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Americans have the right to do stupid things

BY DAVID LEIBOWITZ Peoria Times Columnist

America has long been a stronghold of freedom. The first few amendments to the Constitution guarantee freedom of speech and religion, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble, the right to bear arms, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to due process, and the right not to incriminate ourselves.

Unwritten among our fundamental rights — but still alive and thriving — is the freedom to do stupid things.

For proof, look no further than the ongoing debate over COVID-19 vaccinations.

State governments unquestionably have the power to mandate vaccines.

This authority dates to a 1905 Supreme Court case Jacobson v. Massachusetts. With smallpox raging in 1902, the city of Cambridge passed a law mandating that every resident over age 21 get vaccinated or face a $5 fine.

Pastor Henning Jacobson, one of our nation’s original anti-vaxxers, refused, saying he’d suffered serious medical maladies from past vaccines. Jacobson lost at the highest court in the land by a 7-2 vote.

Writing for the majority, Justice Marshall Harlan opined: “Upon the principle of self-defense, of paramount necessity, a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members.”

Thus, state government has all the authority it needs to mandate vaccines. Our elected leaders simply won’t do so, especially in Arizona.

Our Legislature passed multiple bills this past session forbidding vaccine mandates, vaccine passports and mask mandates, and prohibiting schools from forcing teachers and students to get a vaccine to participate in in-person classes.

Regardless, some Valley and Tucson school districts have passed mask mandates anyway, a move that undoubtedly will end up litigated to death.

Where do I stand? Well, given the evidence that vaccines work — like the fact that 165 million Americans have been fully vaccinated and haven’t dropped dead or been hospitalized en masse — I believe it’s foolish not to get one, absent a religious objection or some serious medical condition.

At the same time, I support your right to do things I believe are foolish. That’s the price of freedom: Because we live in a country where the government doesn’t nanny us on every little thing, or big things like a pandemic that to date has killed 612,000 people, sometimes our friends and neighbors will do things we deeply wish they would not.

Like refusing to get a shot that can diminish your risk of getting COVID-19, getting extremely ill if you do, or dying from the virus.

“This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control, explained at a July press briefing.

“Our biggest concern is we are going to continue to see preventable cases, hospitalizations and sadly deaths among the unvaccinated.”

Here in Arizona, where about half the state has been fully vaccinated, 95% of nearly 17,000 reported COVID-19 cases in May were among people who were not fully vaccinated. In June, it was 92% of 12,911 reported cases.

The capper? Since the start of 2021, approximately 99% of COVID-19 deaths in Arizona were people not fully vaccinated.

Maybe you want to prove you’re tough. Maybe you’re afraid or you don’t believe the Arizona Department of Health Services statistics cited in the above paragraph. You don’t need to explain your reasoning, not to anyone.

That’s the beauty of America. To a greater extent than any society on this great green Earth, you can say what you want, believe what you want, and do with your body what you want.

In America, we don’t rely on our government to legislate foolishness out of existence. Besides, it seems COVID-19 and its deadly variants have that well in hand.

David Leibowitz has called the Valley home since 1995. Contact david@ leibowitzsolo.com.

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SMITH’S OPINION — Las Vegas Sun

August 12, 2021

These are delusions of Olympic proportions

BY J.D. HAYWORTH Peoria Times Columnist

Don’t look for a Broadway revival of Irving Berlin’s musical “Annie Get Your Gun” anytime soon. New York’s “Great White Way” has become the “Great Woke Way,” so the show’s title would prove offensive to gun control advocates.

Moreover, one of the musical’s classic tunes, “Doin’ What Comes Naturally,” contains lyrics that might prove troubling to the “trans community.”

“My tiny baby brother who’s never read a book/ Knows one sex from the other/ All he had to do was look!”

Strange that the movement is called “woke,” when it might better be described as “situational somnambulism.” Our culture is now called upon to collectively ignore reality — often in the most obvious of matters.

Right on cue, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) provided a paean to the politically correct but scientifically suspect. IOC Medical Director Richard Budgett sounded more like a social activist than a scientist when he claimed with a — presumably — straight face that “after 100 years of promoting women’s sport, it’s up to each of the international federations to ensure that they try and protect women’s sport.”

And how did Budgett “protect women’s sport”? By declaring “everyone agrees that trans women are women”!

But not “everyone agrees.”

Physicians Michelle Cretella and Quentin Van Meter of the American College of Pediatricians decided to “school” the IOC through a recent column in The Daily Signal, pointing out that “genetics is why a male who self-identifies as a female remains male, and giving estrogen to a male does not transform him into a female.”

New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard, a male athlete identifying as female who was named to the Kiwi Women’s Weightlifting Team, predictably offered verbal laurels and bouquets to the IOC, lauding “its commitment to making sport inclusive and accessible.”

Another New Zealand weightlifter, Tracey Lambrechs, took issue with Hubbard’s claim of inclusivity. Lambrechs said that her nation’s governing body for the sport took her out of her normal weight class due to the addition of Hubbard. “I was told if I wanted to go to the next Commonwealth Games, I would have to lose (almost 40 pounds) in three months or retire.”

Lambrechs chose retirement and, ironically, so did Hubbard, who finished last in Tokyo following three failed attempts at snatch lifts.

Neither transgender advocates nor those who champion traditional biology will retire gracefully from this ongoing controversy.

If anything, those who deny the biological fact of two genders are moving far beyond athletic competition, replacing sound science with political science.

The board of trustees of the American Medical Association (AMA) recently passed a resolution that will direct the AMA to lobby for the end of any designation of sex in all future birth certificates.

Our neighboring state of California continues to border on a state of civic insanity.

A bill introduced in the State Assembly, AB-367, calls for public schools and universities to provide free menstrual products for men. The text of the bill reads in part that “California has an interest in promoting gender equity, not only for women and girls, but also for transgender men, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people who may also menstruate and experience inequities from lack of access to menstrual products.”

All this consternation and legislation brings us back to “Annie Get Your Gun.”

The classic song “Anything You Can Do” was a charming take on the battle of the sexes. While it might ring hollow for today’s elites, both that song and the entire musical, as well the culture it helped entertain, are worth saving.

Rejecting agitation and embracing preservation would be “on target” in the arts and sciences … and athletics.

J.D. Hayworth worked as a sportscaster at Channel 10, Phoenix from 1987 until 1994 and represented Arizona in Congress from 1995-2007.

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