By John Klar
Vermont Senator Richard McCormack disseminated a letter in which he misrepresented health data to justify imposing extensive restrictions on the rights of unvaccinated citizens, and dismissed as stupid anyone who raised “pseudo-libertarian” arguments against vaccination. When challenged, the senator offered yet more misinformation, defending his dishonesty as “a good faith attempt at logical persuasion.”
It was not good faith to allege that “We know [vaccines] greatly lessen the odds of contracting COVID and/or spreading it to others” and “Not being vaccinated risks prolonging the pandemic … long enough for the virus to evolve resistant variants.” He has not pointed to any source for these factual claims, which he presented to the Vermont public as ironclad scientific conclusions.
When pressed about the overt Fourteenth Amendment infringements of his proposals, Senator McCormack (who holds a Juris Doctorate) doubled down:
I am qualified to teach the U.S. Constitution, and the Vermont Constitution at the college level, though I’m now retired.
Discrimination is an evil, and illegal, when based on illicit criteria like race, sex etc. Discriminating against threats to public health is more analogous to a speed limit than to race discrimination. Public health does not violate the Constitution. There is no constitutional right to spread deadly virus.
For government to impinge on fundamental liberties, it must demonstrate a “compelling interest” based on scientific evidence, not concocted histrionic assertions by a dogmatic progressive legislator. McCormack procured false science to fabricate a “deadly” threat to which he similarly fantasizes the Constitution will bow. He has conflated the law as he has the facts.
The confused senator seeks to distinguish “bad (illicit) discrimination” like race or gender from “good discrimination.” Fortunately, the Constitution does not employ the “McCormack standard.” The Fourteenth Amendment provides
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
In contrast, Senator McCormack pronounced in his letter to Vermonters that
we must not agree to the pseudo-libertarian argument that vaccination should not be a requirement for entering indoor public spaces, using mass transit, school, camp, work places, etc. The right to not be vaccinated does not translate to a right to infect others or to prolong a pandemic.
Elected officials with law degrees must be held to high standards — people trust them not to lie about the law, let alone the facts. McCormack calls to compromise vital liberties such as school attendance, travel, and assembly by treating them as “privileges” like driving. But the government is held to two completely different standards by the Constitution: infringements of privileges are generally subject only to “rational basis” review and are rarely struck down; violations of fundamental liberties are subject to “strict scrutiny,” and rarely survive the challenge. Does this “qualified” teacher of law not know this, or is he being deliberately deceptive?
Even discrimination in privileges is barred by the Fourteenth Amendment, as its plain language states. What’s more, it requires due process so that citizens have an opportunity to compel government actors to prove their factual “medical science” (so they can’t just make it up). McCormack ignores this, as he does the due process rights of those previously infected, or who are immuno-threatened. The grotesque distortions of both facts and law by this senator reveal an epidemic of stuporous thinking that eclipses COVID-19 as a threat to Americans’ mental, economic, and constitutional health.
I requested that McCormack retract his misstatements, or instead agree to a public debate with me. His response:
Your inability to manage your vitriol, and your tendency to mangle clear statements into straw men, make you more quarrelsome than logical. So I doubt a “debate” with you would much resemble anything like a debate. Trying to debate with someone who quarrels as you do usually makes both parties appear equally unreasonable. So I’ll decline the invitation.
The senator “managed his vitriol” by denigrating his own constituents (“Real freedom includes the right to be stupid.”) He mangled scientific data into straw facts with which to dismiss the rights of those he is charged to represent with integrity.
It is the Constitution that is in argument, and it is clear victor. It is eminently reasonable, and resistant to falsehoods. We the People must remain armed with its protections at all times, as a shield against dishonest despots using fear to eclipse reason.
John Klar is an attorney and farmer residing in Brookfield, and the former pastor of the First Congregational Church of Westfield. This commentary originally appeared at American Thinker.
So, either the senator does not read True North articles, is too woke and aloof to have anyone question his authoritarian elitism or he has nothing to back up his unscientific crap. These people aren’t state leaders, they are bullies and know it all’s. The whole legislature no longer represents our constitution, our way of life, our customs and they forgotten or most likely ignore that the civil authority (us) is who they work for. The governor has swallowed the same toxic Koolade and goes along to get along. The citizens of Vermont deserve better. New Hampshire has reclaimed their state by voting the dem/progs out of power. I was just there yesterday and freedom has replaced fear, businesses are full and the the masks are no longer. It is long past time for Vermonters to stand up and through these carpetbaggers out. They are here to cause trouble and take control of every aspect of your life. Stop reading and listening to liberal VT media. TAKE BACK VERMONT!
John: For future reference, Senator McCormack does not hold a Juris Doctorate law degree. He has a Masters in Environmental Science from Vermont Law School.
The plague is authoritarianism. Power has gone to Mr. Potato’s head. He’s a dick tater.
We have treatments for Covid-19 in addition to vaccines: ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and fluvoxamine among them. The science on these is quite clear even though Senator McCormack, like Dr. Fauci, refuses to acknowledge that science and forces are working against these for unfathomable– but unscientific– reasons. If these medication and other treatments were promoted then this would moot the point about endangering others because of refusal to vaccinate.
In addition, Senator McCormack is going down the path of medical coercion in a vein similar to that of the Supreme Court in Buck v. Bell: the state has a right to compel medical treatment, even violent surgery, for the good not of the individual, but of the state. That Senator McCormack is unable to see the wrong, and even the evil, in this points to a moral blindness on his part, or else a dim understanding of the historical consequences of that line of thought.
We have reason, liberty and science fighting against authoritarianism and an ignoring of science and a promotion of pseudoscience as “real” science, and the consequent harm to thousands. We know which side the Senator is on. His authoritarianism seems to blind him to everything outside of it. Reason, evidence, common sense, liberty, compassion: in the Senator’s eyes, everything falls in the face of an Authority that tolerates no dissent, and that puffs up those who constantly run and hide under its skirt.