The following letter was written by state Rep. Vicki Strong, R-Albany, to the House Rules Committee concerning the proposed vaccine mandate for lawmakers entering the Capitol Complex.
Dear members of the Rules Committee:
I was very surprised to hear that you are meeting today, just days before the Christmas holiday, when it is hard for the public and for other legislators to be involved in the discussion around the protocols for the upcoming session. This makes it difficult for many to have a voice in that discussion, and I would have liked to be there in person with you today, but am unable to attend.
Rep. Vicki Strong
While many other State Houses across the country are meeting openly, without restrictions that are discriminatory, and while Vermont is one of the most highly vaccinated states in the country, I find the push for excessive protocols unnecessary. Please allow all who enter our beautiful State House the freedom to follow their own personal beliefs, and don’t “mandate” vaccine passports, PCR testing, and mask wearing. Having to use religious and medical exemptions is also a violation of personal privacy and constitutional rights.
As an American, Vermonter, and person of faith in Christ, these unnecessary protocols are against my personal beliefs, and are against the freedoms given to me in the Constitution of the Untied States. For those reasons, and for many other personal beliefs about the efficacy of these restrictive and discriminatory protocols, I will not be complying. My objections reflect the voices of thousands of Vermonters who are not able to be there in person today, and who don’t want to have their medical decisions dictated to them while visiting the People’s House.
God Bless Rep Strong, you are in the right corner here. Thank you, Thank you.
Merry Christmas, as well.
Her name says it all, STRONG !
Since it’s been determined in WORLD WIDE studies that the Vaxed are now more
apt to spread the virus no one should be allowed or everyone should be allowed in
the State House… following the NIH, CDC, FDA recommendations is NOT what the
rest of the world is telling us about the covid crud.. it’s just propagandizing the official
gobberment policy to get everyone vaxed regardless of gained immunity or medical
reason not to be jabbed.. The vax don’t work, it don’t keep you from getting the crud
spreading the crud or dying from the crud.. it only MAY reduce the effects while screwing up your immune system. Thank you Representative Strong for being one in our state government that actually gets it…
By much forbearance is a price persuaded, and a soft tongue breaketh the bone
God Speed.
Thank you Vicki Strong for speaking out against these illegal passports, useless masks, and experimental vaccines. Please consider running for the open house or senate seat in congress.
Since the liberals know or should know that vaccinated people can get and transmit C-19, there is clearly another agenda here.
Myself, I have wondered if they are trying to kill people off with these vaccines, or worse, make the population so sick they can’t do what is needed to stop this commie take over of America. I know that sounds over the top, but why would the liberals have funded a ‘gain of function’ (essentially a bio-weapon) into a virus that vaccines do not stop, unless they have plans we don’t know about yet.
https://www.brighteon.com/3f64ee04-b547-4ecc-89e2-bfd91881cc9c
Finally!!! Vicki STRONG
A Republican representative with a backbone!
Please lead the fight to put an end to the violation of our freedoms in the state of Vermont..
Caving in to the corrupt Biden and our traitorous gov..flip flop Phil Scott has to stop.
Vermonters it’s time to clean out the rinos in the Republican party.
And as a response to Gary…we appreciate your sacrifices while serving in the military…however private citizens are allowed to live by a different set of rules.
That is what separates the USA from the rest of the word.
We should never give up our freedoms.
A huge thank you for having the to stand up for what is right.
I want to wish you and the other people that stand with you a very Merry Christmas.
This woman incenses me! In 1965 I and so many thousands of my generation were summarily put into a military draft where we had no recourse whatsoever. So many thousands landed in VietNam, lost their lives or return severely damaged both physically and/or emotionally. And this lady, who knows NOTHING of this type of sacrifice has the temerity, to complain about some kind of government intervention in her pristine life. It is a joke. She has no understanding whatsoever of sacrifice for the whole and is, as so many of the anti-fax folks are, self absorbed with no sense whatsoever of history and their place in it!
If you think your body is sacrosanct, talk to a maimed war hero that gave up so much to keep us free and safe.
This woman has done NOTHING to engender her response to the Covid-19 situation!
Gary,
Vicki and her husband Nathan lost their son, Sgt Jessie Strong, USMC, in the Iraq War.
Thank you for your service. But you might have checked the sacrifice that the Strong’s did make before blasting her.
OK Gary, I’ll take you on.
First of all, let’s take note of the fact that your argument– that we require sacrifices during wartime and so we can and should require sacrifices now– was exactly the argument used by Justice Holmes in his infamous 1927 decision in Buck v Bell that sanctioned forced sterilization against a person’s will. Do you agree with that decision? Should people be sterilized against their will, “for the greater good”? If you do agree with that decision, then I, and many others, would disagree that forced sterilization is a societal good, or is even remotely ethical. Your position would then be that society can force medical treatment on a population if some entity had determined that this was “for the greater good,” and of course we come up with the problem of: who gets to decide what the greater good is?
Many of us maintain that our greatest good is that we are each free to choose what our greatest good is, for ourselves. This assumes that most people are good, decent people who care about others, and in my experience of over 65+ years, this is true. We are, overall, a good people. This is the foundational assumption of America: using reason and our natural goodness and caring, we would all spontaneously work to do the right thing even if we disagreed in parts and in elements. But, we would not, overall, act out of viciousness.
The 1927 decision was, however, an act of viciousness and of a gross disrespect for the rights, capacities and judgments of individuals who disagree with us. This decision in fact blessed the philosophy of the “purification of the race” (through eugenics) that drove the horrors of the Third Reich.
If it were true that the Covid vaccines were safe and effective, I could understand your anger. But apparently they aren’t that effective except for the individual: they lessen the effects of Sar-COV-2 infection, but they don’t stop the spread of the disease, as should be blindingly apparent by now. They are not for societal good, then; they are solely for individual good. They don’t prevent the spread of Covid-19 among the population. If they did, Vermont would’ve achieved herd immunity. It has not.
The vaccine don’t appear to be that safe, either. According to Pfizer’s own trial data, there’s no reduction in all-cause mortality for taking their vaccine: none whatsoever. Zero. How can this be? This can be because although the vaccine may reduce the incidence of Covid-19 (to the tune of an absolute risk reduction of less than 1%), the side effects of the vaccine in causing death are equal to, or greater than, their efficacy in stopping Covid deaths. This is what the science tells us. https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.org/media-resources/the-pfizer-inoculations-for-covid-19-more-harm-than-good/
That we can ask sacrifices of young men during existential threats to our country (leaving out the debate over whether Vietnam was even an existential threat to our country) does not mean, automatically, that whenever the state says “the greater good!” we must all jump to obey its dictates. In fact, just as in the 1927 Buck v Bell decision demonstrates, what it really means is that we have to use our own reason and our own sense of decency to determine if what we are being asked to do promotes the preservation of a free society or, instead, seeks to undermine it.
Not to make a too-long essay out of this, I will simply say that asking for vaccine passports is, number one, going down the path of “show us your papers” that characterizes totalitarian regimes, and is completely unnecessary as the vaccines show no evidence of stopping the transmission of Covid-19. Secondly, we should always remember that our country was supposed to defend liberty and be about defending liberty, and not about “show us your papers.” Thirdly, none of this would be necessary if we’d acknowledged and promoted early treatment for Covid-19, and the fact that we didn’t suggests that the real danger to our country isn’t those who refuse to show their papers, but those who insist that we must show our papers, who deny demonstrated early, safe treatment for Covid -19, and whose leaders apparently have another agenda in mind that it isn’t the preservation of individual liberty and judgment, upon which our country was founded. Their aim is, in fact, world government, coming in through the back door of medical tyranny.
Please, do not support these people. There are two types of “selfish.” One type is selfish of liberty and of preserving liberty for themselves and their children. The other type is selfish of obedience, and desires to obey authority to keep in their good graces for their own advancement and comfort. Our founding generation was not of this second type. Stop saying that those who refuse to show their papers are selfish. These are the ones who will make sure that our children’s children can live in a world where they don’t have to wear those accursed face masks or show their papers, and where they can be free to go where they want and be with whom they want, and take whatever medications they want to in consultation with their physicians who are no longer under the jackboot of Fauci and his minions, who have already done so much to weaken and even destroy we, the people.
I for one am grateful for people who put people like Gary in their place. The maimed vets that he talks about fought for freedom against communism. I was drafted in those days too. Forcing anyone to be injected with an unproven, non-FDA approved, biotechnology drug based in nanotechnology approved for emergency use only is insane in itself. The government has forced people to be lab rats before, remember lobotomies and forced institutionalization? The list is seemingly endless and people like Gary puffing up his chest to support the government takeover of a person’s most valuable asset, their body is insanity magnified.
You, my friend, sound like Walter Sobchek from The Big Lebowski . ” I didnt watch my buddies die face down in the muck”, (enter any rant here.)
I am a Viet Nam combat vet. What we and our brothers and sisters sacrificed for was to preserve the freedoms our Constitution guarantees us and not to become Nazi Germany. Preserve rule by law not rule by mandate.
Gary, I am remaining neutral as I share the following. Vickie Strong became a Gold Star Mother on January 26, 2005, when her 24-year son, Marine Sgt. Jesse Strong was killed in Iraq defending the Iraqi polls for the first Iraq election.
Gary; You are comparing apples to oranges–the draft to medical tyranny. And you are criticizing someone who is taking a stand for medical choice/freedom!
Vicki, you are my hero! A former boss of mine used to call this “intestinal fortitude,” and I’m sorry to say that too few of our Republicans have it these days. Let us all stand up for our rights and freedoms, or soon we won’t have any rights and freedoms left.
To say it with Martin Niemoeller: “First they came for the Trump supporters, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Trump supporter. Then they came for the anti-vaxxers, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t an anti-vaxxer. Then they came for the pro-lifers, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a pro-lifer. Then they came for the 2A advocates, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a 2A advocate. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up for me.”
Shannara Johnson
Committeewoman
Lamoille County Republican Committee
It would be wonderful to have others in the VTGOP show support.
Please comment here, your voice and actions can make a significant change!
You can comment here freely, they still allow free speech on True North Reports.
Here is a wonderful voice. Rep Strong is the exact type of person the VTGOP could build a team around. There are more within, we need to raise them up.
Thank you so much for having the courage to speak up. Merry Christmas!
Want a stronger effective VTGOP……..support wonderful people like Rep Strong. Suddenly the tide will change….
Rep. Strong, your reasoning is very sound but another point you can make to support your reasoning is that, especially according to the modern definitions, vaccine requirement and the demand to show proof is RACIST. Those of us who DONT get our news from CNN know that the single biggest demographic of unvaxxed in the US is the African American community. The left claims that since some race demographics are “hesitant” to obtain a government-issued ID, then to demand such an ID to vote is racist. By this logic, any demand for a document where there is a racial disparity in those who hold them is RACIST. Rep. Strong, I hope you will make use of this argument in your defense and paint those who support this proposed mandate as the hypocrites that they are.
Do you believe she covered that with the statement “many other personal beliefs about the efficacy of these restrictive and discriminatory protocols”? Discrimination involves all categories: race, class, gender, sexual preference, etc.
Being Black or BIPOC is not a personal belief, but a physical characteristic or factor of one’s geneology. (I guess nowadays, it is also an “identification” or “expression” even without any physical characteristic, as in “I identify as BIPOC”). Having one of the aforementioned characteristics has nothing to do with how one personally feels about vaccines or the science behind them. It is leftists who are making society’s response to the pandemic into a wholly political animal.