If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny. We’ve been informed that this quote can’t be attributed to Thomas Jefferson, however that doesn’t make the words any less true from our perspective.

As some of you are aware, I live in Portland, Oregon. For the last several weeks, I’ve been actively involved and have even taken a volunteer leadership position with Oregonians for Medical Freedom as we oppose a bill that would remove all non-medical vaccine exemptions in this state. Obtaining a medical exemption is extremely difficult, so the vast majority who opt out do so under the current philosophical and religious objection option. This bill would remove the right to receive a private or public school education if a child is missing just one of the 31 doses of the required 11 vaccines in this state. This law would affect an estimated 31,500 students in Oregon who currently have vaccine exemptions. There is a small minority of 2.6% that are completely unvaccinated. Before you ask me about herd immunity or the immunocompromoised, please see this recent post on the topic! I was at a Ways and Means committee meeting last night where committee members listened to Oregonians testify about a number of issues related to the state budget including this bill, that would have financial ramificaitons.

Oregon State Senator Dallas Heard, one of the committee members who heard us testify, was interviewed today by KQEN News Radio. Yes, I am aware that I just wrote that Mr. Heard heard us! This is what he shared in the podcast that has been trimmed to the segment on this topic. I took the time to transcribe his words:

House Bill 3063 is the mandate for vaccinations. We already have some mandates, but we’ve had some fairly reasonable religious and medical exemptions in place. Both of my children, both of my boys, are fully vaccinated. My wife and I took a couple of weeks to research vaccinations when my son Eli, my oldest, was first born. We were confronted with the fact that we needed to make a choice about whether or not to vaccinate and came to the conclusion that it made the most sense to have him vaccinated. We obviously did the same with my youngest son, Ezra. But the fact of the matter is it was our choice and it needs to remain a parents choice.

Freedom of Choice

I just kind of laugh, it’s not funny, but that is the only reaction I have when I hear my colleagues from the very radical progressive side of the political isle, primarily from the Portland region, talk about all this stuff as if it is just the right thing to do. The science backs it up. Okay, the science in large part, I agree does back it up, but let me ask you this: what happened to “my body, my choice?” Isn’t that what the Democratic party preaches and screams about year in and year out? That they are the party that represents “my body, my choice?” Well its “my body, my choice” and “my child, my choice.” 

This situation is scary to me. Let me say it to you this way. I understand the fear, and thus trying to take action trying to prevent infectious disease from creeping into our borders, and into our homes and hurting our children and whatnot. I get that. But, to me, I look at the 2 opponents. You’ve got infectious diseases, and then you’ve got a government that is now saying it is so bold, it is so arrogant that when it looks at us as citizens it says, “well, we have the votes … we believe the science is on our side, we have the moral high ground, so it does not matter what you think. We are going to do to you whatever we think we need to because we think it is right.” Folks, please get out a history book. That never works out for people, in past historical events. We do not want to go down this road. I am fiercely trying to research this issue. It has not as of yet come in front of any of the committees I’ve sat on. It is now in the full Ways and Means committee and it will come up for a discussion and a vote at some point. I am thinking that there is a lot of unrest in the building. Especially on the senate side, that this is just not the right thing to do.

We need to do better than forcing people against their will for anything. I am a very libertarian individual for reasons. I do not think government is a good thing to hand all my freedoms and rights over to. Because even if today we had the best leadership ever, that we all have complete trust in, even if it was our own parent that was the governor or the president of this country. It is foolish for you and me to entrust our freedoms and liberties for the sake of security over to someone today because they won’t be there tomorrow. It could be a bad person tomorrow who will then abuse that authority that started out as something as noble as trying to keep kids healthy that now turns into something far worse and far more ugly.

Pharmaceutical Industry

Furthermore, let’s just think about it. The major massive pharmaceutical companies that are the number 1 advertisers for our major media outlets, and right up there if not the number 1 in donations for politicians in this country. Opioids, 400 dollar epi pens for bee stings. I mean you could go on and on about all the manipulation the pharmaceutical companies do to us. Right here in the United States, we are being charged 50,000 dollars, it was almost 100,000 dollars for a 12 week cycle of treatment for Hepatitis C. But in Chile, the same company, same prescription, brand name, everything. It is the exact same product. They are selling it down there for 12,000. Why are they doing that? Because they are using you and me and on our backs and our hard work they are subsidizing other countries at the expense of our families, our children. I don’t understand how these pharmaceutical companies can be the kin of satan on just about every topic you can come up with, but when it comes to mandated vaccinations they are saints all of a sudden. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

So, we really need to start asking ourselves, why are we choosing as a society to get so reactionary as to when some article runs in some paper like the Oregonian or whatever it says “Oh my gosh, we got a measles epidemic,” when the epidemic is is like less than 10. Well, I’ve actually got all the data from the Center for Disease Control to actually look at this stuff and the history here in the state and I am here to tell you that the trends do not suggests that we have any kind of any issue progressing here, its not ramping up, if anything it’s flat and declining. Lets think about that.

Censorship

Furthermore, I want to go into this. This is where this gets really scary. I encourage anybody listening right now to get on Google and start googling censorship on vaccine discussion. You will find that members of congress, Adam Schiff, on his US representative page is endorsing the actions by YouTube and other social media platforms to shut down and censor the discussion. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, they are actually shutting down people’s pages, shutting down advertisements, shutting down any type of discussion around the opponents of the mandate of vaccinations. Doesn’t that make you nervous? I mean it makes me nervous. When I see such a coordinated effort, it tells me something doesn’t pass the smell test. Nobody has been able to give me an argument that leads me to believe that we’ve got a real issue here that requires force. We just require more education, and more effort. If you really think you are right in life, you need to take it upon yourself to work hard to educate your friends and neighbors that you’re right, not force them against their will. That is the position I take just about any issue you can come up with.

I want to give a shout out to my cousins Lindsay Robets and Erin Saylor. They came all the way up to Portland last night to hold some signs and show their support for killing this bill. They’re great women, I was so proud of them. Nobody does that folks. Nobody. They’ve given me permission if you want to look them up. Lindsay Robets and Erin Saylor are on Facebook. They are trying to coordinate moms and fathers in this area who want to come to Salem every time this comes to a committee vote or senate vote to protest, to do your civic duty to show your opposition to this government mandate.

Loss of Freedom

I am going to finish with this. You will not be able to take your kids to public schools anymore even though you pay for it. You will not be able to take your children to any kind of a day care that receives any kind of public funds … if your children go to a private school that allows non-vaccinated children to attend it, after this mandate goes through, they will not be able to participate in sports because that school will not be allowed to participate against public schools, because the mandate requires that every child is vaccinated. This is tyranny under the guise of doing what’s right. I’ve heard it over and over. It’s getting so scary up there with this super majority. This is what happens when you have an imbalance of power. This is not a Democrat thing, this is not a Republican thing. This is a human problem. When you give people too much power, their character starts to erode and we are seeing it right before our eyes. 

What are my views on this bill?

I am an adamant no. I am not rejecting the science, I am rejecting the fact that I … I’ve been always raised and taught to believe that I am free as am American. My grandfather fought and bleed and almost died in World War II, twice. I am not going to stand idly by and watch freedom die under my watch. And I hope that people listening to me will join me in that. I can’t do this all on my own, folks. I’m just one guy. I give it my all, but I need you in this. I can’t do it on my own. You need to look up those 2 wonderful women that I referenced, and you need to get up to Salem and you need to do your job. It doesn’t matter if you have kids, it doesn’t matter if you only have grandkids now, if that time of life has passed you by, it is our job to defend freedom and liberty because even if this issue is not important to you today, I guarantee you the same people that are forcing people against their will today will come up with something next year or the year after that will come close to home and they’ll tell you what you think, what your rights are don’t matter because they have the votes. You’ve got to stop it now.

That is the end of the interview. 

It’s me, Sandrine. While I don’t choose to vaccinate, and don’t believe the science has established the safety or effectiveness of vaccinations, I don’t see that as the issue at hand. I agree with Mr. Heard that the passage of this bill would be akin to tyranny. I wouldn’t want even non-toxic remedies mandated. I don’t want to be forced to use essential oils, or homeopathic medicine either. I want freedom of choice for all of us.