Saturday, August 13, 2022

The Pledge, current language. Rollout coming soon. Please leave comments.

 A Pledge to Restore Our Nation and Its Values

1.  REVOKE UNENDING STATES OF EMERGENCY

I support limits on emergency powers. All government emergency laws, rules, regulations, orders, and directives that haven't undergone legislative review and approval must have strict time limits, not to exceed two weeks. (1)

2.  PROHIBIT FORCED MEDICAL CARE

I support the prohibition of all pandemic medical mandates enacted by federal, state, county, city, and private actors, including compulsory drugs, vaccines, vaccine passports, testing, and masking. (2)

3.  END CENSORSHIP AND PROPAGANDA

I support the termination of all federal and state funding used to censor citizens, misinform the American public, or restrict communication among people. (3)

4.  REQUIRE GOVERNMENT COMPLIANCE WITH LAWS REGARDING FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND SPENDING TRANSPARENCY

I support fiscal accountability of the US government as constitutionally required. (4)

5.  BAN GAIN-OF-FUNCTION RESEARCH

I support the elimination of all “gain-of-function” research and related activities.  “Gain-of-function” is defined as the intentional manipulation of microorganisms to make them more virulent, dangerous, or contagious. (5)

................................................................................................................................

As a citizen, I support the Pledge and urge my elected representatives to do so as well.

As a candidate or elected representative, I pledge to introduce and strongly support legislation to accomplish the five Pledge items above.

____________________________________  __________________________ 

Footnotes

(1) The United States' separation of powers doctrine and the checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution have been infringed by shortsighted laws that allowed the executive branch to declare emergencies and continually renew them without input from the people, or approval by legislatures. This Pledge restores checks and balances for emergencies.

Both legislative and administrative government activity must reconvene by the end of two weeks after a declared emergency. Legislative hearings on the emergency measures; notice and comment by the public; and approval by the legislature will be required to renew any emergency powers. 

(2) The doctrine of bodily autonomy and the expectation of informed consent for medical procedures have been infringed with mandated medical tests, masks, and vaccinations. Financial incentives provided to schools and the private sector by government have been contingent upon the imposition of medical mandates for employees and students; use of vaccine passports; and prescribing specific drug treatments. This must end. 

(3) The First Amendment rights guaranteed to every American:  freedom of speech, the press, religion, and assembly were taken from us—without any means of timely redress—by our own government. The government collaborated with mainstream media and social media companies to carry out officially sanctioned censorship.  A 2013 amendment to the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act allowed the federal government to propagandize American citizens. 

Our rights must be restored, and the legalization of government censorship and propaganda directed at citizens must end. This Pledge encompasses actions taken by government directly as well as actions taken by media companies that receive government funding or are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. 

(4) Federal agencies have written off trillions of dollars in undocumented transactions. For example, according to Reuters,

"The Defense Department’s Inspector General, in a June report, said the Army made $2.8 trillion in wrongful adjustments to accounting entries in one quarter alone in 2015, and $6.5 trillion for the year. Yet the Army lacked receipts and invoices to support those numbers or simply made them up... Disclosure of the Army’s manipulation of numbers is the latest example of the severe accounting problems plaguing the Defense Department for decades."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army/u-s-army-fudged-its-accounts-by-trillions-of-dollars-auditor-finds-idUSKCN10U1IG

Yet the Constitution requires that “a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.” Government finances must become transparent and be accountable to the public. 

(5)  Spending federal funds for “gain-of-function” research was banned between 2014 and 2017 after a series of potentially deadly accidents at US laboratories.  For example, according to an article titled, "Congress Demands Details of Secret CDC Lab Incidents Revealed by USA TODAY,"

"The USA TODAY Network's "Biolabs in Your Backyard" investigation, published since 2015, has revealed hundreds of accidents at corporate, university, government and military labs nationwide. It also has exposed a system of fragmented federal oversight and pervasive secrecy that obscures failings by facilities and regulators."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/01/17/congress-wants-details-of-cdc-lab-accidents/96551636/

Yet NIH funding of coronavirus “gain-of-function” research in Wuhan, China, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, continued despite the ban.  American citizens are outraged at the harm such research has caused and want it stopped for good. 

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tiny suggested edit item #3: from "restrict communication between people" to "restrict communication *among* people".

Anonymous said...

Tiny suggested edit item #2: eliminate the word "pandemic". Add the words "treatments" and "therapies" into the list.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps another clause regarding medical privacy: I fully support the rights of privacy and patient/physician privilege without exception, and that no government and/or private actor may compel or coerce any person to reveal any medical treatments, testing, diagnoses, past or present, without their express and explicit consent.

Anonymous said...

It would also be nice to have a clause to reassert freedom of religion and religious choice, without discrimination: I support the religious freedom, religious choice, religious belief, and religious affiliations of all persons. I support that such religious freedoms, choices, beliefs, and affiliations are the private concerns of the people, that they may never be subjected to any "validity" tests imposed by government and private actors, and that no government or private actor may compel any person to disclose their religious choices, beliefs, and freedoms for any purpose whatsoever.

Meryl Nass, M.D. said...

The goal of this pledge is to make it as broadly acceptable, generalizable, as possible.

I personally am a huge proponent of medical privacy and all privacy and no surveillance. But this pledge is about fixing the most basic things first.

As for religion, by end the pandemic laws religion will be freed from the shackles recently imposed. That is the simplest fix that can be done immediately.

The word pandemic was used deliberately because we are not trying to sneak in an end to all mandates in this document, as it is a much more controversial issue than getting rid of covid mandates.

As for among instead of between, I am asking around about that change.



Anonymous said...

Re item #2: are you suggesting there are occasions during which such medical mandates as you describe would be acceptable -- just so long as these occasions are not declared as pandemics? Could you give some examples of when such medical mandates would be acceptable after all?

Anonymous said...

On the subject of medical privacy: this issue seems massively basic and utterly essential to medical freedom. It is imperative to address this issue in your pledge. Somehow over the past couple years, every two-bit bureaucrat and administrator -- not to mention waitresses demanding proof of "vaccine" at the doors of restaurants -- suddenly became entitled to compel citizens to disclose private medical information. When did this become ok? We have to stand up to this nonsense *now*. There is no later here -- only too late.

Anonymous said...

As for religion: this is of a piece, namely how various actors -- public and private -- have used a public health pretext to increasingly constrain the fundamental Constitutional framework of religious freedom. If the unconstrained freedom of religious beliefs of citizens are not supported by the signers of this pledge -- which is about as fundamental to the fabric of freedom as it gets in this country, the first clause of the First Amendment for goodness sakes -- then one may as well forget the more ephemeral aspects of this pledge altogether. One might also point out, that the strongest and most vocal fighters against the many and varied medical and social tyrannies during these times, have been those with deeply held religious beliefs. Thus you might expect to increase the supporters and backers of this pledge by explicitly including this bedrock principle so vital to their cause and our unity. Finally, we might also thank god for the first clause of the First Amendment -- no matter our own personal beliefs -- because it has proven to be the only bulwark from which the edicts and tyrannies have been legally challenged at all.

Anonymous said...

"Between" is two, "among" is more than two.

Anonymous said...

To make this pledge as broadly acceptable and generalizable as possible, one might simply say: "I pledge to fully support the Constitution, my oath of office, and the laws of this country."

That would get us everything we need, if indeed such a pledge were honored.

Yet that has not proven sufficient, has it?

So what we need here in this pledge, is to get as explicit as possible -- as you said earlier, "bulletproof". People going on record saying *exactly* what they do and will support.

We actually don't want this to be easy. We don't want it to be a bit of fluff, easily blown off.

We want this pledge to be a clear and potent signifier. We want it to be a statement of courage and resolve.

We want a pledge that actually means something.

Steven Athearn said...

Wouldn't 'coerced' be more appropriate than 'forced' and 'compulsory' in number 2? I understand that you the goal is limited, but the other side (from the Jacobsen decision to Justin Trudeau today) frequently employs the rationalization which in effect says that "no one is being forced. The choice belongs with the recipient of the medical intervention. All that we're affirming is the right of society to impose penalties for non-compliance." This is the distinction made (which I believe goes back to Jacobsen) between, say, "forced" and merely "mandated" vaccinations. But even the latter does not fall within the meaning of 'voluntary consent" under the norm of informed consent, which requires that the consent is not genuine if only given because of an element of coercion. Is it really too much to ask to affirm that meaning as it has been traditionally understood?

Meryl Nass, M.D. said...

Merriam Webster says between can mean two or can mean more than two.

The Pledge is deliberately meant to ensure freedom of religion and certain constitutional guarantees.

However, it is also meant to be short, generally understandable, and it dodges issues that may appear to be partisan.