When Politicians Dictate Medical Treatments & Appropriate Cultural Relevance

There's battle lines being drawn

Nobody's right if everybody's wrong

Young people speaking' their minds

Getting so much resistance from behind…

Paranoia strikes deep

Into your life it will creep

It starts when you're always afraid

Step out of line, the man come and take you away

For What It’s Worth anti-Vietnam War anthem written and performed by Buffalo Springfield

Successful autocracy requires uniform thinking, strict obedience to the party line, control of individual choices and severe consequences for deviating from the required “norm.” You can look at Iran’s theocracy or Russia’s dictatorship, or reach into history and watch how Hitler and Mussolini controlled their people, and recognize how these precepts are the essential symptoms of creeping and then full-on autocracy. While the United States is hardly at such extremes, the rising popularization of uniform “correct” thought and control over very personal individual decisions should serve as a warning to all of us.

That medical decisions are now being imposed on large political constituencies by elected American leaders is a flashing red light. Literally. That you could be forced to earn a very essential living in your home state, during a pandemic, in workplace where contagious co-workers could pass a viral nightmare to you because of a mandate that no one could force common sense preventative measures… well there is a plague of antivaxxers and “we’re tired of masks” individuals who do not care if they infect others.

They are also the parents of young children who send their children to school with your kids, who – under color of law – will not allow their brood to accept vaccinations that have been routinely required of public school-aged students for almost three-quarters of a century. The abortion reversal (under Dobbs vs Women’s Health) is another determination by elected and appointed officials imposing their religious beliefs over women who used to have constitutionally protected control over their bodies in matters of pregnancy.

For those who cry “freedom” and “patriotism” who demand and enforce these mandates are making a mockery of constitutional personal liberties. To make matters worse, a misguided 2008 Supreme Court decision (Heller vs DC, filled with incorrect citations) has effectively armed the extremists hell-bent on imposing their belief systems on the entire nation, by violence and intimidation. For well over 200 years, there was no constitutional interpretation of a ubiquitous right for virtually all adult US citizens to bear arms. Now open carry laws, the right to own a military grade assault rifle (once a Navy Seal standard weapon), the aggregation of formal militias ready to back right-wing politicians, increasingly embracing White Christian nationalism and the litany of armed confrontations mostly perpetrated by right-wing extremists, are now admittedly the source of the greatest terrorism threat faced today according to the FBI.

Is there a constitutional “right to infect others”? I haven’t seen any rulings to this effect, but the current Supreme Court’s vision of personal freedom appears to be one that allows religious conservatives to inflict their beliefs on others, but offers no protections to those who disagree with those beliefs from the consequences of being forced to accommodate highly intrusive, personal impositions from conservative beliefs. There’s also something fiercely wrong when politicians to step into medical fields and dictate medical mandates based on their political beliefs. Where do doctors fit into this decision?

Off-the-rails Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seems to have embraced a Trumpian posture that denigrating your opponents with makeshift insults – the word “woke” is now the White Christian nationalist meme for liberal thought – is how you rally voters. Without any medical credentials, he also is pressing his sheep-like legislature to pass a law “that would prohibit vaccine and mask requirements in schools, mask requirements at businesses and the so-called vaccine passports showing proof of vaccinations. It would also bar employers from hiring or firing employees based on whether they have been vaccinated, and would prohibit the firing or de-licensing of medical professionals who might disagree on Covid protocols.

“‘When the world lost its mind, Florida was a refuge of sanity, serving strongly as freedom’s linchpin,’ DeSantis said in a press release. ‘These measures will ensure Florida remains this way and will provide landmark protections for free speech for medical practitioners.’” NBC News, January 18th. He’s also restricting Florida state agencies with investment accounts to avoid businesses and funds that support woke “ESG” practices, like investing in green tech and companies that prioritize diversity.

As part of his culture war, his local anti-CRT legislative triumph, he is insinuating himself in public school education when it speaks of slavery and racial discrimination in history and civics classes. To him, racism died with the civil right legislation of the 1960s, which has result in his administration’s blocking a new Florida “Advanced Placement course on African American studies from being taught in high schools, saying it violates state law and is historically inaccurate… The state education department rejected the program in a letter last week to the College Board, which oversees AP classes.

“Florida education officials did not specify exactly what content the state found objectionable but said, ‘As presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value…In the future, should College Board be willing to come back to the table with lawful, historically accurate content, (the education department) will always be willing to reopen the discussion’…” Associated Press, January 20th.

As I said in my opening line above, successful autocracy requires uniform thinking, strict obedience to the party line, control of individual choices and severe consequences for deviating from the required “norm.” Truth is an inconvenience that is easily sacrificed.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you think DeSantis’ autocratic view could never happen here, note that there are several polls out there that push him ahead of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden in a head-to-head popular vote.