"It's a damn shame what the world's gotten to / For people like me and people like you / Wish I could just wake up and it not be true / But it is, oh, it is... Lord knows they all just wanna have total control / Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do / And they don't think you know, but I know that you do." — Rich Men North of Richmond by Mr. Chris Lunsford (aka, Oliver Anthony)
The venerable William F. Buckley frequently opined that conservatives aren't inherently ideological because we view institutions like family, church and our work as more important than politics; hence government should be non-intrusive in our daily lives. We live our lives based on humility with a clear understanding of our potential imposition on others. This clearly is the nexus between the current situation that Oliver's ballad bemoans.
Last week's Republican presidential debate began with a question based on Oliver's plea against the obvious abuses by those in charge of our country. So what is different here in Alabama?
Last week, State Sen. Chris Elliott (R-Josephine) was less than encouraging in his tepid response as to perpetuating any of the insanity of the past three and a half years in the future.
“The whole country overreacted, but I think we [Alabama] overreacted less than the rest of the country," Elliott said.
Nonsense! OK, if California gets an "F" and we get a "D," then he may be right.
He continued, “I think there could be more appetite in the legislature to deal with some of these things but in order for that to happen, we would have to have another overreach by the executive."
His dismissal of the egregious abuses that resulted in the shuttering of thousands of businesses alone should have been enough to elicit an outcry from the legislature, but they were silent while the public health apparatus destroyed lives with their unchecked edicts. A simple evaluation should have been enough to avert the closing of schools and understand the potential for negative impact on children (a group that is at almost zero mortality risk from COVID). In fact, the governor and legislature have had FOUR regular sessions to protect us now and in the future from the abuses imposed on us by the ghouls of Goat Hill- but heretofore there's been very little leadership against this epic catastrophe: it's been a damn shame. Truth and justice demand accountability for the historical abuses we've been forced to endure during the pandemic.
As a point of reference, within a week or so after being appointed by the governor to the state's "vaccine working-group" in October 2020, I made the request to know our budget, and the next day they changed the name of the "working group" to the "external working group" and the budget wasn’t released- but it was probably just a coincidence. Also, for more background on the reality of the science please see this from three months ago: Dr. Stewart Tankersley: Evidence to counter Scott Harris’ COVID-19 tactics.
Dr. Scott Harris continues to funnel millions of federal dollars to promote more uptake of the shots that no one rightly wants. Remember that when sitting in Bryant-Denny/Jordan-Hare Stadiums this season, and the PA system interrupts your enjoyment to assure you of the ghouls' disregard for reality... at least our institutes of higher learning will continue to rake in millions more. While liberal sites call the song "controversial," the real world "gets it." Like the acceptance of the song (it's rated number one across multiple genres), among blacks and whites, there's no separation of widespread distrust of our overlords in public health (especially in rejecting these poison shots called "vaccines"). Like the tone-deafness of former Vice President Mike Pence regarding the mood of the country, the Board of Public Health (Harris' boss) gave him a 7% pay raise last week! When will there be an accounting- it's a damn shame that there isn't an appetite to do the right thing.
On last week's "Capitol Journal" on APT (by the way, how much money have they received to promote the COVID narrative?), Dr. Harris once again tried to explain the disconnect between reality and public health's deceptions and ineptitude. At the end of the day, the message was wrong because it ran counter to the truth.
"There was a real loss of trust between the public and the people that they normally come to for advice about vaccines... And yet, people just failed to trust it. That's still an issue," he outlined.
You may be inclined to give him credit for appearing to "get it," but not so fast.
Harris continued, "It was really clear that the messenger, in a lot of ways, was more important than the message... It was such a divided time during the pandemic, and people were not sure who to trust. There was a lot of conflicting information. It made it really hard for people to know where to get good information."
Because open true scientific dialogue has not been allowed. In fact, until recently the Medical Association of the State of Alabama's (Dr. Harris' boss) webpage declared itself as the site for up-to-date information regarding COVID - in fact, it was nothing of the sort. It would simply offer links to the CDC or articles from secular sites like AL.com & "The Atlantic." A group of doctors in the state offered in the summer of 2021 to provide this service (with updated scientific data) for free, but they rejected our offer.
In one of Harris’ most epic declarations demonstrating his hubris and tone deafness he said, "And we also kind of have this sort of democratization of press, if you will, so everybody can pull the news from exactly the person they want to get it from..."
Inside his own banal bubble, he may not have heard of the historic federal hearing last month (Missouri v. Biden) regarding the evidence of the government suppressing citizens' free speech. In fact, "Democratization of press" has made true, professional journalism one of the main casualties of the past four years, and it's a damn shame.
Completely contrary to Harris’ statement, the Trusted News Initiative (TNI) is a global, organized partnership involving over two dozen major media and technology platforms that was developed in 2019 to censor what was deemed “misinformation” starting with the 2020 election, which then conveniently segued to control what information was available to citizens about all topics surrounding the pandemic. Just before the release of the shots to the public on December 10, 2020, the TNI loudly proclaimed that they were going to "protect the vaccine," and boy did they! At no point since 2020 has there been a surplus of balanced, accurate or scientific information about these topics available to the public to make decisions concerning their health. Instead, a certain narrative was propagandized and shoved in our faces on every television and computer 24 hours a day.
In praise of the historically rapid approval of the shots within several months, Dr. Harris once again misses the reality of the bastardization of normal approval processes. The approval he refers to was not an approval of the original shot (the Cominarity shot is legally distinct), and it's not available in the United States for millions of good reasons. This is one of the many reasons that has led to the distrust of the public health apparatus. Another reason for the distrust of these shots is that the confidential internal documents between Pfizer and the CDC in February 2021 (only 10 weeks after the injections began) clearly proved these injections are not safe. Why else would Pfizer have requested that the internal documents not be fully released for 75 years?
So, remember the song's refrain when considering what the geniuses in medicine and government have put us through as they declare imbecility as the norm and anything opposing them as "misinformation." There needs to be an accounting by all three branches of government of the abuses driven by the public health apparatus and its bosses (think hospitals and doctors) that have been outside of their control for too long.
Dr. Tankersley is a fourth-generation physician serving in the Montgomery area. He also served on three deployments in the U.S. Army’s Medical Corp, retiring in 2021 as a Colonel in the Alabama Army National Guard. In 2012, Gov. Robert Bentley appointed him to a five-year term on the Alabama Ethics Commission, and in 2020, Gov. Kay Ivey appointed him to the state’s vaccine working group. Besides being involved in church activities, Dr. Tankersley enjoys reading and spending time with his family.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
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