Rantz: Gov. Inslee’s forced vaccination policies more dangerous than COVID

Governor Jay Inslee’s forced COVID-19 vaccinations and renewed mask mandate policies are cruel. More worrisome, they are examples of terrifying government overreach. His actions should be called out for what they are: authoritarian. Inslee’s unchecked powers are a bigger threat than COVID.

Inslee says the rise of COVID cases is such an emergency that the state is headed back to an indoor mask mandate. Not immediately, of course. The emergency can hold off until Monday, Aug. 23. I guess the hospitals he says are overrun due to COVID cases (but definitely not due to staff shortages and cases unrelated to COVID, as the data suggests) can withstand the next four days of patients rushing through the doors. Maybe that’s why Inslee didn’t wear a mask while making the announcement indoors.

And now, all school staff, even in private schools, must get the COVID vaccine.

Is there a plan to handle a staffing crisis should they quit over the mandate because they might value medical and bodily autonomy? Nah. Inslee doesn’t do details. He thinks once they think more deeply about the vaccine, they’ll get it. But just in case they don’t choose to do what he says, he’ll force them to.

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Holding your paycheck hostage to force you into a medical decision

While it’s politically difficult for teachers to push back, this also subjects staff with reasonable reasons not to get vaccinated with no recourse. Don’t want the vaccine because you recently had COVID and still have protective antibodies in your system? Too bad. You comply, or the government will fire you from your job.

As Inslee pointed out, if you’re fired over a refusal to get the vaccine, you won’t be offered unemployment benefits either. How utterly cruel and monstrous.

Using the threat of financial insecurity, Inslee coerces people into a medical decision between the patient and their doctor. Want to put food on your table? Want to buy gas for your car? Want to be able to afford to survive? All you have to do is allow Inslee to make a medical decision for you.

Inslee knows better than you or your doctor.

He may not be a doctor and he definitely isn’t able to get through a PowerPoint presentation on COVID from medical experts without asking to go to the bathroom 14 times so he can Google terms being used that he doesn’t understand. But he watched every episode of ER (up until George Clooney left the show, obviously; afterward, it went downhill). He knows what he’s doing.

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Inslee says ‘science and data’ 5,097 times without providing any

As is usually the case, this governor explains his positions by forgoing science and data with the literal words “science and data.”

He acknowledges 95% of the patients in Washington hospitals are unvaccinated, yet he punishes the vaccinated.

Does the vaccine work or not? If it does — and the data suggests it all but guarantees you won’t get seriously sick or die from COVID as a result — this move pushes the unvaccinated even farther away from compliance.

Inslee’s problem is he and the advisors in his socially-distanced echo chamber have no idea how to appeal to the hesitant. Instead of convincing them with honest and clear education, Inslee gives into the worst kind of impulse: If they don’t do what he wants, he’ll force them.

Multiple times during his press conference, Inslee implored the unvaccinated to ignore blogs spreading misinformation and, instead, talk to their doctors. Your doctors will, Inslee insists, persuade you to get the vaccine. But he’s not so confident. It’s why he’s mandating the vaccine.

Inslee’s turning people against the vaccine

Inslee thinks forcing people to make a medical decision will work. He’s seriously underestimating the pushback he will face. The same politician who says a woman has a right to choose her own medical care on her terms suddenly says she does not. You should be scared of this level of authoritarian tendencies.

Most frustratingly, I’m pro vaccine and encourage people to get in consultation with their doctor. That’s what I did. His administration reached out to me hoping I’d push the vaccine on their behalf.

But now I can’t focus on informing people about the vaccine. Instead, I have to inform them about his obscene power trip. Jay Inslee became a bigger threat than COVID. It’s gone unchecked and he continues to move forward. Why in the world would he stop at COVID?

He’s radicalizing people against the vaccine. He’s just too busy playing faux-hero to realize it. That, in the end, will cause more hesitancy than any wacky blog could.

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