By Diane Roberts
INFECTED TALLAHASSEE — Who the hell does Joe Biden think he is, trying to force people to get life-saving vaccines?
It’s our right as Americans to breathe the open air without wearing some wussy libtard face diaper, just as it’s our right to die intubated in a hospital.
It’s all about your freedom, baby.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and the fine MAGA folks of the Florida Legislature are right here in the state capital, passing laws telling Biden where he can stick that order making businesses with more than 100 employees mandate the vax.
And yeah, it might cost the taxpayers several million for the lawsuits that’ll come out of these new bills, but keeping Florida free is worth every penny.
Anyway, they can take it from the education budget.
The new laws will stop schools trying to safeguard children’s health by forcing masks on them. And if your boss orders you to get the jab, you can say you have a religious objection or maybe you’re pregnant or maybe you’d rather stick a swab up your nose a couple times a week and wear a hazmat suit–which your employer has to buy for you.
Otherwise, Ron DeSantis will fine their ass — tens of thousands of dollars.
Americans are sick of following rules, you know, having to bring your airplane seat all the way up, stop at red lights, pay taxes, or do anything Washington says to do.
The governor and legislative Republicans have a clever plan to secede from the feds’ Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which does nothing but try to keep people from getting hurt. One of the new laws will give the gov $1 million to help create our very own FLOSHA.
The Chamber of Commerce likes it. So what if it’ll take years to launch, and Florida can’t do it without the feds’ permission?
By then, Ron DeSantis will be president-for-life.
The libs keep talking about “society” and “public health.” Well, if you want to be healthy, OK, but don’t try to impose your deviant values on me.
DeSantis says he’s “striking a blow for freedom” — freedom from experts, eggheads, M.D.s, Ph.D.s, empirical facts, and the parts of the United States Constitution he doesn’t like.
(Especially that thing in Article VI that says that federal law generally takes precedence over state law.)
That Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is a great role model. She won’t wear a mask in the U.S. Capitol and she won’t get vaccinated, so Nancy Pelosi docked her pay to the tune of 60 grand.
So what? Freedom is priceless.
You don’t know what’s in those so-called vaccines: Could be a George Soros plot to put tiny socialist robots in our brains. In any case, we say, “Our bodies, our choice!”
Except if you’re a woman and don’t want to have a baby.
And, as the governor points out, the vaccine mandate “isn’t about science, it’s about punishing people who are inadequately subservient to the regime.”
Our governor welcomes principled dissent, especially if you clear it with him first. He only yanked state surgeon general Dr. Scott Rivkees out of a press briefing that time because he got all medical and bucked the governor’s line on COVID safety.
The state took money from the schools boards because they wouldn’t do what the governor said.
Don’t those teachers understand they work for him? Yet there they are, trying to make kids wear masks so they don’t die of the Delta variant, and talking about slavery and racism in class, even though they’ve been told not to.
The professors at U.F. couldn’t testify in court because what they said might harm the governor’s excellent voting bills, and nobody wants that, right?
Meanwhile, back at the special session, that fine young righteous Right fellow Ben Shapiro, who was in town to speak on the mega-woke, conservative-repressing Florida State campus, got a tour of the House chamber from House Speaker Chris Sprowls while hordes of patriots spoke in favor of telling Washington to butt out — right after they give us the $13 billion in infrastructure cash.
It was quite the lib slap-down in the hallowed halls of the Legislature!
You had doctors from Hawaii and even Cleveland, Ohio, showing up to witness how the feds are trying to destroy America.
One declared that “fascists from D.C.” want us to take these “dangerous and experimental drugs” as part of a “blitzkrieg against our freedom.”
You had Dr. Jeffrey Mueller of Orlando warning that we don’t really know anything about these vaccines, despite all the so-called medical trials, the scientific evidence, and the recommendations of the FDA, the CDC, the NIH, and the rest of the Deep Staters who want to crush the neck of Liberty under the jackboot of Science.
Dr. Mueller favors horse de-wormer, calling it “an incredibly effective therapeutic.”
You had nurses and first responders telling tragic stories about how they might lose their jobs if they don’t get vaccinated and stop spewing potentially COVID-infected droplets all over their cowardly co-workers.
Vaccines are stressful! Think of the trauma you suffered getting all those shots the authoritarian state made you get just to go to school: chickenpox, MMR, polio, Hepatitis B, Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis.
Did the brave white men who conquered the West, requisitioning it from those Indians who weren’t making a profit off the land, worry about Hepatitis B?
Did the Pilgrims fret about measles?
Did George Washington force his troops to get the smallpox vaccine?
(OK, he did, but things were different back then.)
In the 21st century, real Americans know that they may end up bankrupted by medical bills, ignorant of their own history, and comatose with a bunch of tubes sticking in them.
We’ll still own the libs.
Freedom is worth it, right?
Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo. She has been a member of the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg Times–back when that was the Tampa Bay Times’s name–and a long-time columnist for the paper in both its iterations. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays and opinion pieces to the BBC. Roberts is also the author of four books.
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Thomas S. Brown says
Let’s concede Ms. Roberts’ assertion that the vaccines are effective for curbing a dangerous virus. If so,. why has the Biden bill imposed a mandate only on companies of 100 or more employees? It’s discriminatory on its face. Don’t workers at smaller companies deserve similar protection against potential spreaders? I am waiting for liberals to explain how some animals are more equal than others.
Cynthia says
Seriously? Talk about a right wing twist. Freedom from illness and unnecessary medical expense is the way to protect businesses and workers. The vaccine works and most people don’t have side effects from it as bad as COVID could cause. Stop making it political and realize it’s science that keeps people safe.
Michael Cocchiola says
So, are you saying that President Biden is somehow racist or discriminatory or suffering from dementia because he singled out companies with 100 or more employees? Is he flat out wrong targeting large workforces with inherently greater risks of infection? Does his directive keep smaller employers from enacting their own mandate?
I mean, I just don’t quite understand your concern, here.
E, ROBOT says
The draconian demands on us serve only to get us used to doing as we are told. We’re almost there. Say goodbye to the land of the free and home of the brave.
So tired of the misinformation says
If you were to actually research Federal Laws and Regulations you would know the answer to your question.
Susan says
Why are Anti-vaxxers more important than the people they could possibly infect? When people who are vaccinated, and wear masks , but have comprised immune systems that make them still at risk become exposed to an anti- vaxxer, or Anti- masker , and get sick and die will the don’t care about other people’s life stand up and take the blame? No…. of course not because those are the very people taking up space in the ICU on respiratory machines because? Oh yeah… they wanted the freedom to not get vaccinated, not wear a mask, and to spread the virus , and potentially cause the deaths of people who actually do care about the health of their fellow humans.
I have been vaccinated, as well as my immediate family, including my children, we also got our flu shots, and continue to wear masks.
Why? Because we have 3 people in our family with highly compromised immune systems. Even with all our precautions people like you resemble the grim reaper to us.
While our State leaders seem hell bent on giving you freedom of choice to inadvertently cause illness and death to people at the highest risk.
But they take away our freedom to live without fear of you killing us.
We also were vaccinated to protect people who are like The Governors wife. People who are at a higher risk due to Cancer, and other such diseases.
My Husband is waiting for a kidney transplant he is at a high risk.
You people , and your fight for freedom of choice to infect , and cause Death to people who are even trying to keep you safe by our sacrifice to get vaccinated.
Do you remember the story of Typhoid Mary?
Why is it people refuse to learn from the past?
They continue the insanity again, and again .
I wonder …. if you infect me because of your freedom, can my family sue you for wrongful death? Or do you think by not getting vaccinated, and not wearing a mask while you are A positive but your free to roam, and you infect someone would that be pre- meditated murder?
Now that’s a subject no one seems to talk about….
bob says
then it’s also OK for me to bitch-slap those that are not covering their virus spreading mouths and endangering me and mine
A.j says
I am waiting for Trump to say he was behind the insurrection. I am waiting for the Justice System to put him and his whole family in jail. No put them in prison. I am waiting for the white seventeen year old murderer to get murdered.
mark101 says
Sorry, will never happen. Might as well lock up the Clintons with him, and let’s add Dictator DeSantis to the list, hell and let’s not forget the Good Old Merry Men in the Flagler County Commission. As dirt bags all deserve the same treatment.
Let Freedom Ring says
AJ, keep waiting brother. While you’re at it, are there any more people you’re waiting to get murdered? Or just the 17 year old, who’s now 18?
A.j says
I will not hold my breath. Doesn’t hurt to dream.
Paul says
I’m waiting for an explanation of how the anti vax, anti mask cohorts have allowed themselves to be colletively indoctrnated into opposing facts and pursuing folly.
Doesn’t freedom require an independent and enquiring mind ?
Dave says
Desantis can see though all the liberals propaganda!
NotWoke says
It is our right as Americans to not be sheep, and not blindly follow politicians who have made COVID-19 a political rather than a health issue. The Democrat party successfully used this as an issue to elect a totally incompetent president, and if you can believe it, an even more incompetent vice-president. So it is almost impossible to see beyond the politics and find the truth.
Let’s start with the argument that federal law supersedes state law. There are no federal laws requiring the wearing of masks and/or the mandatory COVID vaccination of US citizens. As the courts have said, these mandates likely violate the constitution, and is it likely that the mandates will be found unconstitutional if they find their way to the Supreme Court. Biden used OSHA to create a “rule” (not a law) because he knew he had no right under the law to mandate vaccines.
The federal government has no right to regulate the health and safety of US Citizens. The powers granted to the federal government, by the states, are enumerated:
https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/historical-documents/united-states-constitution/thirty-enumerated-powers/
Nowhere within these enumerated powers is the power to regulate citizens health and mandate vaccines.
As stated in the Tenth Amendment, “The 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.
No one should ever be vaccinated against their will. While there are bad precedents for this, this would certainly be a violation of individual constitutional rights. Where would this stop? And besides, long term effect of vaccines is suspect, as described in Robert F. Kennedy’s book “The Real Anthony Fauci”. Also suspect is the motivation of the NIH to promote vaccinations above all other COVID treatments, and actively discourage other treatments.
The federal government should appropriately identify the risks and benefits of the vaccines. Citizen should get vaccinated based upon their own personal situation and risk profile. The federal government has been totally lacking in reporting the risks of the vaccines.
Masks may afford some protection against the COVID virus, but the amount of protection afforded depends upon the type of mask, how the mask is worn. On the other hand, masks should not be mandated without consideration of the adverse affects of masks.
Last but not least is look at the results. California’s coronavirus rate is double that of Florida, despite mask mandates and recommendations to prevent the spread of the virus. California, New York, New Jersey have unemployment rates of approximately 7 %, while Florida has a rate less than 5%.
Susan says
Here is a suggestion, take a trip, no vaccine, no mask… go State to State… visit the hospitals… the mourges… and most of all knock on the doors of the Families who have actually lost loved ones to this horrible virus…. then explain to them how your freedom to walk around like Typhoid Mary infecting as you merrily walk around is more important than the people they have lost…. talk about politics? Freedom? Choice? Lawsuits against the Federal government…
Then ask how long before the people left in the wake of your freedom start lawsuits because your freedom cost them a loved one….
That will inevitably be the next shoe that drops.
Freedom always comes with a price tag, unfortunately this one comes with a body count.
NotWoke says
Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
David Keeler says
At first this piece seems to be a great example of tongue-in-cheek satire but it doesn’t take long for the reader to see it’s really little more than typical leftist head-up-ass lunacy propaganda.
Susan says
Wow I am surprised you even read this well written, very accurate article…. how could you see it with your head so far up Desantis’s back end?
He is the King of miss information, and propaganda.
Steve says
Take some Horse Dewormer and call me in the morning
A Concerned Observer says
Ms. Roberts sounds like an extremely unhappy person. Americans are not sick of following rules, only a very few misguided, nonconformist folks such as she are. Generally, she seems to be against any rule that she does not like for some personal albeit undefinable reasons. Unfortunately for Ms. Roberts, rules and laws are in place to protect everyone, not just her. Failure to abide by established rules place everyone in danger, not just the perpetrator. If she does not wish to live in a community of civilized citizens, she should pitch a tent or dig out a cave deep in some uninhabited location (please not in a national, state or community park) and live out her life in quiet isolation. She and the rest of rule following citizenry will all be happier.
Common sense says
Love our governor! Thank you for giving us options! You are a true hero to us.
Concerned Citizen says
Really there has been to much back on forth on preventative measures to make anything effective now. It’s all become to politicized.
In order for any of this to be effective the same thing has to be done everywhere at all times that includes.
1.) Masks – To be worn by all. Not some. Until enough time has passed without resurges. Still on the fence about mask effectiveness on a virus. And this comes with 2 relatives in the medical field.
2.) Vaccines – Given to all eligible. Not prioritized and rolled out in phases. Allowing others to get sick. Then blaming them because of no vaccine when it wasn’t ready for them. Kind of ironic that health care workers had to wait to get theirs after seniors. And now many are being let go for not being vaccinated.
3.) If vaccine mandates are going to be a thing then it needs to be for all. Not some. This whole bit of silly guidelines like 100 or less does nothing to curve anything. Because those who can’t or won’t get vaccinated will find employment elsewhere. So then you are just discouraging people to get it. Or disregarding the ones who can’t
In the early days of this I chose to wear the mask when needed. And got my shots because I felt it was the right thing to do. Having at risk people in my life I care about was incentive enough to do what was needed to make them as safe as possible. Then comes the political rhetoric that muddies this so much it’s part of the reason we are still dealing with it later.
At the end of the day doing what’s right to fight Covid 19 should be a personal choice and not a mandated one. There would have been far more cooperation had the government not tried to lay down back and forth nonsenseical mandates. And had we all been a little nicer to one another.
Susan says
To concerned citizen,
Finally a voice of reason.
Geezer says
Black and white (no gray), liberal and conservative (no centrists).
It’s all so simple now. Simple labels… We live in a dumb country—the country
that elected Donald Trump.
A country that has most of its revered flags made in China. Boy, the people who
work in those factories, what they must think of Americans who farm out Old Glory,
and Americans that buy these abominations…
Does the USA have factories churning out Chinese flags?
Check your F*** Biden flags—”Made in China.”
Same for your MAGA hats.
Most Americans are in a stupor. Arguing about f***ing masks…
Good grief!
Wear a mask! Keep your snots to yourself!
shelley says
DeSantis is providing CHOICE. The vaccine should not be mandated nor masks. You can argue that they work, but what about the thousands upon thousands of vaccinated people who got COVID after they were fully vaccinated? And what about those who were vaccinated and died? Oh, yes, blame it on the unvaccinated. Can you prove that an unvaccinated person spread it to them? The vaccinated are able to spread it. So how is this “vaccine” really effective? It wasn’t even designed for all of these mutations.
Never in my life did I get a vaccine or get one for my children thinking “Wow, I’m helping others.” I got vaccines for me and my children to protect ourselves. This has become a narrative that by vaccinating we are helping others.
As for masks- wear one of it makes you feel better but do not mandate them. The majority of people don’t wear them correctly or will pull them down to talk on their phones then touch surfaces after touching their faces. Children/teenagers don’t wear them correctly either. As a teacher, I have seen more students drop them on the floor, touch their faces and other surfaces, pull them down to talk since we cannot understand them, etc. The virus ran its course in our school wear masks were not mandated but a majority of students wore them and our numbers were the same as county schools with mandatory mask wearing. I had vaccinated students who wore masks and still got sick.
Stop the bickering and just agree to respect each other’s decisions to either mask or not mask or vaccinate or not.
Susan says
Yes vaccinated people can still catch Covid19, but they have a higher survival rate than those not vaccinated. No we can’t prove that an anti-vaxxer got them sick, but that’s because our Governor won’t let them do tracing when someone gets sick. No he is too busy opening the floodgates to all the tourists who bring their own variety of germs with them.
But just imagine if for one second someone was as hell bent to trace this thing as Desantis is in letting it run wild? What do you think would happen? Imagine that you could pin point exactly who it was that exposed let’s say a loved one who followed the rules, but had a weak immune system and they died ? Imagine finding out that because they chose not to be vaccinated your loved one died? Now imagine your loved one had a different type of medical emergency and they went to the hospital only to be turned away , or put on hold because the beds were full, now imagine those beds are full of people with Covid19 and they refused to be vaccinated, but it’s your loved one who dies.
This is why Desantis won’t do tracing. Imagine the lawsuits, and how ridiculous in comparison his law suits would look.
Jonathan says
DeathSantis feels if he names call President Biden like his idol Trump the one that caused the attack on our Capitol, who is against our Constitution and the law of the USA and caused thousands of innocent people to die from the virus he will get brownie points like Donald. DeathSantis has also had thousands of innocent people under his watch die.
Lets ask him has he been vaccinated? Has his wife and children been vaccinated bet if he tells the truth which I doubt they have.
Concerned says
Love our governor! Thank you for giving us options! You are a true hero to us.
Pissed in PC says
If he’s a hero to you then you have set the bar really low. But I wouldn’t expect anything else from those that eat those 💩sandwiches he doles out weekly.
Hmmm says
Why is there so much push for people to get the vaccine, when its known that you can still contract and spread covid with the vaccine? If you get the vaccine, it may decrease the severity of covid, i get it. But what does that have to do with the people acting like if you dont have the vaccine, you’re putting other people’s lives in danger?
Pissed in PC says
Blessed are the anti-vaxers for they shall inherit intubation. Blessed are the anti-maskers for they will soon see the face of God.
Covid 20-21
Geezer says
Exocet 33:4
And when the people saw these evil N90 masks, they mourned: and no man did put on him his bourgeois mask.
A.j says
I love this. WOW.
Shelley says
Susan,
My point is that the vaccinated could still be getting the unvaccinated sick. No we do not need tracing to create even more ridiculous lawsuits. Did you ever react this way with the flu? Where was your outrage for the people who died then? No one ran around mandating flu shots.
The point is that this “vaccine” is not working to eradicate the disease. It may lessen it for some but then again, many have died that have had the vaccine- Colin Powell for example. The death rate is still WAY too low to force people to take this.
More time and energy could be spent on working to bring down the numbers of victims of heart disease, stroke, and cancer. More people die of those every year than of COVID. I know of no one personally who has died of COVID, but I have lost 8 people that I knew this past year, that fall under one of those categories plus several more due to accidents. Again, where is your outrage for those people? Why not push for more research to help them? Why not push for medications to help those who do get COVID instead of laughing at suggestions that are inexpensive?
Ray W. says
One flaw in Shelley’s reasoning remains definitional. The flu has long been recognized as an endemic viral disease, by definition. No vaccine has ever been developed that can contain or eradicate the multiple variants caused by the four differing strains of virus that cause the flu. There occur too many mutations each year to ever get ahead of the flu virus, thereby reducing the effectiveness rate of each year’s flu vaccine. In contract, SARS-Covid-19 (aka SARS-C0v-2) is a single strain of a virus that also mutates into variants. Thus far, the definition of SARS-Covid-19 is that it is a pandemic viral disease, not yet an endemic one.
The first strain of Covid (SARS-Cov-1) was eradicated some 10 years ago, without a vaccine. Isolated in China in its infancy, it never spread widely enough and eventually died out. Based on the proven capacity to eradicate one strain of the Covid virus, it remains a belief that the world may also be able to eradicate SARS-Covid-19. The current trio of vaccines are far more effective in limiting the effects of the SARS-Covid-19 virus than the flu vaccines have ever been in limiting the effects of the flu, but there may come a time when SARS-Covid-19 is redefined as an endemic viral disease. In other words, SARS-Covid-19 is not yet comparable to the flu, though I concede that it may mutate into a comparable viral disease. All it takes is a lack of intellectual vigor on Shelley’s part and she can declare the two significantly different viral diseases into diseases that are similar enough for her to support her arguments.
Since Shelley is basing her analysis on flawed reasoning, while she raised several valid points, she loses the argument. After all, two differing views can be valid, yet one can be better than the other or, for that matter, less bad than the other. If she continues to maintain that the two significantly different viral diseases are similar enought to be comparable, she will only prove herself to be uneducable.
As for the issue Shelley raises about vaccine mandates, all our Republican leaders need to do is say the following every day until Covid-19 is eradicated or redefined as an endemic viral disease: “Please visit your local pharmacy and receive your jab.” Four to five seconds each day ought to suffice. Governor DeSantis said it once earlier this year. Only once. It is easy for a Republican politician to say and their leadership position might persuade enough people to accept the jab. If enough people accept the jab, there might be no reason for mandates. All it takes is leadership. Republican politicians need to stop leading from behind.
As an aside, I know a number of people who have died from Covid-19. Like several other commenters on FlaglerLive, Shelley really loses one aspect of her multiple arguments when she asserts her belief that not enough of her friends have died from Covid-19 to persuade her that it is important to continue the attempt to keep Covid-19 from meeting the definition of an endemic viral disease. All Shelley’s assertion proves is that she is more than prepared to accept the fact that hundreds of thousands of other people’s loved ones have already died from Covid-19 in the United States. Who knows how many more will die? Millions worldwide? A callous belief masked by flawed reasoning is still a callous belief. A reasonable argument can be made and supported that other people’s children may not have to die.
All in all, Shelley’s several valid points are significantly outweighed by the fact that if SARS-Covid-19 proves to be an eradicable viral disease by widespread worldwide acceptance of the jab, millions of people around the world may not have to die. If Covid-19 eventually mutates into enough variants that are more deadly and spread more rapidly, mutations that can defeat the effectiveness of the vaccines, then Shelley will be right. Unfortunately, the lack of leadership from one political party may prove her points.
The underlying approach taken by Shelley and many others like her is that if enough people accept her position and decline to accept the jab because they believe that SAR-Covid-19 is comparable to the flu, we will never know if SARS-Covid-19 can be eradicated. However, it remains reasonable to argue that we will know how many people die from it if it is not eradicated. If only the callous among us knew just how callous they are. Once again, Wittgenstein pointed out that one of the most difficult things in life is to not fool oneself.