FPI / April 1, 2021
Jeffrey T. Kuhner
Liberal elites are slowly pushing America toward totalitarianism. And Covid-19 “vaccine passports” represent a giant step in that dark direction.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week unveiled a new “vaccine passport” program, making New York the first state to introduce it in America. In Europe, the vaccine passport system is already being developed and implemented. Cuomo and the radical Democrats want it established here as well.
The vaccine passport, known as the Excelsior Pass, will be used at large-scale events and entertainment venues—including Madison Square Garden and Barclays Center. Cuomo also says the Excelsior Pass will be expanded and used by numerous other businesses and venues in the coming weeks.
As USA Today reported, the vaccine passport is similar to an airline boarding ticket—without it you will not be allowed to enter any venue or business establishment. People will need to download the Excelsior Pass app, enter their name, date of birth, zip code and other vital personal information. Then once an individual has been vaccinated, a digital QR code—a “quick response” machine-readable label—will pop up on one’s iPhone or cellphone, the data coming from the state’s vaccine registry, thereby proving one’s vaccinated status. One can also download proof of a recent Covid negative test from several pre-approved testing companies. But these tests have a limited expiration time and need to be updated constantly (at $150 per test). Without this vaccine passport, an individual cannot attend a game, concert or other large-scale event at either Madison Square Garden or Barclays Center.
Yet, this is just the beginning. Cuomo has made clear he intends to massively expand the program to affect almost every aspect of life. Boarding a plane, taking Amtrak, renewing one’s driver’s license, going back to school or university, being allowed to return to the workforce, shopping at the mall or most other businesses and establishments, going to restaurants, bars, cafes, gyms and movie theaters — all of this will soon require a vaccine passport.
The only exceptions (so far) will be going to the grocery store or filling up your tank at the gas station. Otherwise, without a vaccine passport an individual will be rendered a third-class citizen. He or she will be unable to fully participate in society, being stripped of many of their fundamental rights.
This is the greatest assault on mass civil liberties in U.S. history. Vaccine passports will inevitably divide society along two lines: a privileged (vaccinated) class and a semi-permanent (unvaccinated) underclass.
Unvaccinated Americans will increasingly be treated like the Jews in early Nazi Germany — social pariahs, who are slowly marginalized in a radical, authoritarian society. All that’s missing is the armbands with the Star of David, or in this case, armbands marked with “UV” (unvaccinated) on them. The whole concept is politically twisted and morally grotesque.
Hence, it’s no wonder the Biden administration wants to impose a national vaccine passport system modeled upon the European Union. The Washington Post reported on Sunday that five senior administration officials admitted Team Biden wants to develop and implement a vaccine passport system for the entire country. According to these officials, Biden has ordered multiple government agencies to coordinate and formulate a plan to be used later this year. In fact, he wants to make a vaccine passport contingent for millions of Americans to come back to work.
Like Cuomo, Team Biden vows that the only way to return to a “new normal” is for everyone to be forced to take the jab. The choice is stark: Inject your body with a foreign (and potentially dangerous) substance or forgo your ability to feed your family. This is medical fascism — and it must be stopped.
Covid-19 vaccines have already proven to be deadly or damaging in numerous cases. In Europe, 3,964 people have directly died from taking the vaccines, while another 162,610 have been injured. The vaccines used were the ones produced by Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca (there is not enough data yet on the Johnson and Johnson vaccine). In America, we have a more lax and less rigorous self-reporting system. Still, over 1,500 Americans have died—many of them perfectly healthy—from taking one of the vaccines. Hence, it is not unreasonable for people to be skeptical of the vaccine, and having no desire to take it.
Moreover, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told me in a brilliant interview that aired recently on The Kuhner Report (which you can listen to by going to www.wrko.com/kuhner and clicking on the podcast section), the entire vaccine roll-out is a form of “population experimentation.” As Kennedy rightly noted, the vaccines are not fully FDA approved; rather, they have been authorized for emergency use only.
In short, we are being pressured and stampeded into taking something that is untested and ultimately, unknown. We do not know the long-term health consequences or side effects of getting the vaccine. There may well be none. But that is irrelevant. Americans are being turned into guinea pigs, laboratory rats for an experimental vaccine in which Big Pharma is going to make tens of billions of dollars in profits. The medical establishment and powerful corporations have a huge vested financial interest in pushing the vaccine — and by extension, the vaccine passport. The state has no business, and certainly no moral right, coercing or forcing people to take a new, untested, unreliable vaccine against their will.
I am not anti-vaccine. On the contrary, I am pro-freedom. If you want to take a Covid vaccine, then that is your right. Vaccine passports, however, strike at the heart of a free society. It treats citizens as if they are children — and ultimately, slaves — at the mercy of Big Brother. It is about imposing social control and centralizing power by a ruling class that destroys the very pillars of a self-governing republic: free will, individual liberty and personal responsibility.
If I do not want to take the vaccine — and I won’t, no matter how much political and social pressure is brought to bear — then that is my God-given right as well.
My body, my choice.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at WorldTribune.com and the host of “The Kuhner Report” weekdays 6-10 a.m. EST on WRKO AM-680 in Boston.
Free Press International