Opinion: The amendment to SB1169 is an immoral power grab using COVID as convenient excuse

Before I begin, I'd like to do a brief impression of the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board...

"You’ve put up with the guidelines here and put up with the guidelines there and gosh o’golly gosh o’molly you’ve heed the guidelines everywhere. You’ve heed the mandates in your house you even have a mandate mouse. And you’ve done-this but not-done-that for so long now your eyes see flat and up as down and back as forth and on and on from south to north it almost feels like you’re a Who living amongst the Toodle-Oo’s and what’s-it’s-who’s-it’s, don’t know do’s-it’s, sooner or later we’ve gotta get through’s-it’s and if we could have but one wish to say, we pray it’s only one more day but it is not an ideal world, you little boys and little girls, and you must be willing to accept any and all measures to end this threat. So give up just a little liberty to your friendly Illinois Democrat Party."

What do you think? Will my Chicago Journal gain more subscribers if I treat my readers like children the way the Sun-Times Editorial Board treats their readers?^[1]

...

Nah.

The headline of that editorial alone should and would leave any normal American (or otherwise) horrified at the implication but the Sun-Times Editorial Board is, not unlike Illinois politicians, a collection of carefully selected embouchures whose primary job is to focus the hot air blown from union brass.

If that's the type of publication you enjoy, fine. That's your choice.^[2]

But I’m not sure what’s more sad. That the leadership of the Sun-Times is so comfortable with calling for the casual surrender of their reader's morals and deeply-held religious beliefs or that readers of the Sun-Times are so comfortable with giving them up?

To find our answer, I suspect we'll have to search for the answers to some more basic questions first.

Do the people who read the Sun-Times actually believe there is going to be a definitive end to all…this? Do the people who read the Sun-Times actually believe, 20 months in, that if they continue to mind their P’s and Q’s and behave like good little boys and girls someone will come out one morning to applause and great fanfare and proclaim before the cameras and the assembled dignitaries that since everyone has all done such a good job recently all…this…was over? Do the people who read the Sun-Times actually believe that if we just give up one more little freedom to Illinois politicians that Illinois politicians won't abuse that? Do they expect that someday they'll give it back?

Are there still people out there who are this obtuse? This naïve? This so incomprehensibly unobservant of anything that happens around them? Other than those who sit on the Sun-Times editorial board?

It’s okay. You don't have to answer. It's just two more weeks, you know?

I'll be nice and give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe, somewhere up there in the cavernous spaces, they merely think, "Hey, it can't get any worse, right?"

Wrong.

Nevermind that our understanding of this respiratory illness and its treatment is far greater today than it was 20 months ago. Nevermind that we now know that the vaccinated are just as likely to spread the virus as the unvaccinated. Nevermind that we've known about natural immunity since Ancient Greece. Nevermind that COVID case numbers in Illinois have dropped 8 weeks in a row and are at their lowest levels since mid-July. Nevermind that COVID cases have dropped and continue to drop nationally since August yet the state of Illinois remains one of only 6 states in the United States that still has a mask mandate regardless of vaccination status. Nevermind the fact that we're all only discussing case numbers now and if we let this nonsense continue much longer we'll only be talking about potential cases rather than actual cases. Nevermind that kids are experiencing significant drops in reading and math comprehension. Nevermind that while you scrape and claw for every dollar you can find and pray that your job is one of the jobs that can hang on, businesses are boarding up and closing forever all around you that they alone are responsible for due to an alarming lack of leadership rampant through your city's heirarchy. Nevermind that if you go out anywhere these days, with the exception of a few hysterical biddies, you can see with your own eyes that this pandemic is effectively over.

Nevermind all of that because the Illinois Democrat Party is not done with you, yet. They never are, really. They have not squeezed every last drop of power out of the COVID fruit.

But they're coming for it. And the Sun-Times wants you to give it to them.

Enter Illinois House Representative's Robyn Gabel and Bob Morgan.

Robyn Gabel calls Evanston home and represents Illinois’ 18th District, which includes part or all of the suburbs of Evanston, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Northbrook, Northfield, Winnetka, and Glencoe. Bob Morgan hails from Deerfield and his 58th district includes all or parts of the suburbs of Bannockburn, Deerfield, Glencoe, Highwood, Highland Park, Lake Bluff, Lake Forest, Lincolnshire, Northbrook and North Chicago.

Illinois’ 18th and 58th Districts are among the wealthiest districts in the state. The 18th and 58th Districts are the type of places where, to be frank, the people making the money are making such great sums they don’t really have to worry about who is elected because hardly a single policy outside of their property tax bill actually affects them whatsoever so any dummy will do to represent them as long as they don’t draw too much attention. All the better if they can find the best type of dummy, the dummy who genuinely believes themselves to be intelligent and talented at writing public policy yet who've never worked an actual job in their entire lives.

Naturally, this type of foundation makes people like Robyn Gabel and Bob Morgan electable in the 18th and 58th Districts.

Which, I suppose, may have been well and good if not for one little problem...

These two want my conscience, and that got my attention.

Politicians are always quick to remind that History doesn’t look kindly on those who stand by and, while there is an element of truth to that chestnut, History doesn't look kindly on those who don't stand by, either. History is as rich with fools as it is rare with wise.

No matter, History will most certainly see the heroes of our time not as the men who run into burning buildings or toward gunfire and not as the women who march into neglected homes rife with abuse to care for the children inside. No, History will most certainly see as the heroes of our time to be the politicians like Representative Robyn Gabel of Illinois’ 18th District and Representative Bob Morgan of Illinois' 58th District.

At least, that's how they will present themselves.

So do your thing, History. Go on then, Google Search Console.

Always remember, Robyn Gabel and Bob Morgan are the gallant pair of true heroes from the wealthiest districts of this great state of Illinois who did all they could to introduce legislation removing the Illinois citizen's individual right to make their own decisions about the health care they receive. And what's more, Robyn Gabel and Bob Morgan have given not only the current Governor and Illinois state legislature the power to take any measures or impose any requirements they've given this same power to wield over your family's compliance to all the yet-to-be identified endless stream of apparatchiks who come after them, whenever they see fit, indefinitely.

Heroes, truly.

Don’t believe me? Go ahead, History, read about it here for yourself.^[3]

Once through the Illinois House, Robyn Gabel and Bob Morgan's amendment to SB1169 was one of the last things that Don Harmon and his Senate squeezed through late Thursday night before adjourning the session.

Hold on one moment, I'm getting a phone call. I gotta take this.

"Hey History, how ya doin'?"

...

"Yea, you read that correct. That's R-O-B-Y-N G-A-B-E-L. And B-O-B M-O-R-G-A-N."

...

"Yes. Of Illinois' 18th and 58th Districts, respectively. Uh-huh."

...

"I know, I couldn't believe it either but somebody not only wrote that, they passed it as law. Haha."

...

"I hear ya. Hey I gotta go, good talkin' to you, though. Say hi to your mother for me."

...

If Robyn and Bob ever read this, let me guess what happened after. The dual cogs of House Speaker Chris Welch and Senate President Don Harmon gave you their blessing to really put yourself out there and take the spotlight for this one? They were happy to let you go ahead and get the plaudits and praise for this little piece of just awesome legislation that allows them and everyone they know to fire you and everyone you know if you don't do whatever it is they subjectively determine to be good for you?

"Great job, Robyn. Great job, Bob. Real, real nice legislation you got there..."

Did they pat your heads, scratch behind your ears, and give you a treat?

I'd almost bet they did.

To summarize, under this amendment, it will no longer be a violation of the law for any public official, public or private association, agency, or employer to "take any measures or impose any requirements," including those that involve provision of services by a physician or health care personnel "intended to prevent contraction or transmission of COVID-19 or any pathogens that result in COVID-19 or any of its subsequent iterations."

I particularly like the last part of the amendment..."or any of its subsequent iterations."

As I'm sure you're aware by now, COVID-19 is a novel respiratory coronavirus, similar to the flu. As I'm sure you're also aware, they offer a new flu shot every year and since last summer we've already seen at least three additional variants of COVID-19 with significant spread across the world.

But have no fear, kiddos, the Illinois Democrat Party is here to protect themselves and your employers from legal repercussions if they fire you whenever they decide some new unforeseen coronavirus variant threatens their business model.

You just have to shut up and take it. This is an at-will state, dontchaknow.

Yes, kids, thankfully the government is here to to protect you against things like the delta variant...the lambda variant...the mu variant...or the ______ variants.

I mean, have you thought about what you'll do in response to the omicron variant? What about the sigma variant? Oh dear what about the upsilon variant?^[4] What about the whatever [shoulder shrug] variant or the [psssh] whenever variant?

lol. Who cares? Your thoughts don't matter anymore. They've removed your conscientious objection. Better have your papers ready if you want to work for JB and his friends.

And no, you won't be able to rhetorically argue the severity of that unknown variant when it inevitably occurs, either. You won't be able to beg your employer or public official, you won't be able to plead your case like Oliver Twist, "Please, sir, I've already had 12 boosters! Please!"

No, you can't possibly be expected to take your health care into our own hands because...oh…oh God…what do we do about the eventual variants that sound like sexually transmitted diseases passed around collegiate Greek row? What's Bob Morgan and Robyn Gabel's recommendation? Someone, anyone, please ask Don Harmon on the Senate floor what I should do if I want to avoid the Kappa Kappa Gamma variant but, if given the opportunity with the Alpha Chi Omega variant, I may want to throw caution to the wind and take my chances? Don't forget to wink at him and say, "ifyaknowwhatImean…"

I'm shocked the second version of the amendment didn't make it through because that version even went on to state that it was not a violation of the Health Care Right of Conscience Act to enforce the measure through "terminating employment or excluding individuals from a school, a place of employment, or public or private premises in response to noncompliance."

Someone actually wrote that. They debated it.

Yes, you read that right. For a time, Robyn Gabel and Bob Morgan and Chris Welch and Don Harmon and Melinda Bush and JB Pritzker and all the rest, in their infinite wisdom and gracious loving embrace of their constituents, wanted to make it legal for public officials to be able to exclude individuals from public premises. Fortunately for us peons, someone intervened and convinced them maybe that was a little much, even for them, and it was struck from the third and final version.^[5]

I find it curious, how eager, willing, and happy the Illinois Democrat voter is to continue to indulge the Illinois Democrat Party when said Party is faced with a growing list of lawsuits they desperately need to clear a legal pathway for themselves after realizing that their leadership made significant mistakes. And I suppose I just find it curious that, for all the wannabe REDS they count among their ranks, how eager, willing, and happy the Illinois Democrat Party and its voters are to protect ownership and management above labor when it involves management covering their own ass, know what I mean? You don't see many tying themselves to the ideological tree to stop those legal bulldozers, do ya?

Oh well, that's politics, I guess.

"Craig, come on," you may be thinking while you read this. "They’re already largely doing this, anyway."

"Come on, Craig," you're still thinking. "They're only going to use this for COVID."

Sure, bud. [wink] Sure. The Illinois State government is notorious for their prudence.

You're tired. I get it.

You want all of [broad sweeping gesture] this to be over and you’re willing to do anything and accept any and all measures if it’ll just get us to the end of all [broad sweeping gesture with the other arm] this.

I get it.

For 20 months, you’ve bent over backwards and have gone above and beyond to follow, for all we know due to their lack of transparency, whatever Governor Pritzker’s Press Secretary Jordan Abuddayeh’s favorite Facebook group's - “The Super Secret Science and Data Explainer for Democrat Housewives Who Wear Makeup” - latest talking points that she waves in front of the Governor's face to read for the cameras and tells him to call it his new policy, and you’ve done it all to keep your job or your own small business open and the bills paid. I get it. You struggled to make it work but you did. And just as the kids were being readied to go back to class and back to a semblance of normalcy you had to grit your teeth and bear it as you were forced to once again listen to that shrill cackle of arrogant harpies that form the leadership of the Teacher’s Union and you had to bob your head and smile that toothless smile that says “uh-huh, sure” as they played political hot potato with your kids as spuds for the umpteenth-hundredth time while the chairman and CEO of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines’ son-in-law who moonlights as a revolutionary socialist, Jesse Sharkey, half-heartedly leads a small army of Lululemon wearing former glee clubbers giddy to take the next step in the long march through the institutions through worn-out and stale chants from late 19th century labor movements between sips of their Caramel Macchiato’s so they can post their live-action roleplays on social media and pretend their plight is the same plight as those of the 10-year-olds who once worked coal mines and who will get right to it as long as they get just a few more weeks off and a little more pension percentage points toward that second home in Florida they flee to the minute that pension hits bought and paid for by their neighbor's tax dollars and approved by an equally suspicious city hall and mayor with a Napoleon complex. You've rolled your eyes too many times at yet another friend or family member's excuses of covid convenience. You've smirked and scoffed at loving couples holding hands together and cuddling along the shore 100 yards away from anyone with a strong wind coming off the lake and yet they're still masked up. And you’ve swallowed your guffaws and washed the gasps down with more bottles of wine than you'd like to admit as you’ve been forced to listen to yet another round of your old college roommate rambling about "da science" and "da data" that you know they don't know and are just parroting a parrot's parrot and you can't believe they're actually trying to pretend they do know anything about anything at all let alone about this because you're the one who used to hold their hair back the night before their communications degree midterms but a private office hours meeting with the T/A suddenly bumped their failing GPA suddenly to a 2.5. And God forbid yet another someone who you may have once respected or perhaps even thought you understood as a friend and kindred spirit tries to tell you yet another thing you should do in between pauses to yell at a grocery store clerk for more toilet paper and now you’re genuinely concerned not only with what in God’s name it was you once saw in this person and silently wonder how they actually managed to live this long and get through a day and now you’re not even sure if they have a functioning sense of self-awareness let alone a fully developed soul…

I told you, I get it.

You're tired and, as the Sun-Times Editorial Board said, it's not an ideal world.

After the last 20 months you've had, I understand the urge to just...accept...any and all measures if it just ends the constant involuntary existential confrontation with your own mortality not seen in this country since September 11, 2001...

Look on the bright side. Lord knows, lawmakers didn't enact any ill-conceived legislation in the name of safety and security in the wake of that, amirite?

All right, let's begin to wrap this up.

What this really boils down to is a fundamental disconnect of what "it" is that "rights" are.

To many Illinois legislators, legislators like Robyn Gabel and Bob Morgan, a "right" is something they give you. And because they give you rights, "rights" are something they can take away from you just as easily. They are not there to protect or fight for your natural rights as individuals endowed by your Creator, to them and people like them the state is the holy entity that oversees all and it is their duty to manipulate and use the law as they or the people who donate to them sees fit to protect and defend that holy state and its/their interests. And then bury your ability to win them back under mountains of unnecessary and redundant red tape.

Just as your friends or relatives over these last 20 months have used COVID as a convenient excuse for all sorts of things, when Illinois legislators like Robyn Gabel and Bob Morgan and Chris Welch and Don Harmon and Melinda Bush and JB Pritzker see an easy opportunity present itself, they'll use any excuse to take it including but not limited to a novel coronavirus that not one legislator among them understands but it allows for them to pretend to be the heroes they imagine themselves born to be by protecting you from yourself.

In simpler terms, they view government and their control over it as a parent does a child's favorite toy. Or, to be more modern, the family iPad. You can have your "rights" but only if you behave or they'll sigh and quickly turn the iPad over and you can have your "rights" when they need some peace and quiet. And when they take it away the only answer they believe is required in return is, "because I said so."^[6]

It's a very special type of arrogance they possess.

They believe themselves to be so morally clear that they have no reservation about taking your morality away from you.

You don't deserve it. You haven't been good enough.

What's more, they seem to be fundamentally incapable of thinking more than five minutes in front of their faces. A total disconnect from reality where there is no possible future where this policy is abused or used as precedent for something worse by anyone, let alone their opponents.

In a way, I don't blame them because they've lived their entire lives in a place where the other party or the as-yet-unknown ideology in some near or far off future will never, ever, take hold so what's the big deal, man? To them, the Illinois Democrat Party wouldn't dare enact any laws they would not later revoke, rescind, refuse to enforce, or refuse to reference as precedent. I mean, come on! Get with the program, bub! This place ain't corrupt! The government here has never once abused its power! Not here in Illinois, no sir! All for the greater good, ya silly goose! I mean, sure, the Illinois Democrat Party has, for the vast majority of lifelong Illinoisan's lives, effectively run this place as a single-party state that would make the Young Turks blush in awe at its efficiency in assuming state power and control, but The Party of which they are a part can do no wrong so there is nothing and no one to worry about! Why not just go for this tiny little "carve-out" of the Health Care Right of Conscience Act that allows those in charge to bar you from any and all future conscientious refusals of what The Party tells you to do regarding your own health care, man?

Just trust Robyn. Trust Bob. Trust Chris and trust Melinda and trust Don. Just trust them.

Trust JB Pritzker. He’s not running the state of Illinois in some sort of sad excuse for a cliché mid-life crisis vanity project that ultra-wealthy heirs to fortunes beyond comprehension dabble in from time-to-time when they're bored and/or eager to prove themselves against their more accomplished siblings around the Thanksgiving dinner table. Don't be silly. That's not JB. JB's one of you. He cares. Sure, he's a super-billionaire from one of the wealthiest families in the history of the United States but he's down with the struggle against the man, man. JB's just a real good guy who wouldn't dare say one thing and then do another. JB Pritzker just wants to do what's best for you and your loved one's health and he and his friends need the legislative power to take any and all measures whether you like it or not and he and his friends need the legal protections from any repercussions about their poor decision making and leadership. It's for the greater good. I don't know about you but I know I feel comforted knowing JB Pritzker or whomever comes after him will be making the health care decisions for me and my family because, if anyone knows what's best for a healthy mind and healthy body, it's the man who has neither worked nor worked out a single day in his life. It's the man who has never once had to worry about a single utility bill or a forgotten coupon at the grocery store, who has never once had to scramble to find a babysitter to cover yet another workday with the rent due tomorrow, and who has never once had to worry about his property tax obligations on the 6-10 private ultra-residences his family owns let alone struggle to make a single mortgage payment work during a global supply chain crisis that he himself is a direct part of the cause. I mean, come on man, JB has a pair of $750,000 boats named Don Don and Theodora that cruise Lake Geneva when he needs to escape his own mask mandates, you should be totally fine with him and everyone he knows being able to stop you and your family from earning even one-tenth of one of those boats for your annual salary.

Come on, man!

Here's where I might surprise you.

I am vaccinated. I think you should get vaccinated. Especially if you're in a high-risk category, I think you should get vaccinated.

I was hesitant at first but I am of the opinion that there are enough shots in arms and evidence presented to now know that you are unlikely to experience significant side-effects and the benefits of the vaccine outweighs the risk, however minimal, from the virus itself especially for those in high-risk categories.

I'll further surprise you and say that if the vaccine, along with other treatments we've learned over time, helps continue to bring numbers down and ease the hysterical burdens heaped upon us over the last 20 months, and if it helps to build the confidence of that hysterical collective that continues to hold us back and helps get us back to whatever our memory of normal was, more quickly, while I don't think it's a necessity I also don't think it's a bad idea to encourage people to take the vaccine. And yes, that includes public officials encouraging people to take the vaccine.

But encouragement and outreach and various programs are far, far different than law. It's in a galaxy far, far away. And I wouldn't dare demand that you or your family must be vaccinated if you don't feel comfortable doing so because I'm an adult.

We are not in a flu pandemic every year because we, as a society, have decided it's something we must live with. "We" decided that we can not stop the world for every case, every transmission, every incident of that coronavirus and "we" must now definitively say the same is now true of this coronavirus.

Listen, every lifelong Illinoisan has spent a lifetime watching their lawmakers take and take and take from them. And take and take and take some more.

For your public officials to literally shut down your job, restrict you from your livelihood and your own pursuit of happiness, declare some jobs to be essential while others were told to abide and wait for further instructions, and now seek to remove the last vestiges of your moral and/or religious compass to not do something they don't even understand what it is they're telling you to do is a profoundly immoral act.

Robyn Gabel and Bob Morgan did that. Chris Welch and Melinda Bush and Don Harmon did that. Governor JB Pritzker did that.

To state again, through no fault of your own your lawmakers cut you off and shut down your ability to earn a living, pushed all of our jobs to the brink or broke, and now they are demanding you not only shut up and take what they tell you in order to return to your former life but also seek to indemnify themselves and their friends from those demands.

Robyn Gabel and Melinda Bush are not your mommies. Bob Morgan and Chris Welch and Don Harmon and JB Pritzker are not your daddies. The state is not your parent.

The only way they can continue to treat you this way is if you let them.

No law will end this pandemic. The mere suggestion that it will and to enact law as a condition to end it is borderline reprehensible. I'd call them all fully reprehensible if I believed they even understood half of what they're doing but I don't so I'm being merciful.

You should have a moral and religious choice to determine your own health care. Period. You do. It's. Your. Right.

That used to be a principle for the Illinois Democrat Party. At least, at election time. Now they've thrown even that away and I hope someone calls them out on that hypocrisy come election time.

Sooner or later, the Illinois voter is going to have to begin to consider that the problem is staring back at them in the mirror and they have an obligation to fix it. The voters in Illinois' 18th and 58th Districts should be the start and they should act accordingly. They should vote to remove Robyn Gabel and Bob Morgan from their elected positions.

Or don't. It's your choice.

But they want your conscience.

Let me know when they give it back.

I won't hold my breath.

Notes & References