Last weekend the Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board said the National Guard should be used to keep the unjabbed in their homes concluding, “Were Utah a truly civilized place, the governor’s next move would be to find a way to mandate the kind of mass vaccination campaign we should have launched a year ago, going as far as to deploy the National Guard to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere.” Not be allowed… in Utah.
So we live in a time when many feel a “sign of civilization” is using the National Guard to confine people to their homes. How many in this community agree with that sentiment? The growing interest in using authoritarian measures to force conformity is not isolated to Utah, of course. A recent Rasmussen survey bears that out.
Fifty-nine percent of Democratic voters favor a government policy requiring citizens to be confined to their homes at all times, except for emergencies, if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Fifty-five percent of Democratic voters support a policy for federal or state governments to fine Americans who choose not to get the vaccine. Nearly half (48%) of Democratic voters think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online publications.
Forty-five percent of Democrats surveyed favor governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities if they refuse to get the vaccine. Forty-seven percent of Democrats favor a government tracking program for those who won’t get the vaccine. And, 29% of Democrat voters support temporarily removing parents’ custody of their children if parents refuse the vaccine. Wow.
Many of the baby boomers in the Democratic Party were the flower children of the 60s and 70s, anti-establishment, fight the man, and all that. But today a majority wants government to call out the National Guard against their neighbors and believe social media should be used to track and quiet any who question or disagree. Let that sink in.
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A recent letter to this paper stated that the unjabbed should go to back of the line for medical care and whatever else. He is not alone. The “anti-maskers” and “anti-vaxxers” have been targets since the beginning of all of this, but why the recent escalation? Could it be that the facts do not support the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” rhetoric?
Scotland is the latest country to remove most or all COVID restrictions because the data simply does not support them. A report from Public Health Scotland shows that cases of infection for the un-vaccinated is far lower per 100,000 people than that for fully vaccinated and those boosted (Table 14, page 38). Data.
Facts are ignored as the crowd demands action. We are just a step or two away from “She’s a witch, burn her.” To a very dark place indeed — I choose the light.
Click here to read more from Forum columnist Bette Grande.
Grande represented the 41st District in the N.D. Legislature from 1996 to 2014. She is CEO of the Roughrider Policy Center, an "innovation over regulation" think tank. She is a wife, mom, grandma, lover of life and Jesus. Opinions are solely her own.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Forum's editorial board nor Forum ownership.
