Decided on narrow technical grounds to appease certain powerful institutions SCOTUS failed to debate the key Constitutional issues raised by these cases
The defining feature of the current crisis is that nearly all bourgeois institutions and so-called "experts" (the media, government, academia, science and medicine, to name a few) have failed in response to a problem that is relatively straightforward. This suggests that the scale of the corruption and intellectual rot in our society is so much greater than most of us thought. For the Supreme Court to then decide these matters in the interests of institutions over individuals, is to misunderstand the fundamental nature of this crisis entirely.
No way to reform the system or even slow the accelerating processes of internal contradictions that are now overwhelming the ruling elite. The next 24 months are going to be a very painful process of coming to terms with the failure of the fabricated parallel reality of the West.
When one sees how egregious everything about this evil-doing Deep State Operation, the Plannedemic, is, it is simply dumbfounding. The Deep State has infested many positions of power/influence/ownership to wield this amount of control. The only solution is for We the People to wake up and take back all segments of our government, media, schools, etc.
It's only superficially straightforward. A match to the tinder of institutional corruption. Global power elite struck the match, fanned the flames... and mismanaged the forests for decades prior. They play a long game, and they play for keeps.
SCOTUS didn't misunderstand the fundamental nature, they reframed it to achieve the required outcome.
Why would you think "the scale of the corruption and intellectual rot in our society is so much greater than most of us thought" would not include SCOTUS?
Every member of the Supreme Court was focused on what the (OSHA or CMS) authorizing statute said (or didn't say). But the Constitution trumps the statute every time and the Supreme Court did not discuss the Constitution at all. Which is bizarre given that their job is to interpret and apply the Constitution.
Toby, I hope it’s clearly mentioned by multiple respondents below, and that is how can our Supreme Court decide who is mandated to participate in a scientific/medical experiment with potentially dangerous side effects in order to maintain their employment and feed their families? Is “the system” of law that fff-d up that this is what we’ve become in representing the constitution and our branches of government? Is there anyone left who’s not completely “bought”??
Name one time since 1/1/2000 that SCOTUS actually struck a law or even considered it because it couldn't meet Constitutional requirements? They don't even think about that. My position is they've abandoned the fundamental requirement to ensure all laws are Constitutional. Or maybe they abandoned only those that go against the corrupt narrative.
I just want to speak a bit about the consequences of this CMS mandate. We were fortunate. Our hospital granted us exemptions. But we never should have had to submit requests for exemptions. A simple no should have been sufficient.
We are devastated. We realize we have been relatively fortunate but our plans for the future are gone. At any moment, we can walk into work and be told to be injected or leave. We had wanted to buy land, eventually build a small retirement home. Who goes into the slightest debt when you have no job security?
Meanwhile we work. Someone has to. Our vaccinated and boosted colleagues are home with Covid. Our medical center has travel nurses everywhere. We are still short. The hospital is offering > $10k bonuses for signing up for a series of extra shifts. $20k sign on bonuses in multiple departments. Offers by the center to pay of school loans. On and on.
Please understand - I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for us. My fury at the medical community is boundless. This uncertainty, this destruction of our ability to plan and do, the utter vindictiveness by the public and by so very many in the health care community has shocked me and weighted down my heart.
I used to feel so comfortable in the hospital. Loved it. Loved taking care of patients, their families. Now it is foreign. Dark. And fake.
Anyway - I thank all of you for caring about these mandate issues. I apologize that the medical community didn’t defend the concept of informed consent. It was the foundation of everything we did. Our expertise was never supposed to make us authorities over the public. Healthcare was never supposed to become weaponized.
Jan 19, 2022·edited Jan 19, 2022Liked by Toby Rogers
You are the one person who should be there...all the healthcare workers that actually care and have morals are the best ones the hospitals have lost, huge disgusting mistake..We all need to support each other. It may all implode soon. Have hope, something even better could come along. It's terrible in the mean time and we have to go through it as a human society. We can't give up, don't give up. You may have to go where you're appreciated and where you matter. You didn't change, they did.
You are right. They changed. And it seemed to have happened overnight but it didn’t. Not really. The groundwork for so much of what we have seen the last two years has been under construction for a very long time.
I can't imagine what this must be like for you. Such noble and important work has been diminished by greed and power and illogical unscientific nonsense that should be obvious to anyone with a brain.
It’s like being black in America. You thought you had constitutional protections and liberties and could make plans for a future, but now, as you say everything is uncertain and precarious and there’s no longer any “real” protections or respect for you as a person. Welcome to the 2022 version of oppression and subjugation. No color needed.
A couple of months ago I saw a video of a 40 something black woman. She was from NYC. And she had made the decision to remain unvaccinated.
She spoke about how she had always perceived that it was difficult to be black in America. And I think a lot of people understand why she felt that way.
But now, that didn’t really matter. She was unvaxxed. She talked about all of the places she was legally prohibited from. No one was marching for her. No one really complained.
Watching her face - she wasn’t mad, or didn’t appear mad. She was in shock. Bewildered. Just quietly detailing one outrageous incident after another.
At the end, she said something like, “I just want to go back to belong black. At least then, I was free to do what I wanted. Go where I want. I had people who supported me.”
This should have been the biggest eye opener to people. But folks were fine with this happening to her. To everyone who, like her, had made their own health decision.
I would love to know where she is now and what happened to her.
Jan 19, 2022·edited Jan 19, 2022Liked by Toby Rogers
Excellent! Exactly! If SCOTUS affirmed our fundamental, God-given, inalienable right to sovereignty over our own body, aka "informed consent," then the ruling should be straight forward and "no finding of fact" is needed.
However, if SCOTUS was going to consider and even allow the violation of our fundamental right of body sovereignty, a violation of "informed consent," then there is an obligation of SCOTUS to determine the facts. And, those facts include:
1/ Why is the vax is necessary?
2/ Do alternative treaments exist?
3/ What is in vax?
4/ What studies show the vax is safe & effective?
5/ Is the vax FDA approved?
If I were an attorney litigating this, I would bring up the fundamental argument that renders the vax mandates unconstitutional, but also include ALL other arguments that show how EGREGIOUSLY these vax mandates are illegal. In their totality, these arguments conclude that sinister & corrupt motives are at play. Vax mandates are illegal:
a/ Basic right of sovereignty over our own body
b/ Violate laws on medical privacy & discrimination
c/ No justification, rona flu 99+% survival
d/ No FDA approved vax available for distribution
e/ Vax cause injury/death
f/ All above imply sinister motives of tyranny/dep0pulat!on
And let’s not forget, there are also no protections for citizens who might become injured in this forced experiment. The corporations manufacturing these products also enjoy 100% immunity from any legal action. And even those that tried suing the government for damages walked away devastated and defeated (and even more financially crushed).
Goodness -- the points you make seem so obvious. And so glaringly absent, now that you name them--esp re no finding of facts or addressing of individual autonomy.
Love your energy and openness to learn from others! Not to mention that I always come away with so much great food for real thought and discernment rather than just argument to protect ego. Thank you and great work!!
Thank you HCK! Yeah it was so weird, both Republican and Democratic appointees stated that the question before them was, "Who decides" and neither bunch even seemed to consider the obvious fact that it is an individual's decision to control what goes into his/her body.
Perhaps it belies one of the foundational differences in the Great Vaccine Divide. I can hear in my mind's eye the responses to your article. First a blank look of Huh? Then, "Why would they even be discussing an individual's decision on this? It's been proven that vaccines are the only way to stop this novel virus! Why wouldn't people want to get vaccinated?? And why would the Supreme Court allow anti-vaxxers to make decisions that would harm the whole world [i.e. us] ... etc." The lack of emotional indignation to the trespassing of individual rights has been one of the most disorienting things about this whole schmoley for me. Something is just totally off empathetically. And from people who I would have said have a decently high EQ.
Arron Siri had a great response on Dels show. its worth the watch to see how he looked at the proceedings. and how tempered his assessment was at the same time. He will be before these same justices some time and he remember that "no need to poison the well" in his abbreviated responses.
Beautiful article and agree on all fronts…but I’m still puzzled. This is an experimental drug, nothing FDA approved is available to the public. Why wouldn’t they simply interpret existing consent laws under US Code Title 21, section 360? It’s just bizarre and a bit concerning. The court upheld a mandate for something completely experimental!
Excellent point. The lower courts and the Supreme Court should have nipped all of this in the bud for the exact reason that you state. And yet they proceeded for reasons that no one can explain. If Aaron Siri had been the attorney for the plaintiffs this never would have gotten this far. The attorneys they used do not understand the vaccine issue very well at all.
As has become obvious over the past few decades, the court does not decide issues such as these on their legal and constitutional merits. What they essentially do is wrap the majority policy preferences in legal mumble-jumble. They find ways to twist the law to produce the preferred outcome — they legislate.
It’s inconceivable that bodily autonomy was nowhere mentioned because that’s the very basis of popular objection to forced medical “treatments”.
Sadly, the Supreme Court is nothing more than yet another indicator that moral bankruptcy has sabotaged another civilization.
And to think that all those in the upper echelons of government (Congress, etc.) are exempt from taking the jabs because of its experimental nature. Morally bankrupt, yes, but also fully bought and paid off as well).
Jan 19, 2022·edited Jan 19, 2022Liked by Toby Rogers
To be honest, I did not follow the whole event in detail, but the few quotes I heard from one of the justices left me speechless for how uneducated and ill-informed she was. Either they are deliberately ignorant or simply playing a role. I don't know which. Hard to imagine they have reached that level in this country and have such limited thinking ability and logic seems completely absent. Perhaps they are facing such heavy political pressure it prevents their brains from fully functioning.
The Democratic appointees are clearly stuck in a Pharma information bubble filled with propaganda and fear, completely untethered from the actual facts.
Was individual sovereignty part of what was presented in the suit? What I mean, doesn't the court have to make it's decision based on what the two parties presented to them? To my knowledge, at no point did either the States nor the Feds present the Constitutional aspects of personal sovereignty.
Feds said: We have the right because we're the Feds.
States said: Feds can't trample on States' Rights.
If the Feds can't trump States' Rights on OSHA, they can't trump States' Rights on CMS, so I still don't understand how they could rightly justify their split decision.
Personal rights didn't come into question because that wasn't the issue that was brought forth. Having said that, as someone who was fired because the CMS Mandate was already in the pipeline and my exemption requests were denied - they absolutely SHOULD have been mentioned, by someone at some point. But since SCOTUS refused to even HEAR the personal rights cases from other states, it could be that's why the States that did file used the arguments they did.
Over all, though I loved this analysis and it gives one a lot to think about. Thank you for writing it up!
You raise good points here. The plaintiffs lawyers just argued on behalf of their clients, not on behalf of the nation or its citizens. That being said, I think the Supreme Court can go in whatever direction they want (but they do not want to stray too far from the core arguments, lest they get criticized for judicial activism). Aaron Siri should have tried this case. Everything would have been different and so much better.
Maybe not. The scotus pretty much stated on script and avoided all the obvious issues, likely due to protecting the guilty (Corporate and dark state interests) simply pretending they didn’t want to offend their “party’s affiliation”. In the end we know all parties serve the true (behind the curtain) leadership of this country. Even the senate and congress knows that.
Beautiful summation of the key question—the constitutional issue—the Court seems intent on avoiding, even though that is their one job. But this is a mischaracterization of the pro-lfe/Republican abortion dilemma: "...when it comes to abortion, Republicans want the state to have the power to make these decisions rather than individuals." The ONLY reason Republicans believe the state has any role or responsibility is because when it comes to abortion, there's more than simply "my body, my choice." Abortion involves the interests of two separate, individual human beings. Their interests are in conflict. And only one of them has a voice. The unborn child is alive and growing. Aborting that process obviously kills him or her.
Does the law and constitutional provision protecting an individual's right to their life include a human being not yet born at any point prior to birth? That moral question—not power over women's bodies or sovereignty—is what animates those who think Roe was a poorly reasoned and wrongly decided case.
the State also has a compelling interest in those unborn lives; they are future laborers, taxpayers and cannon fodder. not to mention the prickly issue that we have laws against murder for any reason other than self defense but allow murder for any reason if.... fill in the blank.
legal minds and scientists have argued over the exact moment when a particular cluster of fertilized cells becomes life and have defined away the fact that another human being who would have lived is allowed to be killed sometimes simply because it is an inconvenience to the bearer. but to those who argue that vaccination is part of the social contract that we all owe to each other, i could argue that bearing the future generation is part of the social contract that women owe to the state.
i say this as someone who supports abortion but with the full recognition that it is a taking of a life.
it's inconceivable to me that many of the people screaming the loudest about the injustice of the restrictive abortion laws in Texas are the very voices demanding that everyone get vaccinated because no individual should have the right to spread their germs to another person- as if anyone can control the spread of germs!
In this Brownstone piece "Covid 19 Vaccine Mandates Fail the Jacobson Test" the compelling interest of the state (one of four criteria for Jacobson) is debated. "The overwhelming majority of cases recover. Prevention of Covid-19 cases is at most a desirable policy goal and not a compelling interest.
As has become increasingly apparent, natural immunity following Covid-19 infection is stronger in repelling subsequent viral outbreaks than vaccine-based immunity. (Thus, prevention of Covid-19 case occurrence per se is actually counterproductive in ending the pandemic.) While the Supreme Court has opined that “[s]temming the spread of Covid-19 is unquestionably a compelling interest” in Roman Catholic Diocese v. Cuomo, that decision was rendered early in the pandemic, before the long-term weakness of vaccine-based immunity was understood. With what is known now, reasoning about compelling Interest for vaccine mandates no longer applies." https://brownstone.org/articles/covid-19-vaccine-mandates-fail-the-jacobson-test/
Thanks for trying to puzzle through this, Toby. I too was frustrated with the Court's failure to, at least, grapple with Jacobson. (Even a single pointed comment to the effect that 'a lot has happened in the Court's jurisprudence since 1905' might have helped undermine the Covidians' unwarranted confidence in its current authority.) However, in my own modest experience litigating constitutional issues in the appellate courts, judges and justices are all too human and tend to rationalize backwards from the conclusion. Thus, as you say, the 3 Democrats buried their utterly incoherent positions - arrived at via hair-on-fire emotionalism - in feigned deference, while the rest hunkered down behind the relative jurisprudential safety of states rights & bureaucratic 'overreach.' Though the OSHA result came out right, this intellectual cowardice left a trail of future vulnerability.
When I was very young & naive, I thought that the Justices on the Supreme Court read the Constitution, knew the Constitution they took an oath to uphold, and made decisions based upon the tenets of the Constitution. Since G.W. "Dumya" Bush said it was just an old piece of paper, it seems that ALL the Justices have stopped referring to it and now go by what their political party and corporate owners tell them! I want to fire the entire court and start all over again!
Clarence Thomas still faithfully holds to the Constitution. And I think Alito does, too.
Also, that report that G.W. Bush said something derogatory about the Constitution along the lines of it being an old piece of paper was withdrawn as unfounded upon a closer investigation:
For an imperfect article I thought it was well-written and made many salient points. It is disappointing that the textualists didn’t appear to consult the text. Gorsuch’s Choices are the classical logical fallacy of false dichotomy, as you rightly point out. Thanks for this article - I think I’ll have to read it again tomorrow.
Jan 19, 2022·edited Jan 19, 2022Liked by Toby Rogers
Also:
- It does seem that these decisions are contrived to be balanced (one yes, one no)
- losing sight of the forest for the trees.
- the bodily autonomy considerations for abortion and vaccines are not fully equatable as one of them includes the interests of a second life at direct and imminent risk
- a vigorous third branch should not shirk from striking down unconstitutionally laws, and edicts from the exec branch, else why have it?
Exactly. The Supreme Court failed to act as a Constitutional Court and failed to consult the Constitution in this matter, even though that's what they are supposed to do.
I think they ARE equatable... The main intent behind injections for all workplaces is that the shot supposedly protects other lives. But the shot is NOT a vaccine, does NOT prevent illness in the one getting the jab, and does NOT prevent transmission to others around the jabbed. SCOTUS acted like they are suffering from the jab themselves! Beware the zombie apocalypse! They should be exposing the fraud of germ theory and calling the whole thing out for the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on humankind!
Thanks for the commemt. I think we agree on the ineffectiveness of le jab. I would observe that the intervention of abortion is two interventions on two individuals (mother and baby); considering the second instance, the involuntary intervention always directly results in the immediate intentional death of a life. (In some cases the intervention of the first instance is to save a life.) The intervention of a (true) vaccine is intended to inoculate the subject to prevent contracting disease and potentially dying, and indirectly reduce the chances of others contracting disease and potentially dying.
As such the involuntary interventions for abortion and vax have opposite goals, and are equatable to the extent they are involuntary violations of bodily autonomy.
Interesting that we are now seeing UK data for the so-called Covid “vaccine” (biologic) vs omicron indicating per capita higher case rates among vaxed, and the majority of hospitalizations and deaths in the vaxed (though reported higher rates among unvaxed), which may raise a question what is the trend for lives saved from vax going forward with omicron..
This was an especially great analysis. It was very disheartening to read the opinions and the glaring absence of anything addressing the constitutionality of the principle issue. Who decides indeed. Apparently not the individual.
When I was much younger I remember coming to the quiet realization that there is no such thing as an exact science. I think the belief (or want for a belief) in exact science is a fundamental problem that leads to deference to expertise, and politicians. It is often scary to make decisions for yourself, because in doing so you also assume the responsibility for any mistakes made therefrom. It is infinitely easier to let the state, the experts, the doctors, the scientists decide than to research, formulate, and make our own decisions. Our outsourcing of these decisions to governments and so-titled experts has been the long and slow erosion of individual freedom. It is appalling that the Supreme Court cannot seem to fathom making a decision that burdens them with the responsibility they are charged with assuming; they can’t even do their own jobs.
What is the solution though? Minds and ideas must change. And change is just as difficult as accountability.
The defining feature of the current crisis is that nearly all bourgeois institutions and so-called "experts" (the media, government, academia, science and medicine, to name a few) have failed in response to a problem that is relatively straightforward. This suggests that the scale of the corruption and intellectual rot in our society is so much greater than most of us thought. For the Supreme Court to then decide these matters in the interests of institutions over individuals, is to misunderstand the fundamental nature of this crisis entirely.
The cracks are showing, they were always there but we're now paying attention to how abhorrent and vile it truly is.
No way to reform the system or even slow the accelerating processes of internal contradictions that are now overwhelming the ruling elite. The next 24 months are going to be a very painful process of coming to terms with the failure of the fabricated parallel reality of the West.
When one sees how egregious everything about this evil-doing Deep State Operation, the Plannedemic, is, it is simply dumbfounding. The Deep State has infested many positions of power/influence/ownership to wield this amount of control. The only solution is for We the People to wake up and take back all segments of our government, media, schools, etc.
It's only superficially straightforward. A match to the tinder of institutional corruption. Global power elite struck the match, fanned the flames... and mismanaged the forests for decades prior. They play a long game, and they play for keeps.
SCOTUS didn't misunderstand the fundamental nature, they reframed it to achieve the required outcome.
Why would you think "the scale of the corruption and intellectual rot in our society is so much greater than most of us thought" would not include SCOTUS?
These institutions have not failed; they've performed exactly as instructed by the chief engineers of the "pandemic."
Every member of the Supreme Court was focused on what the (OSHA or CMS) authorizing statute said (or didn't say). But the Constitution trumps the statute every time and the Supreme Court did not discuss the Constitution at all. Which is bizarre given that their job is to interpret and apply the Constitution.
Toby, I hope it’s clearly mentioned by multiple respondents below, and that is how can our Supreme Court decide who is mandated to participate in a scientific/medical experiment with potentially dangerous side effects in order to maintain their employment and feed their families? Is “the system” of law that fff-d up that this is what we’ve become in representing the constitution and our branches of government? Is there anyone left who’s not completely “bought”??
Each individual's natural rights trump even the constitution, no? Ordained by Nature and Nature's God.
Name one time since 1/1/2000 that SCOTUS actually struck a law or even considered it because it couldn't meet Constitutional requirements? They don't even think about that. My position is they've abandoned the fundamental requirement to ensure all laws are Constitutional. Or maybe they abandoned only those that go against the corrupt narrative.
I am a nurse. My husband is in healthcare.
I just want to speak a bit about the consequences of this CMS mandate. We were fortunate. Our hospital granted us exemptions. But we never should have had to submit requests for exemptions. A simple no should have been sufficient.
We are devastated. We realize we have been relatively fortunate but our plans for the future are gone. At any moment, we can walk into work and be told to be injected or leave. We had wanted to buy land, eventually build a small retirement home. Who goes into the slightest debt when you have no job security?
Meanwhile we work. Someone has to. Our vaccinated and boosted colleagues are home with Covid. Our medical center has travel nurses everywhere. We are still short. The hospital is offering > $10k bonuses for signing up for a series of extra shifts. $20k sign on bonuses in multiple departments. Offers by the center to pay of school loans. On and on.
Please understand - I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for us. My fury at the medical community is boundless. This uncertainty, this destruction of our ability to plan and do, the utter vindictiveness by the public and by so very many in the health care community has shocked me and weighted down my heart.
I used to feel so comfortable in the hospital. Loved it. Loved taking care of patients, their families. Now it is foreign. Dark. And fake.
Anyway - I thank all of you for caring about these mandate issues. I apologize that the medical community didn’t defend the concept of informed consent. It was the foundation of everything we did. Our expertise was never supposed to make us authorities over the public. Healthcare was never supposed to become weaponized.
You are the one person who should be there...all the healthcare workers that actually care and have morals are the best ones the hospitals have lost, huge disgusting mistake..We all need to support each other. It may all implode soon. Have hope, something even better could come along. It's terrible in the mean time and we have to go through it as a human society. We can't give up, don't give up. You may have to go where you're appreciated and where you matter. You didn't change, they did.
You are right. They changed. And it seemed to have happened overnight but it didn’t. Not really. The groundwork for so much of what we have seen the last two years has been under construction for a very long time.
I can't imagine what this must be like for you. Such noble and important work has been diminished by greed and power and illogical unscientific nonsense that should be obvious to anyone with a brain.
It’s like being black in America. You thought you had constitutional protections and liberties and could make plans for a future, but now, as you say everything is uncertain and precarious and there’s no longer any “real” protections or respect for you as a person. Welcome to the 2022 version of oppression and subjugation. No color needed.
A couple of months ago I saw a video of a 40 something black woman. She was from NYC. And she had made the decision to remain unvaccinated.
She spoke about how she had always perceived that it was difficult to be black in America. And I think a lot of people understand why she felt that way.
But now, that didn’t really matter. She was unvaxxed. She talked about all of the places she was legally prohibited from. No one was marching for her. No one really complained.
Watching her face - she wasn’t mad, or didn’t appear mad. She was in shock. Bewildered. Just quietly detailing one outrageous incident after another.
At the end, she said something like, “I just want to go back to belong black. At least then, I was free to do what I wanted. Go where I want. I had people who supported me.”
This should have been the biggest eye opener to people. But folks were fine with this happening to her. To everyone who, like her, had made their own health decision.
I would love to know where she is now and what happened to her.
Excellent! Exactly! If SCOTUS affirmed our fundamental, God-given, inalienable right to sovereignty over our own body, aka "informed consent," then the ruling should be straight forward and "no finding of fact" is needed.
However, if SCOTUS was going to consider and even allow the violation of our fundamental right of body sovereignty, a violation of "informed consent," then there is an obligation of SCOTUS to determine the facts. And, those facts include:
1/ Why is the vax is necessary?
2/ Do alternative treaments exist?
3/ What is in vax?
4/ What studies show the vax is safe & effective?
5/ Is the vax FDA approved?
If I were an attorney litigating this, I would bring up the fundamental argument that renders the vax mandates unconstitutional, but also include ALL other arguments that show how EGREGIOUSLY these vax mandates are illegal. In their totality, these arguments conclude that sinister & corrupt motives are at play. Vax mandates are illegal:
a/ Basic right of sovereignty over our own body
b/ Violate laws on medical privacy & discrimination
c/ No justification, rona flu 99+% survival
d/ No FDA approved vax available for distribution
e/ Vax cause injury/death
f/ All above imply sinister motives of tyranny/dep0pulat!on
Great points! Thank you!!! 🙌
And let’s not forget, there are also no protections for citizens who might become injured in this forced experiment. The corporations manufacturing these products also enjoy 100% immunity from any legal action. And even those that tried suing the government for damages walked away devastated and defeated (and even more financially crushed).
Great point...to be added. The individual bears ALL costs of the adverse effects.
Really appreciate your article!
You had them at a/. Individual Sovereignty. Nothing more need suffice.
I totally agree. The others make it egregiously obvious that the motives are sinister.
Goodness -- the points you make seem so obvious. And so glaringly absent, now that you name them--esp re no finding of facts or addressing of individual autonomy.
Love your energy and openness to learn from others! Not to mention that I always come away with so much great food for real thought and discernment rather than just argument to protect ego. Thank you and great work!!
Thank you HCK! Yeah it was so weird, both Republican and Democratic appointees stated that the question before them was, "Who decides" and neither bunch even seemed to consider the obvious fact that it is an individual's decision to control what goes into his/her body.
Perhaps it belies one of the foundational differences in the Great Vaccine Divide. I can hear in my mind's eye the responses to your article. First a blank look of Huh? Then, "Why would they even be discussing an individual's decision on this? It's been proven that vaccines are the only way to stop this novel virus! Why wouldn't people want to get vaccinated?? And why would the Supreme Court allow anti-vaxxers to make decisions that would harm the whole world [i.e. us] ... etc." The lack of emotional indignation to the trespassing of individual rights has been one of the most disorienting things about this whole schmoley for me. Something is just totally off empathetically. And from people who I would have said have a decently high EQ.
Arron Siri had a great response on Dels show. its worth the watch to see how he looked at the proceedings. and how tempered his assessment was at the same time. He will be before these same justices some time and he remember that "no need to poison the well" in his abbreviated responses.
Beautiful article and agree on all fronts…but I’m still puzzled. This is an experimental drug, nothing FDA approved is available to the public. Why wouldn’t they simply interpret existing consent laws under US Code Title 21, section 360? It’s just bizarre and a bit concerning. The court upheld a mandate for something completely experimental!
Excellent point. The lower courts and the Supreme Court should have nipped all of this in the bud for the exact reason that you state. And yet they proceeded for reasons that no one can explain. If Aaron Siri had been the attorney for the plaintiffs this never would have gotten this far. The attorneys they used do not understand the vaccine issue very well at all.
As has become obvious over the past few decades, the court does not decide issues such as these on their legal and constitutional merits. What they essentially do is wrap the majority policy preferences in legal mumble-jumble. They find ways to twist the law to produce the preferred outcome — they legislate.
It’s inconceivable that bodily autonomy was nowhere mentioned because that’s the very basis of popular objection to forced medical “treatments”.
Sadly, the Supreme Court is nothing more than yet another indicator that moral bankruptcy has sabotaged another civilization.
And to think that all those in the upper echelons of government (Congress, etc.) are exempt from taking the jabs because of its experimental nature. Morally bankrupt, yes, but also fully bought and paid off as well).
The judges that voted to deprive health care workers of their most basic rights should be allowed to go to Nuremberg gallows in their robes
Yeah it's bizarre how the elephant in the room - bodily sovereignty - just was not discussed.
Because under the PIC, there is none.
To be honest, I did not follow the whole event in detail, but the few quotes I heard from one of the justices left me speechless for how uneducated and ill-informed she was. Either they are deliberately ignorant or simply playing a role. I don't know which. Hard to imagine they have reached that level in this country and have such limited thinking ability and logic seems completely absent. Perhaps they are facing such heavy political pressure it prevents their brains from fully functioning.
The Democratic appointees are clearly stuck in a Pharma information bubble filled with propaganda and fear, completely untethered from the actual facts.
Was individual sovereignty part of what was presented in the suit? What I mean, doesn't the court have to make it's decision based on what the two parties presented to them? To my knowledge, at no point did either the States nor the Feds present the Constitutional aspects of personal sovereignty.
Feds said: We have the right because we're the Feds.
States said: Feds can't trample on States' Rights.
If the Feds can't trump States' Rights on OSHA, they can't trump States' Rights on CMS, so I still don't understand how they could rightly justify their split decision.
Personal rights didn't come into question because that wasn't the issue that was brought forth. Having said that, as someone who was fired because the CMS Mandate was already in the pipeline and my exemption requests were denied - they absolutely SHOULD have been mentioned, by someone at some point. But since SCOTUS refused to even HEAR the personal rights cases from other states, it could be that's why the States that did file used the arguments they did.
Over all, though I loved this analysis and it gives one a lot to think about. Thank you for writing it up!
You raise good points here. The plaintiffs lawyers just argued on behalf of their clients, not on behalf of the nation or its citizens. That being said, I think the Supreme Court can go in whatever direction they want (but they do not want to stray too far from the core arguments, lest they get criticized for judicial activism). Aaron Siri should have tried this case. Everything would have been different and so much better.
Maybe not. The scotus pretty much stated on script and avoided all the obvious issues, likely due to protecting the guilty (Corporate and dark state interests) simply pretending they didn’t want to offend their “party’s affiliation”. In the end we know all parties serve the true (behind the curtain) leadership of this country. Even the senate and congress knows that.
i think the B team lawyers argued the cases. they needed Aaron Siri
That's part of it - though the Justices asking questions mid-sentence or making off-topic comments didn't help.
Beautiful summation of the key question—the constitutional issue—the Court seems intent on avoiding, even though that is their one job. But this is a mischaracterization of the pro-lfe/Republican abortion dilemma: "...when it comes to abortion, Republicans want the state to have the power to make these decisions rather than individuals." The ONLY reason Republicans believe the state has any role or responsibility is because when it comes to abortion, there's more than simply "my body, my choice." Abortion involves the interests of two separate, individual human beings. Their interests are in conflict. And only one of them has a voice. The unborn child is alive and growing. Aborting that process obviously kills him or her.
Does the law and constitutional provision protecting an individual's right to their life include a human being not yet born at any point prior to birth? That moral question—not power over women's bodies or sovereignty—is what animates those who think Roe was a poorly reasoned and wrongly decided case.
I think that's well stated. Thank you!
the State also has a compelling interest in those unborn lives; they are future laborers, taxpayers and cannon fodder. not to mention the prickly issue that we have laws against murder for any reason other than self defense but allow murder for any reason if.... fill in the blank.
legal minds and scientists have argued over the exact moment when a particular cluster of fertilized cells becomes life and have defined away the fact that another human being who would have lived is allowed to be killed sometimes simply because it is an inconvenience to the bearer. but to those who argue that vaccination is part of the social contract that we all owe to each other, i could argue that bearing the future generation is part of the social contract that women owe to the state.
i say this as someone who supports abortion but with the full recognition that it is a taking of a life.
it's inconceivable to me that many of the people screaming the loudest about the injustice of the restrictive abortion laws in Texas are the very voices demanding that everyone get vaccinated because no individual should have the right to spread their germs to another person- as if anyone can control the spread of germs!
"i say this as someone who supports abortion but with the full recognition that it is a taking of a life."
The entire conversation would be different if everyone acknowledged this.
Thank you for your words.
Yeah, at least she's honest, but holy crap!
In this Brownstone piece "Covid 19 Vaccine Mandates Fail the Jacobson Test" the compelling interest of the state (one of four criteria for Jacobson) is debated. "The overwhelming majority of cases recover. Prevention of Covid-19 cases is at most a desirable policy goal and not a compelling interest.
As has become increasingly apparent, natural immunity following Covid-19 infection is stronger in repelling subsequent viral outbreaks than vaccine-based immunity. (Thus, prevention of Covid-19 case occurrence per se is actually counterproductive in ending the pandemic.) While the Supreme Court has opined that “[s]temming the spread of Covid-19 is unquestionably a compelling interest” in Roman Catholic Diocese v. Cuomo, that decision was rendered early in the pandemic, before the long-term weakness of vaccine-based immunity was understood. With what is known now, reasoning about compelling Interest for vaccine mandates no longer applies." https://brownstone.org/articles/covid-19-vaccine-mandates-fail-the-jacobson-test/
Thanks for trying to puzzle through this, Toby. I too was frustrated with the Court's failure to, at least, grapple with Jacobson. (Even a single pointed comment to the effect that 'a lot has happened in the Court's jurisprudence since 1905' might have helped undermine the Covidians' unwarranted confidence in its current authority.) However, in my own modest experience litigating constitutional issues in the appellate courts, judges and justices are all too human and tend to rationalize backwards from the conclusion. Thus, as you say, the 3 Democrats buried their utterly incoherent positions - arrived at via hair-on-fire emotionalism - in feigned deference, while the rest hunkered down behind the relative jurisprudential safety of states rights & bureaucratic 'overreach.' Though the OSHA result came out right, this intellectual cowardice left a trail of future vulnerability.
Brilliant observations! Thank you!!!
When I was very young & naive, I thought that the Justices on the Supreme Court read the Constitution, knew the Constitution they took an oath to uphold, and made decisions based upon the tenets of the Constitution. Since G.W. "Dumya" Bush said it was just an old piece of paper, it seems that ALL the Justices have stopped referring to it and now go by what their political party and corporate owners tell them! I want to fire the entire court and start all over again!
Clarence Thomas still faithfully holds to the Constitution. And I think Alito does, too.
Also, that report that G.W. Bush said something derogatory about the Constitution along the lines of it being an old piece of paper was withdrawn as unfounded upon a closer investigation:
https://www.factcheck.org/2007/12/bush-the-constitution-a-goddamned-piece-of-paper/
He wasn't a great president. We don't have to repeat made-up stuff about him as evidence. There are plenty of facts for that.
Thank you!!!
For an imperfect article I thought it was well-written and made many salient points. It is disappointing that the textualists didn’t appear to consult the text. Gorsuch’s Choices are the classical logical fallacy of false dichotomy, as you rightly point out. Thanks for this article - I think I’ll have to read it again tomorrow.
Thank you! 🙌
Also:
- It does seem that these decisions are contrived to be balanced (one yes, one no)
- losing sight of the forest for the trees.
- the bodily autonomy considerations for abortion and vaccines are not fully equatable as one of them includes the interests of a second life at direct and imminent risk
- a vigorous third branch should not shirk from striking down unconstitutionally laws, and edicts from the exec branch, else why have it?
Exactly. The Supreme Court failed to act as a Constitutional Court and failed to consult the Constitution in this matter, even though that's what they are supposed to do.
I think they ARE equatable... The main intent behind injections for all workplaces is that the shot supposedly protects other lives. But the shot is NOT a vaccine, does NOT prevent illness in the one getting the jab, and does NOT prevent transmission to others around the jabbed. SCOTUS acted like they are suffering from the jab themselves! Beware the zombie apocalypse! They should be exposing the fraud of germ theory and calling the whole thing out for the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on humankind!
Thanks for the commemt. I think we agree on the ineffectiveness of le jab. I would observe that the intervention of abortion is two interventions on two individuals (mother and baby); considering the second instance, the involuntary intervention always directly results in the immediate intentional death of a life. (In some cases the intervention of the first instance is to save a life.) The intervention of a (true) vaccine is intended to inoculate the subject to prevent contracting disease and potentially dying, and indirectly reduce the chances of others contracting disease and potentially dying.
As such the involuntary interventions for abortion and vax have opposite goals, and are equatable to the extent they are involuntary violations of bodily autonomy.
Interesting that we are now seeing UK data for the so-called Covid “vaccine” (biologic) vs omicron indicating per capita higher case rates among vaxed, and the majority of hospitalizations and deaths in the vaxed (though reported higher rates among unvaxed), which may raise a question what is the trend for lives saved from vax going forward with omicron..
This was an especially great analysis. It was very disheartening to read the opinions and the glaring absence of anything addressing the constitutionality of the principle issue. Who decides indeed. Apparently not the individual.
When I was much younger I remember coming to the quiet realization that there is no such thing as an exact science. I think the belief (or want for a belief) in exact science is a fundamental problem that leads to deference to expertise, and politicians. It is often scary to make decisions for yourself, because in doing so you also assume the responsibility for any mistakes made therefrom. It is infinitely easier to let the state, the experts, the doctors, the scientists decide than to research, formulate, and make our own decisions. Our outsourcing of these decisions to governments and so-titled experts has been the long and slow erosion of individual freedom. It is appalling that the Supreme Court cannot seem to fathom making a decision that burdens them with the responsibility they are charged with assuming; they can’t even do their own jobs.
What is the solution though? Minds and ideas must change. And change is just as difficult as accountability.