Health bureaucrats have crippled America

OPINION:

Look around. America the free is America the stifled.

And what’s perhaps the saddest about this reality is the stifling has come not by law, not by ordinance, not by duly passed legislation by duly elected officials — but by the whims and wishes of unelected, largely unaccountable medical bureaucrats.

If face masks are the great godsends of COVID-19 protections they’re made out to be, why don’t legislators pass mandates the American constitutional way — by proposing bills, openly debating the bills, publicly voting on the bills and going on record with votes for these bills that allow the people to hold them accountable? Why don’t local boards of supervisors and city councils?

If social distancing is the sure way of containing the virus, why don’t state governors, in partnership with state representatives, pen pieces of legislation that dictate the particulars of social distancing policy for schools, for businesses, for places of public gathering — and put in print, for all the citizenry to see, any exceptions to these regulations that may arise, such as Black Lives Matter protests in the streets? That way, there’s continuity in enforcement and application of law so, say, street protesters aren’t allowed to operate under one version of laws and business owners and shoppers, another.

That way, there’s clarity.

There’s accountability.

There’s a chance for citizens to weigh in and say yay or nay.

There’s a due process of law — of creation of law — rather than this fuzzy, ever-changing, madly random, outrageously unscientific life of “do this, do that, now do that, not this” dictatorial system of largely unsound doctorly advice that’s become America’s government.

Anthony Fauci is not an elected representative.

Bill Gates is not a voter-picked leader of the nation.

Deborah Birx is not a chosen-by-the-people chief of America.

And yet, their advisements, recommendations and warnings have led to this: A national economic shut-down. Closed schools. Closed colleges. Closed churches. Closed businesses.

Massive unemployment. Massive reliance on government dole-outs. Closed movie theaters. Closed restaurants. Closed bars and taverns. An end to marriage ceremonies — a delay of funerals.

The shuttering of graduation ceremonies. The face-masking of healthy Americans — the forced face-masking of Americans who wish to shop, who need to buy. The explosion of drug and alcohol addictions; of prescriptions for mind-altering meds; of suicides and suicidal tendencies; of depression and negativity about the future. And forced stay-at-home orders for supposedly free citizens who just last year, just a few months ago, were largely considered quite capable of deciding for themselves how best to handle their own health and medical decisions.

And for what? What’s it all brought? Certainly not a slowing of the coronavirus spread.

Rather, more gloom, more doom, more crackdowns and quarantines and threats for shutdowns and quarantines and crackdowns.

If the coronavirus numbers justified such emergency action — so be it. But the numbers don’t. They’re all over the map; they’re all out of whack, based on unreliable models, unreliable reporting, unreliable methods. Political influences. Political motivations.

So what that means is unelected health bureaucrats have been able to completely cripple a country, without cause.

Without vote and accountability to the people.

That’s not a democratic republic. That’s a dictatorship. And sadly, cut through the clutter to see clearly: That’s what America has become. Saying it’s for the good of the nation, for the health and safety of the people, doesn’t change that truth one bit. It’s time for Americans to insist on the vote.

It’s time for these health bureaucrats to be pushed to the side and for those politicians who want to obey all their ever-changing dictates — and force the nation to obey — to instead pick up pen and put it in writing.

Put it in writing and put it to the vote, or stand down and stand back and let freedom reign: No more rule by executive order. No more rule by unelected health bureaucrats.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.