There’s a reason why I go back to original sources when I study, whether it’s the Constitution or a news event. I have learned over the years that it is unsafe to trust what other people say without verifying facts for myself. There have been plenty of examples throughout our history, and the recent “pandemic” is just another.
For months, people from governors and mayors to pundits and news anchors, have either been infringing on our rights or calling for the infringement on our rights. Often they do so based on the opinions of “experts”, or at least someone’s interpretation of what the experts are saying. From the statement, “the Constitution gives the states the authority to mandate masks and vaccinations”, to those claiming, “these infringements are necessary to keep the people safe”, we are inundated with these calls to infringe on our rights. With the plethora of conflicting statements, recommendations, and results, what is a person to do? Let’s start with looking at some of this data for ourselves before we will be able to judge if the opinions and interpretations that have been informing our public servants is accurate and if they’ve been doing their job in compliance with their oath to support the Constitution.
Testing
I believe part of the problem comes from the inconsistent use of terminology. For example, when reading scientific or medical journals, a distinction is made between the virus (SARS-CoV-2) and the disease (COVID-19). However most of the news stores and political statements lump them both together into COVID-19, or one of many euphemism like Coronavirus, Wuhan Virus, etc. Why is this important? Because different tests and studies are looking at different things. For example, did you know there are two different test types being used and reported under the heading of COVID-19 testing? A viral test looks for active virus in the body, while an antibody test looks for previous infection. So when you see a report on “positive COVID tests”, are they showing the number of currently active cases of the virus, or the number of people who had a previous infection? The distinction is important because the number of active cases can go down, but the number of previous infections never will. And this doesn’t even take into consideration the practice of some states including “probable” or “suspected” cases of COVID in their positive test numbers. If you are being told that your rights must be infringed upon because the number of positive COVID tests is going up, are they basing that on a test where the numbers never go down? Or are these decisions being made based on fraudulent numbers? Also, when comparing positive tests between states or counties, are they both using the same tests and reporting standard? If not, then people are comparing apples to oranges and then possibly using that data to infringe on your rights.
Lies, Darn Lies, and Statistics
There are plenty of quotes about statistics and how they can be manipulated to say just about anything. So even if you decide to ignore the different types of tests and the meaning of their results, are our public servants being led down the path of tyranny based on bad math?
Let me give you an example. Say I have been hired to test reading comprehension in a school district. Every week I test 100 students, and report my findings to the school board. The first week I report 50 student failed basic reading comprehension. The next week I report 100 students failed. Then 125, then 150, and finally 160 students who failed the reading comprehension test. If you plot out those numbers, you will notice a steady increase in the number of students failed. Is that because the failure rate is going up? No, it is because I’ve expanded the number of students in my test pool. If you know anything about statistics, you should notice that the failure rate has steadily gone down through my test, from 50% the first week, to a total of 32% on the last. And, since each week the number of new failures has gone down, that points to a correlation between the different groups I tested each week and their average failure rate.
What does that have to do with pandemic response? It seems every day I see a report of the number of positive COVID tests. You know what I almost never see reported is the number of positive COVID tests with the total number of tests performed. Just as with my scholastic testing, as the number of tests go up, you expect the number of positive tests to go up as well. The important data isn’t the number of positive tests, but the percentage of tests that are positive. In other words, when you see a report stating the number of positive tests out of context of the total number of cases, whoever wrote that report is trying to scare you, not inform you. And since these reports usually come from some government agency, it’s your very own government trying to scare you into complying with their tyrannical measures.
Just as with the positive testing results, states also have different criteria for reporting a “COVID death”. For example, was the death a result of COVID-19, contributed to by COVID-19, or merely someone with COVID-19? The distinction is important. If someone dies, and the primary cause was COVID-19, that is important data. Similarly, if someone dies from something other than COVID-19, but it can be shown that the disease contributed to the death, that is also important. The former shows us those people who are at highest risk from the disease, and society should take reasonable steps to help protect them. The later shows the diseases that COVID-19 are most likely to contribute to making worse, which is another group that should take extra precautions to protect themselves from COVID-19. If, however, someone is hit by a bus, has a stroke or a heart attack, and happens to have COVID-19, then including them in the COVID death rate is fraudulent reporting. It serves no purpose but to scare the people into submitting to the tyrannical regimes those doing the scaring want to put in place.
Dr. Fauci and the CDC
Dr. Fauci has had a long career. . .mostly as a bureaucrat. I have no problem with Dr. Fauci giving advice to the President, but no one has elected Dr. Fauci to office. We have not amended the Constitution to give Dr. Fauci unlimited authority to dictate public health policy, neither have we delegated that authority over to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC is a federal agency tasked with implementing public health laws created by Congress. The CDC has no legal authority to exist, since the Constitution does not grant to Congress the authority to legislate on, nor to regulate, public health. And while there are thousands of dedicated employees in the CDC, never forget that their leadership is made up of political appointees. So the next time someone tells you that you must submit to the recommendations of Dr. Fauci or the CDC, remind them that we live in a republic dedicated to protecting the rights and liberties of the American people, not a kingdom led by Dr. Fauci or an oligarchy under the rule of the CDC.
Based on the track record of both Dr. Fauci and the CDC, I place little weight behind what they recommend. From Dr. Fauci’s about-face on the effectiveness of masks, especially cloth ones, the contagiousness of asymptomatic carriers, to the gross overestimate of the need for hospital beds, there is plenty to question in Dr. Fauci’s advice. Some may point to additional data and recommendations coming from scientific journals and the CDC, but again we see how often the message doesn’t match the report. For example, the JAMA (Journal Of American Medical Association) report on the use of masks states the masks “may help” reduce the spread of SAR-CoV-2, but they saw more correlation with KN95 mask and respirators, rather than surgical and other types of masks. The JAMA report itself labeled this recommendation with low confidence. The CDC report on masks is based on a single instance of two hair stylists who wore masks, and there seemed no investigation of confounding variables. If that’s the quality of information Dr. Fauci and the CDC are using to recommend that our public servants trash the Constitutions of both the United States and the several states, it’s a pretty lousy foundation to overturn the supreme law of the land.
Constitutional “Scholars”
You may have been wondering what all this talk about SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 has to do with the Constitution? Well, “Scholars” have been coming out of the woodwork, claiming the Constitution grants the states free rein to establish any public health policy they think best. The Constitution does not delegate public health policy to the federal government and neither does it prohibit it to the states. Therefore, according to the Tenth Amendment, that means this is a power that remains with the states. That also means neither the Constitution of the United States nor those of the several states (that I’m aware of) grant any government the authority to infringe on the individual rights of the people. As a matter of fact, it is a federal crime, under color of law, to infringe on a right protected by the Constitution of the United States (18 USC 242). So while states are free to establish public health policy, they cannot infringe on the rights of the people when they do so. That means the states are still prohibited from infringing on your liberty to go about your business without a mask, to use the property you have in your business as you see fit, or requiring you inject something into your body to go about your life. And any state that threatens your business license if you do not comply is committing extortion.
Force or illegal compulsion by which any thing is taken from a person.
Extortion: Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
Even the Supreme Court recognized that a state cannot charge a fee for the enjoyment of a right protected under the U.S. Constitution:
It is contended, however, that the fact that the license tax can suppress or control this activity is unimportant if it does not do so. But that is to disregard the nature of this tax. It is a license tax — a flat tax imposed on the exercise of a privilege granted by the Bill of Rights. A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the Federal Constitution.
Murdock v. Pennsylvania
Yes, the court refers to privileges granted by the Bill of Rights, which is a common misrepresentation of the Constitution. The Constitution does not grant unalienable rights, including those in the Bill of Rights, it protects them. So if the state cannot impose a charge for the right to live at liberty, and to do with your property as you wish, why do we have all of these licenses, each of which comes with some fee, tax, or other charge which must be paid? Because We the People stopped reading the original document, the supreme law of the land, and allowed our states to take control over our property. Since a state may not deprive you of your property without due process of law, that means they cannot take away your business, or even your license, without allowing that pesky due process.
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
U.S. Constitution, Amendment XIV
The exclusive right of possessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing; ownership.
Property: Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
Conclusion
If there’s one thing the computer age has taught us, it’s the phrase “garbage in, garbage out”. Whether you’re talking medical reports, the law, or public policy, if the information we’re using to make our decisions is garbage, then our decisions will also be garbage. Both the political class and the media have demonstrated over and over again that you cannot take anything they say at face value. As Ronal Reagan said, “Trust, but verify!”
Don’t forget that the media is a business. Not just the news media, but social media as well. They need you to read/watch/click if they want to stay in business. You are buying their services when you are paying money, time, or just your attention. As the saying goes “caveat emptor”: Buyer beware. If your doctor, your plumber, or your auto mechanic has repeatedly lied to you, or misrepresented the facts behind their decisions, would you continue to trust what they said? You would continue to do business with them? What makes the media any different?
Remember, those elected officials that are pushing this are public servants; they are your employees, and sooner or later their work will come up for review. Would you re-hire an employee without checking on their performance? Wouldn’t you verify that they did what they promised they would? Then why wouldn’t you check the performance of employees that are imposing such restrictions on your liberties? If our public servants are taking in garbage data and making garbage decisions, who’s at greater fault? The employee or the boss who hired them?
Few of us have the time to research all the information on all the topics that are important to our lives today, but if we continue to consume the junk food that claims to be news, then America will die a painful and premature death. It doesn’t really take that long to look up from the phone or turn off the TV and do a little research before you make a decision. So before we calmly submit to the theft of our rights and liberties, and those of our children as well, shouldn’t we check to see if our decisions, and those of our representatives, are being made based on facts or junk?
