CDC Control Towers over Average Fliers

April 22, 2022

America's most notorious COVID troll has reemerged to demand everyone crossing his bridge must pay his toll. As the Biden administration officially appeals its overturned mask mandate, Dr. Anthony Fauci came out of hiding long enough to admit that the federal government's transportation mask mandate is really about power and control. "We are concerned," said Fauci, "about courts getting involved in things that are unequivocally public health issues."

Fauci should have stopped there, but he kept talking. "This is a CDC issue, it should not have been a court issue," he added. "This is a CDC decision, and that's very bad precedent when you have courts making a decision." Here are some bad precedents: pretending "public health" overrides every constitutional right, pretending "public health" overrides every other public policy consideration, pretending an unelected group of "public health experts" should run Americans' daily lives, pretending those "public health experts" don't make mistakes. Last but not least, saying that courts shouldn't be able to review the CDC's decisions is to pretend the agency is above the law.

Over the last two years, the mask has come to symbolize the oppressive overreach of all kinds of government COVID restrictions. Freedom-loving Americans were given a reprieve when a federal judge in Florida struck down the Biden administration's mask mandate for public transportation. However, the Biden administration is not backing off from its desire for authoritarian control.

The Biden administration is on the record trying to calcify their authoritarian power: "To protect CDC's public health authority beyond the ongoing assessment announced last week, CDC has asked DOJ to proceed with an appeal," the CDC said in a recent statement. "CDC believes this is a lawful order, well within CDC's legal authority to protect public health." Bottom line -- this is no longer about the current mandate, but rather the ability of the federal government to retain this authority in perpetuity. First, it's mask mandates, then it's closing churches -- we know their playbook.

It's not just public health officials flexing their newfound authoritarian muscles. When asked why the Justice Department appealed the ruling, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki answered, "because they think that, for current and future public health crises, we want to preserve that authority for the CDC." "How scary is that?" exclaimed Congressman Randy Weber (R-Texas). They want to preserve the authority to ride herd over Americans' free will."

To add insult to injury, the Biden administration insists on blind submission to the dictates of public health officials, even though "the science" disagrees, as FRC Action argued in its own lawsuit against the mandate. Given what we have learned over the past two years, this overreaching government mask mandate on the 2.9 million Americans who fly in a typical day is not based on science. In fact, science has shown that the air passengers breathe on a commercial airline is among the cleanest and safest of any environment on earth. "It's funny that they refer to 'the science' on the mask mandate" and completely ignore it on the transgender issue, noted Weber. "They forget about that science," but "want to shove masks almost up the American people's nose."

The Freedom Doomsday Clock stands at 11:59 pm. We are not just one generation away from the extermination of freedom; we are just one court decision away from executive agencies of the federal government getting to enact whatever arbitrary and capricious directives tickle their fancy, all in the name of public health. And if "the experts" get their way, they'll do it without being answerable to the courts, to the Congress, or to the people.

This isn't about forcing everyone to take off their masks. If people feel safer continuing to wear masks, they should be free to do so. That's what freedom means -- allowing people to make their own decisions and act according to their own judgment. Arbitrary mandates that are left unchallenged will become the norm for future public health emergencies. So, we must use the freedoms that we have now to preserve these fundamental freedoms for the future.