By Drew Allen
The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. But while many Americans once fought bravely to eliminate discrimination, today many Americans are fighting to reinstitute the vile, immoral practice — only this time against the unvaccinated.
The unvaxxed are the new blacks. As a matter of fact, many of the unvaxxed also happen to be blacks. The Kansas City mayor, Quinton Lucas, recently admitted as much in an interview with Face the Nation on CBS. Lucas, a black man, said, “Young men of color is a place where we have incredible weakness right now.”
Prior to 1964, blacks were prohibited from dining in white-only establishments. Beginning the week of Sept. 13, unvaccinated blacks will be prohibited once again from dining in any establishment in New York City. NYC mayor Bill de Blasio made the announcement on Tuesday morning. “If you’re unvaccinated,” de Blasio said, “unfortunately, you will not be able to participate in many things.”
Blacks were largely excluded from society before 1964. If they don’t get vaccinated, they’ll be excluded once again. De Blasio said, “If you want to participate in our society fully, you’ve got to get vaccinated. It’s time.”
This isn’t a surprise to me. I predicted this back in June on my podcast, which I titled “Unvaccinated Americans and the Civil Rights Movement of Our Time.” But in 2021, the immoral practice of discrimination and segregation isn’t exclusive to blacks, but extends to every American who refuses to get the jab.
Whether the discrimination is race based or vaccination based is irrelevant — it is discrimination nonetheless and just as outrageous. Unfortunately, many Americans — both Republican and Democrat — are all too eager to defend the legal reinstatement of discrimination in America.
Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota, recently came out in defense of vaccine-based discrimination. She said, “Workers whose employers are mandating a vaccine for continued employment have the power to say no. Our robust economy and job market gives them the option to find a new employer that values personal choice and responsibility, and doesn’t force mandates on their employees.”
Sure, Kristi. And blacks pre-1964 had the option to drink from black-only water fountains. It’s not a choice when you are forced to do something, Kristi. Blacks didn’t have a choice prior to 1964, and the unvaccinated don’t have a choice in 2021 when they’re prohibited from working or prohibited from dining because they choose not to get vaccinated.
Kristi Noem sounds like John Kerry, who defended the Biden administration’s assault on our oil and gas industry. Kerry suggested that if Americans lose their jobs as a consequence of the Biden administration’s environmental policies, those men and women can simply find new jobs. Kerry said, “What President Biden wants to do is make sure those folks have better choices, that they have alternatives, that they can be the people to go to work to make the solar panels.” John, it’s not an alternative if there’s no choice.
Like Kerry, Noem offers no sympathy for the afflicted and affected by vaccine-based discrimination. Instead, she suggests these Americans simply adapt to their new reality. Kerry says get a new job making solar panels as a consequence of the government eliminating your job. Noem says find a new employer as a consequence of the government encouraging employers to stop hiring the unvaccinated.
The counter-argument is that individuals can choose to get vaccinated, while they can’t choose the color of their skin. The other counter-argument is that getting vaccinated is about protecting other people.
But this is simply another anti-American argument that presupposes that the citizen is guilty until proven innocent; the unvaccinated is sick until proven healthy. It’s not only irrational — and rejects the increasingly common occurrence of breakthrough cases among the already vaccinated — but shifts the burden of guilt from the virus to the individual.
It’s the role of neither the government nor the business-owner to coerce the American citizen into making personal health decisions to protect either the employee or the patron from potential illness. Per the CDC, 45 million Americans got sick from the flu in 2017–2018, and 61,000 Americans died. We didn’t mandate flu shots to protect every American. We accepted the known risk. So too must we accept the existence and risk of COVID-19.
Nor do we prohibit transportation — whether by plane, train, or automobile— on the basis that the journey could result in injury. The individual accepts the risk — both when he chooses to travel and when he chooses to congregate with other people.
Mandating vaccination to enjoy the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not only unconstitutional, but immoral. Making it lawful doesn’t make it moral. We could reinstitute slavery and race-based discrimination tomorrow by way of the law, but it too would be immoral.
Those who are fearful of getting sick are free to hide at home, just as those who wish to sleep in their face diapers are free to do so. But anyone compelled to get vaccinated is not free. Those who demand vaccination are tyrants and cowards. And many of those being coerced into getting vaccinated happen to be black.