists in our state will be able to provide the shots without a prescription for at least the next year." Governors of California, Oregon and Washington have formed the West Coast Health Alliance "to ensure residents remain protected by science, not politics, by compelling them to take the vaccinations the government decides they need to take."
"Vaccines are not risk-free," Ladapo pointed out. "Experience with the covid vaccines amply demonstrated that. The emergency use authorization (EUA) for these vaccines bypassed normal protocols for testing the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Subsequently, millions of individuals were made unwitting guinea pigs. Skeptics were censored and threatened. As it turned out, though, the covid vaccines did not prevent folks from getting the disease or transmitting it to others. Further, the adverse effects of the covid vaccines dwarfed the adverse effects of all previous vaccines combined."
Meanwhile, an outbreak of covid in California led state officials to urge residents to "mask up." This is despite the fact that the type of masks commonly recommended do not block the incredibly tiny viruses from from penetrating the masks and the fact that these masks were declared useless by no less an authority than Dr. Anthony Fauci way back in 2020.
In Washington, DC, more than 1,000 current and former employees of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) called for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign, saying "his decision to change the policy on covid from recommending vaccination to making it an individual choice violates the government's constitutional obligation to compel the population to take the medicines that health experts think ought to be mandatory."
Kennedy rejected this demand, saying "making anything mandatory is not a scientific action. It is a political action. Given the tainted history of how the experts mishandled the covid pandemic I don't think their current objections are founded on science or common sense. There is no justification for coercing anyone to be injected with the failed and dangerous covid vaccines."
De Blasio Endorses Mamdani
Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio urged voters to elect Zohran Mamdani to be the City's next mayor, saying "he is the best person to resume the work that I did to try to make NYC the great place it can be. He has the right ideas. The rent freezes, free child care, free city buses, and city-owned grocery stores are the bold moves needed to recover from the dismal years under the incompetent governance of Mayor Eric Adams."
"Mamdani's proposal to seize the means of production evokes the brilliance of how Lenin dispossessed the old ruling class in Russia," de Blasio enthusiastically added. "It's what I would've done if I hadn't been so lazy when I was mayor. It will turn the capitalist bastion of New York City into a true vanguard for the future socialization of the entire country. The days of wealthy New Yorkers trying to flee to lower taxed states will be ended. If we allow them to live, they will be forced to join the ranks of the working class. Marx's communist utopia will nearer than ever."
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) echoed de Blasio saying that "Mamdani's primary victory is like Lenin's coup in Petrograd. It's the start of the socialist revolution. There will be no stopping us from sweeping over the entire country. It's not quite the 'land, peace, and bread' promise by Lenin that won over the Russian peasants, but the 'bag of free stuff' Mamdani is promising is its modern day equivalent."
NY Democrat Hank Sheinkopf disagreed with the lurch toward socialism, saying "Mamdani is the greatest threat to Democrats probably since Ronald Reagan because he's everything Democrats have been accused of being and in fact is — to the extreme. How can Democrats attract the votes of working people with candidates that appeal to freeloaders and communist crackpots?"
