New analysis of Florida’s “SB 2006”, recently touted by Governor Ron DeSantis as a state “ban on vaccine passports and local lockdowns,” indicates that DeSantis either did not read the entire bill, or he is not being completely honest with Floridians.
On May 3, DeSantis’s press office issued a celebrated release stating, in part that he had signed SB 2006 so that:
In Florida, your personal choice regarding vaccinations will be protected and no business or government entity will be able to deny you services based on your decision. I’d like to thank (Senate) President (Wilton) Simpson, (House) Speaker (Chris) Sprowls and the Florida Legislature for getting this legislation got (sic) across the finish line.
Which is partially a correct description of the statute, but also is troublesome for what it leaves out.
First, constitutionally and ethically, as much as one might not want a business asking employees or customers to be vaccinated, all private market transactions are voluntary, based on the precept of private property ownership of oneself, one’s money, skills, time, and life. It is completely, toweringly, unethical and tyrannical for politicians to tell others, be they business owners, employees, or consumers (who really are the employers of both the latter two categories) how they will voluntarily interact with others -- period. If they claim the power to tell business owners they CAN’T demand proof of jab, they can claim the power to tell business owners they MUST demand proof of a jab.
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Politicians are not the entrepreneurs, nor are they the employees, nor are they the consumers, all of whom freely choose how they interact, and who have inherent RIGHTS to decide how they’ll interact. If a business owner wants to see employees or customers show proof of the vaccine, as much as I think that’s not a good idea, it is not my place to force him to not ask for that. Similarly, if a customer wants to see that kind of proof before he or she frequents a place, or a potential employee wants to see such proof before taking a job, they have the God-given right to ask. Likewise, everyone has a God-given right to say, “No, thanks,” and associate with others. The idea that politicians who do not own these businesses and don’t work there can tell others what kinds of voluntary agreements they can make is about as “gangsta” as it gets.
DeSantis’ office says, “no business or government entity will be able to deny you services based on your decision.”
Many people at first might agree, thinking, “Right! That’s ‘discrimination!’”
But, what if a business owner wanted to deny you services based on your lack of clothing or hygiene when you walked into his or her private establishment? As much as many contemporary Americans don’t like to admit it, the act of “discrimination” simply is the process of distinguishing between two or more choices. All humans and animals engage in the activity as a matter of survival. If one cannot deny service to another, then one is a choice-less slave, and the matter of monetary compensation is fundamentally irrelevant.
If one is on the dating market, can he or she NOT deny someone a date, regardless of the fine food or great movie he or she might be offered? Likewise, if one lives in a 99.9 percent non-racist town, and there is one bigoted Nazi-type who owns a store, making him or her the minority, can the government tell you to frequent his or her shop, or are you “allowed” to discriminate?
Finally on this first matter of the DeSantis press release and SB 2006 forbidding private establishments from asking for “vaccine passports,” this assumption of state power over private businesses negates the ability of the market to show what people really want. This power has been shown by writers such as Walter Williams, who explained that in the Jim Crow south, many business owners were skirting the race-based statutes because they lived according to their morals, and they found that by doing so, there was profit to be gained.
But this is only the first problem with SB 2006. The second comes when comparing the slippery language of DeSantis’ press release with the actual wording of the statute.
DeSantis’ office claims:
This legislation ensures that legal safeguards are in place so that local governments cannot arbitrarily close our schools or businesses…
But that deceives by omission, because, while the statute does prohibit local governments from “arbitrarily” closing schools or businesses, it claims for the state the power to do so.
And, worse, it claims for the state the power to “quarantine" – and Forcibly inject anyone, during a "public health emergency."
This information is found nearly 1,100 lines into the statute, beginning at 1097.
The statute says the state may engage in:
Ordering an individual to be examined, tested, vaccinated, treated, isolated, or quarantined for communicable diseases that have significant morbidity or mortality and present a severe danger to public health. Individuals who are unable or unwilling to be examined, tested, vaccinated, or treated for reasons of health, religion, or conscience may be subjected to isolation or quarantine.
All of the above not only is a claim of absolute power over individuals, it allows for highly arbitrary state definitions of “significant” and “severe.” But wait, there’s more:
a. Examination, testing, vaccination, or treatment may be performed by any qualified person authorized by the State Health Officer.
b. If the individual poses a danger to the public health, the State Health Officer may subject the individual to isolation or quarantine. If there is no practical method to isolate or quarantine the individual, the State Health Officer may use any means necessary to vaccinate or treat the individual. (Italic emphasis added.)
You read that correctly, and DeSantis, Speaker Sprowls, Senate President Simpson, and all those who voted for this, either read what you’ve just read, or they didn’t read it and passed it, anyway.
The bulk of this nonsense stems from the 2001 promulgation of what was called the “Model State Health Emergency Powers Act” a template created by leftist law prof Lawrence Gostin in conjunction with Johns Hopkins and Georgetown (what a shock). The act has been proposed and passed in virtually every state, and you might want to see if it was made “law” in yours.
You also might want to remind the politicians who push this that there is no such thing as “public health.” There is only individual health.
The moment a politician claims that the “health of the public” exists, he or she immediately creates a faceless, state-defined entity that subsumes individual existence for the “good of the whole.” That is self-defeating, since the “whole” is only comprised of individuals, and it is how they get away with crushing individual rights.
Ron DeSantis, who in US District Court June 18 beat the Biden Administration's CDC demand that all employees on cruise ships be vaccinated, do "test runs," and require vaccine passports of passengers, is now faced with a new challenge. DeSantis should answer some questions about SB2006, right away.