Horowitz: Arkansas Legislature declines to vote on protection against employer mandate of experimental shot

We have never faced such a threat to liberty in our lifetime from our own government. The federal government is now working in concert with big business, the media, and everyone who wields a modicum of economic and cultural control to segregate all Americans who choose a more prudent way of dealing with the virus the government helped fund. The last thing standing between us and utter despotism at this point are state legislatures in red states. Yet, in Arkansas, members could not be bothered with staying an extra day to protect the people.

Earlier this week, Gov. Asa Hutchinson called a special session of the legislature to repeal the ban on local governments and school boards from imposing masks on children. Rather than fighting this virus with proven early treatments, "as a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly [Proverbs 26:11]," Hutchinson wanted to return to the failed experiment of child abuse mask mandates. Thankfully, the bill, which was sponsored by RINOs Julie Mayberry and Jimmie Gazaway, failed to pass the House Public Health Committee.

That's the good news (although a judge has intervened and placed an injunction on the mask ban). However, if we are ever to forge a path to liberty in the red states and evacuate from the fascism being imposed on us by agencies like the CDC, it will not be enough for red state legislatures to merely abstain from making it worse. They must actively bar the federal actions from taking root in their respective states.

We now have a 10-alarm fire in this country with the federal government just a hairline short of mandating everyone – regardless of their risk status, immunity, or other choices for fighting COVID – must get the shots, and presumably, the boosters thereafter. The Biden administration is now threatening businesses to do his bidding. Thus, at this point, it's no longer a "private sector" issue. State legislatures must ensure that people are not faced with the unprecedented and soul-crushing choice between taking an injunction they feel is not good for them or losing their livelihood.

In comes a few conservative senators who drafted a bill to essentially apply existing medical privacy laws to COVID shots. We all know that an employer would get sued for asking if someone had HIV. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Bob Ballinger along with 24 co-sponsors, would have protected people from having to disclose their vaccination status and would offer a cause of action to anyone terminated for not doing so.

In order to debate this bill, the members first needed to extend the special session. We have so many emergency issues to deal with. Last week, I offered a list of critical items the Arkansas Legislature (and other states) need to address in order to properly deal with the pandemic in a way that follows the science and respects civil liberties.

For example, where is the rush to make Ivermectin over the counter and ensure people are getting early treatment? Yet, too many Arkansas Republicans were in a rush to go home. Despite holding a 4-1 majority in the Senate, a number of Republicans joined with the Democrats to support the motion to adjourn. As always, they got just enough votes for the motion to pass.

The federal government, the governor, the department of health, and all of the big companies are colluding together to strip Americans of their bodily autonomy. Now, Arkansas residents will face the worst discrimination of our lifetime without the protection of their 4-1 majority in the legislature.

In addition, thanks to a radical ruling from a Pulaski County judge, Republicans need to fix the mask issue again. Also, other conservatives wanted to push legislation to ban critical race theory given that schools will begin in just a few days. So now, children face the prospect of being forcibly masked while having to listen to how they are a bunch of racists. Why are the GOP legislators never in a rush to do the people's business? What distinguishes Arkansas from a blue state?

Thus far, very few states have attempted to deal with the problem of the federal government bullying and colluding with private businesses to enforce its vaccine mandate. Most red states merely barred the state government from enforcing it, but the feds are getting through the states via the private businesses.

The same people who had no problem shutting down businesses for months are suddenly champions of libertarianism when it comes to merely applying existing anti-discrimination and medical privacy principles to a time when it's needed most. A business cannot discriminate against someone for not getting a shot the same way they can't fire someone for not taking Ivermectin, which works better than the shot.

There's a disturbing trend in many super-majority red states where the legislatures have no desire to get their hands dirty and interpose against the growing federal corporate tyranny on the people. You better believe that if Walmart, Tysons, and J.B. Hunt had a special order, these legislators would have burned the candle overnight in the chamber to pass their priorities. In fact, they all support COVID fascism.

The poor people of Arkansas mean nothing to them. Perhaps, if the legislators are in such a rush to adjourn, they should adjourn forever and quit their jobs. If they are content to allow executive powers in the state and the CDC to implement tyranny, what is the purpose of serving in the legislature?

One final note is in order. We already know that the existing governor is a passionate advocate for Fauci-style COVID control over the people. But there is a much-vaunted front-runner for the nomination to be governor next year. She has a really big megaphone. With regards to the right to breathe and the right to treat the virus as one deems appropriate, has anyone heard from Sarah Huckabee Sanders?