What is religion? And what recognition does it deserve?

Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Photo credit: Dan Hall on unsplash

Two years before the Constitutional Convention, America’s founding fathers were embroiled in a battle over religious liberty in Virginia. Patrick Henry faced off against James Madison over a bill to fund the teaching of morality. Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, and other famous names joined the fray. 

The principles that prevailed became the pillars of the “establishment” and “free-exercise” clauses of the First Amendment. The controversy also produced a document titled, “Memorial and Remonstrance.” It deserves recognition on par with the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution among our most important documents. 

The Memorial begins with a quote from the Virginia Declaration of Rights, “Religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.” America’s founders defined religion not as a collectivist project, but as an individual duty that each person owes to the Creator.

Only illegitimate rulers consider religion fundamentally as mindless “group think.” The opposite is true. Human beings do not join some group and subsequently conform their thinking to its precepts. Rather, each person’s individual mind comes to a conviction about reality and, subsequently, finds others who share this same conviction. 

Groups and religious leaders do not create or validate beliefs. Nor are religious beliefs confined to the margins of human existence. Religion encompasses all of life. Therefore, it is deeply antihuman both to treat people only as group-members, and to restrict the subject matter of religion. Nevertheless, many misguided corporations and government officials today are doing just that.

Cheyenne Regional Medical Center

Cheyenne Regional Medical Center (CRMC) is one such example. Its standard application for religious exemptions to vaccinations subjects them to the whims of “the Chief Legal and Human Resource Officer.” It reserves the right to require “documents from your religious leader” and “will not”’ grant exemptions based on “personal” beliefs. 

This policy threatens faithful employees with loss of job in a bid to force compliance without the need to persuade by evidence and reason. CRMC is not alone with its policy. It is following a new and progressive denial of the religious liberty for which America’s founders fought and died.

Denial of “personal” beliefs destroys religious liberty because religion is precisely personal. Madison and company understood that personal convictions can “only be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.” Failure to govern by this principle is the exact opposite of the American ethos. 

Progressives object that this gives too much freedom for people to hold unreasonable opinions. Those who believe this simply do not understand human nature. Examine your own mind and observe that you cannot bring yourself to believe and act upon unreasonable opinions. No sane person can. You will not throw yourself off a cliff. Nor will you willingly ingest poison.

Sane people may do unreasonable things if they are misinformed about the truth. But the solution for this is simply to present evidence and reason that persuades them of the truth. Humans simply cannot thrive in circumstances where reason and persuasion are replaced by force and violence.

So, Madison wrote: “The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.” Notice, here, that the “right” stands in service of a prior “duty.” The duty is to the Creator.

For this reason, the “right is in its nature an unalienable right.” That means that it cannot be taken from anybody without denying an individual’s personhood. Even that person, cannot barter away this right. For, properly speaking, it is not a right that belongs to the individual, but to the Creator who gave it. Thus, there are two reasons why religious liberty is an “unalienable right.” 

It is unalienable, first, “because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men.” Madison knew that human nature—not personal stubbornness—makes it impossible for a person to act against his or her own mind.

Religious liberty is unalienable, second, “because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator.” Soldiers know that duty cannot be denied even on pain of injury or death. Every sane person also knows this. Governments that act otherwise deny the very humanity of their citizens.

In its opening four sentences, the Memorial sounds a powerful corrective to the flawed progressivism of our day. The rest of it is equally profound. It should be required reading for every policy maker and thoughtful citizen. Policies from school curriculum to vaccine mandates, would all be truer to human nature if we relearned the truths of Memorial and Remonstrance.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, September 24, 2021.

American Thinker: What do you do in the middle of a hijacking?

On the 20th anniversary of 9-11, Kylee Zempel over at The Federalist published a poignant reflection titled "Would you have stormed the cockpit?"  Through the lens of that question, she examined the character necessary for the passengers of Flight 93 to take on terrorists armed with box-cutters and bombs.  She further asked what sort of culture instills that character.  It was a powerful piece.  But it left unexplored the imminent reality that every American is already facing the same situation today.

The passengers of United Flight 93 were ordinary citizens who realized that their airplane had been hijacked. But that was only the first shock of the day.  Until that day, hijackers made demands and promised safety if the demands were met.  The proper response was: Stay calm and wait for the professional hostage negotiators to arrive.  But that morning, everything changed.

Read the full article here:  https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/09/what_do_you_do_in_the_middle_of_a_hijacking.html

We are all Todd Beamers, now

Boeing 757 (like Flight 93) leaving Newark
Photo credit: Bing Hui Yau on unsplash

In the afterglow of last week’s reflections on 9-11, Todd Beamer and the resistance fighters aboard United Flight 93 have been much on my mind.

These ordinary citizens realized that their airplane had been hijacked. But that was only the first shock. Until that day, hijackers made demands and promised safety if the demands were met. The proper response was: Stay calm and wait for the professional hostage negotiators to arrive. But that morning, everything changed. 

Through cellular communication, the passengers of Flight 93 learned that three other hijacking situations had not ended by landing the plane and commencing hostage negotiations. Instead, one by one, planes slammed into targets making the carnage ten times worse. This was the second shock. We have had decades of hindsight to process this. But the passengers of Flight 93 were forced to grasp their new reality on the fly.

Beamer and company had to process the new threat in real time. Imagine the hushed conversation among the passengers as they took in the situation and came to the horrific realization that the civilian airplane they had boarded was now a militarized weapon. It had become a 90-ton missile, loaded and bearing enough fuel to immolate its target—hurtling towards an unknown number of innocents at 500 miles per hour.

Todd Beamer

None of these people had official standing. They were neither flight officers nor crew. They were not law enforcement officers or counter-terrorism experts. They had no training for the situation. And they didn’t have the luxury of time to ponder their predicament over days. The only authority they had was the truth of the moment and their own humanity. And they had minutes to act.

But Beamer understood. The awesome power that enabled 90 tons of materials and fuel peacefully and safely to convey passengers had been hijacked into the employ of evil. He understood that the evil exceeded the death of those aboard. Rather, they themselves had become a weapon against untold innocents on the ground. Control of the plane was not just about self-preservation. It was about the preservation of hundreds ignorant of the approaching threat.

In that moment, the option of inactivity was taken off the table. Beamer heard the call of a thousand voices saying, “We don’t even know that you exist, but you are the only one in a position to avert our destruction.” It was a responsibility he could not shirk. 

Beamer’s wife, Lisa, confirms his realization in her book, Let’s Roll!: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage. There she related an interview with Lisa Jefferson, the last person with whom he spoke. Discussing his plan to rush the cockpit, she asked, “Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” He answered, “It’s what I have to do.” There is no choice left in these words. Duty is an unremitting obligation.

The passengers of Flight 93

Last week, Kylee Zempel published a thoughtful piece in the Federalist asking, “Would you have stormed the cockpit?” It’s a fair question. But I think our question is more immediate than that. Beamer’s choice 20 years ago is a microcosm of our situation today.

Institutions, like airplanes, have been built to be powerful for the accomplishment of much good. But that power can be hijacked for evil purposes. When control of these institutions is taken from the people that they were built to serve, the havoc that they can wreak on civilization is proportional to their power for good. This is more than a danger to its members. Like Flight 93, they have become hijacked airplanes aimed at the destruction of innocents who don’t even know the institution exists.

The long march through America’s institutions has weaponized many. The cockpits of corporations, professional associations and unions, charities, political parties, and government bureaucracies have been invaded by people intent on destroying our world. Those who have poured out their talents and treasure to make them strong, are suddenly astonished to find themselves aboard a missile aimed at the heart of America.

For too long we have reacted to this situation like the hijacked hostages of old: Staying calm and waiting for others to act. But by now, you should notice the results of this strategy. Many institutions have exploded over their target. The rescuers never arrived. Think of the Boy Scouts, professional sports leagues, and American corporations making billions on the backs of foreign slaves. Consider the havoc wrought on the Afghani people and ask yourself who is positioned to end it. 

Like Todd Beamer, once you see the pattern you can no longer escape the truth. You can assess the institutions you inhabit—maybe the school system, or your place of employment, or your church. You can take responsibility, develop a plan and rise from your seat. You may be the only one positioned to protect the innocent. If so, only one option remains. “Let’s Roll.”

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, September 17, 2021.

When it comes to Ivermectin, Seriously, y'all, stop it.

Photo by Matt Seymour on unsplash

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has now officially joined the ranks of federal agencies that have scuttled their own credibility with media-enabled nonsense. At 5:57AM on a Saturday morning, August 21, it issued the folksy tweet: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all, stop it… Using the drug Ivermectin to treat COVID-19 can be dangerous and even lethal. The FDA has not approved the drug for that purpose.” 

By Monday morning, as if on cue, every compliant media outlet from Seattle to Miami published articles as if this were a serious problem. Rod Miller was the first out of the gate in the Cowboy State. He profanely opined, “I sure as h--- wouldn’t ingest it [Ivermectin].” He failed to notice that over a billion doses have been given to human beings since 1988. In all that time, and in 125 countries, zero deaths have been tied to its use. 

Rod Miller, columnist

What is more, the FDA approved Ivermectin for human ingestion in 1996 and it made the World Health Organization’s “Model List of Essential Medicines” in 2019. Nevertheless, the FDA deliberately created a narrative that Ivermectin is horse medicine. The condescending, “y’all” was calculated to paint anyone who might imagine otherwise as uneducated yokels. 

Soon Ellen Fike parroted the narrative by calling Ivermectin an “anti-parasitic medication most often used to treat livestock.” While admitting that the FDA had approved it for human use, the unmistakable point was that Ivermectin is not FDA-approved for treating COVID-19.

In the pharmaceutical industry, this is called “off-label” use. Doctors do it all the time some for good, and some for ill. As this column discussed several weeks ago, Testosterone is regularly prescribed off-label to minor girls! For more examples, Wikipedia has an entire page on the subject. 

What good could come of prescribing Ivermectin for COVID-19 off-label? Here is where it gets interesting. Barely a month after COVID-19 hit America, researchers submitted a paper to Antiviral Research that found Ivermectin to be effective against COVID-19 in the lab. It turns out that the same properties that make it effective against parasites also make it promising against viruses. 

Before the paper even could be published, the FDA issued a “Letter to Stakeholders” that threatened “FDA investigation and potential enforcement action” against any doctor with the temerity to try it against COVID-19. The letter stated: “Additional testing is needed to determine whether ivermectin might be safe or effective to prevent or treat coronavirus or COVID-19.” It then went on, bizarrely, to warn against people taking Ivermectin packaged for animal use.

Okay. That’s a weird caution. But at least we could expect the FDA to do the additional testing that would either prove or disprove the effectiveness of Ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19. After all, thousands were dying daily, and millions of cases were available for Randomized Controlled Trials that could provide a definitive answer.

One might think that while granting “emergency use authorization” to Remdesivir, two mRNA injections (Moderna and Pfizer), and one vaccine (J&J) against COVID-19, the FDA could have included a study of one of the safest drugs known to man. But, alas, 17 months later and we still have no such study. Nor has the FDA updated its guidance based on multiple external studies. Rather, on August 21, 2121 we got a snarky tweet bringing up the same unlikely scenario that it had imagined on April 10, 2020. 

The intellectually curious soon asked: Where are all these people slurping down ointments intended for cows? Dr. Jason McElyea went on the Rachel Maddow show to say that they lived in Oklahoma. In the very heart of hick-dom, supposedly, so many people were ill from taking “horse de-wormer” that gunshot victims were turned away from emergency rooms. Rolling Stone even put his claims into print. But he was lying.

The hospital issued a statement saying that Dr. McElyea didn’t currently work there, and that it had treated no cases of Ivermectin abuse—not a single one. We are still waiting to meet the knuckle-draggers that the FDA is so worried about.

Why am I taking up this subject? I am no doctor—not even a veterinarian. But two things kept me from passing over this ridiculous tale. First, a newspaperman, whom I respect, asked me to address it. Second, people are tired of lies. They just want to know what is real and go about their daily lives. If Ivermectin is proven ineffective, just show the receipts. But don’t peddle silly narratives that make even Rolling Stone print a correction. 

Ellen Fike, reporter

Truth begins with accountability for lies told. People need and deserve reporters and columnists who will publicly apologize for public falsehoods. Where that doesn’t happen, they will look elsewhere for reliable information, and they should.

Those at the CDC and FDA, who have spent a year and a half failing to study Ivermectin, should be put out of a job. The Centers for Disease Control was created to control diseases, not to control the narrative. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.

Post Script: 

On May 25, 2021 the Indian Bar Association sued Soumya Swaminathan, the WHO chief scientist for India. On June 13, 2021 an additional legal brief was filed. Both seek prosecution for causing the deaths of Indian citizens by sending a Tweet that caused the state of Tamil Nadu to withdrew the use of Ivermectin from their protocol. 

On August 19, 2021 Haruo Ozaki, Chair of the Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Association explained the data on why doctors should prescribe ivermectin for COVID-19. Perhaps this explains the timing of the FDA tweet on August 21.

Also published in the Cowboy State Daily, September 9,2021, and in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, September 10, 2021.

Just laws should protect everyone from medical mandates

Photo by Prasesh Shiwakoti (Lomash) on Unsplash

We regularly hear people with medical credentials claim that abortion is “health care.” Not only is this obviously untrue for the unborn, it has not been demonstrated for the mother either. Never has a randomized, controlled trial (RCT) demonstrated any physical, emotional, mental or spiritual health improvement attributable to elective abortion.

Nevertheless, abortion advocates make this unsubstantiated claim to advanced policies that entice women to procure abortions, use tax-payer dollars to subsidize them, and coerce doctors, nurses and pharmacists to participate in them. This is bad medicine. But it happens.

Similarly, we now hear claims that mastectomies, hysterectomies, puberty blockers and unnatural hormones are “health care” for minor children suffering gender dysphoria. Again, although there are no RCTs that prove the benefits of these “treatments,” politicians are stripping away the rights of parents to object to them. The Biden HHS Department, in anticipation of the so-called “Equality Act,” already is coercing physicians and psychologists to perform these procedures against their best medical judgment.

Medical conscience rights exist to protect people from abuses like these. Nobody should be forced to perform or to undergo a medical treatment that he or she believes to be harmful. This is especially true when medicine has been politicized. But it is just as true when there is simply an honest difference of opinion. 

In America, a million medical interventions are prescribed every day. And yet, not one of these is begun until the patient, facility, and physician all agree that it is the best option for the given situation. If a physician or hospital disagrees, the patient is referred elsewhere. If the patient disagrees, he or she withholds consent and declines the drug, injection, or procedure.

It is unlawful and unethical to coerce anyone into giving that consent. Every patient has the right to be fully informed of the benefits and the risks of a recommended procedure. Every patient has the right to be free of pressure from outside parties. Every patient has the right to be free of enticements that could weight a medical decision.

Now however, in a bizarre turn of events, we are hearing calls for one medical procedure to be denied such protection. Make no mistake, “vaccine mandates,” and “vaccine passports” are calling for unlawful coercion to be applied to people who know their own bodies, have studied the medical options, and have freely decided the best health care for their situation. 

Coercion comes in many forms. The most egregious form of medical coercion is when guns, incarceration and fines are used to coerce medical procedures. The Chinese Communist Party is currently doing this to the Uyghur people under the banner of “health care.” They force women into abortions and sterilization against their will and the will of their husbands.

Coercion also happens when people are threatened with loss of job, access to goods and services, and denial of visits to loved ones. Medical workers, military personnel, and others are facing such extortion as we speak. This is illegal. But it is happening, nonetheless. Until these cases are justly overthrown in court, people are being intimidated into compliance. 

Even forcing patients to choose between two medical procedures, like a jab in the arm or a swab up the nose, is a form of unethical coercion. Nor should we fail to mention monetary enticements. Currently the University of Wyoming is offering students a chance to “win” thousands of dollars—but only if they submit to a COVID-19 vaccine. Likewise, faculty and staff of the Cheyenne school system are being paid $500 to get the same shot. What elected official authorized our tax dollars to be used in this unethical way?

There is at least one elected official who is fighting to keep medical coercion away from Wyoming citizens. Rep. Sue Wilson (R-Cheyenne) is the prime sponsor of a bill that would prevent Wyoming’s “health care facilities, governmental entities, and providers of essential services,” schools, and places of employment from mandating immunizations against the willing consent of Wyoming citizens.

Kudos to Wyoming’s Joint Labor and Health Committee that recently voted 13-1 to sponsor it. This reasonably written bill upholds existing laws and medical ethics while accommodating those who needlessly worry. CDC Director, Rochelle Walensky, has stipulated that the vaccine does not prevent a person either from catching the virus, or from infecting others. There is no reason to think that the unvaccinated are more dangerous than the vaccinated. 

Rep. Sue Wilson

Nevertheless, for those who are not convinced by the CDC, the bill allows schools, health care facilities and places of employment to impose “reasonable accommodations” on those who choose not to get vaccinated. As long as these “reasonable accommodations” do not coerce other medical procedures, this clause will preserve the bedrock principle of bodily integrity: no one should be coerced to receive or to provide a medical intervention that he or she believes to be harmful.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on September 3, 2021.