Who's Looking Out For You?

I'm really starting to dislike talking to those who purport to serve us in government.

The other day, as part of a group of people independently emailing our "leaders," I sent the following email:

Attorney General, Sean D. Reyes,

As you know, the Office of the Attorney General is responsible for protecting consumer rights for all people in the state of Utah. It is your duty to use the powers and authority that the citizens of Utah have delegated to you to discover and abolish all unconstitutional and discriminatory practices of privately and publicly owned establishments within our state. For example, it is illegal under federal and state law to:

• Discriminate against an employee in employment decisions such as hiring, firing, promoting, demoting, training, or assigning an individual based on his or her medical condition
• Discriminate against an individual regarding his or her ability to access recreational facilities, parks, commercial establishments, or educational institutions, based on his or her medical condition
• Discriminate against an individual regarding freedom of association, engaging in transactions, socializing, etc., based on his or her medical condition.

You’ve likely heard the news reports that those occupying the highest office in the land are looking at implementing “health passports” or similar “social credit” systems that will require citizens to meet criteria such as receiving the COVID mRNA injection if they wish to participate in society and enjoy their Constitutional rights. Those rights are guaranteed, not conditioned upon compliance with this government’s latest whims, and it’s the job of people who hold key offices like yours to defend our freedom from these tyrannies.

There are many Utahns who cannot receive this injection because of deeply-held religious beliefs, personal beliefs, and/or health reasons, and therefore they will be limited in working, shopping, education, socializing and in general excluded from enjoying their natural rights. Article I, section 1 of the Utah Constitution makes clear: “All persons have the inherent and inalienable right to enjoy and defend their lives and liberties; to acquire, possess and protect property; to worship according to the dictates of their consciences; to assemble peaceably, protest against wrongs, and petition for redress of grievances; to communicate freely their thoughts and opinions, being responsible for the abuse of that right.” There is no fine print that says, “unless they choose to forego an mRNA injection.”

Those entrusted with protecting our rights in the state of Utah must ensure that all business conducted within the state’s jurisdiction will never impose unconstitutional restrictions such as those being proposed by the federal government.

This is not a request; you are under sworn obligation to enforce our state and federal laws against discrimination due to medical conditions. The constitution of the United States is not to be suspended because monopolies and huge corporations seek to force American citizens to forfeit their personal rights over their medical choices, conditions and needs. It is imperative that you communicate to all businesses operating within the state of Utah that such discriminatory actions will not be permitted, and that they will face severe legal consequences for discriminatory behavior.

I, and thousands of other Utah voters, await your response on this matter.

Michael D. Britton

Resident of the State of Utah
(CC: all state legislators)

I got a response from one of the legislators, Curt Bramble. He's a Republican state senator from Provo who's been in office for twenty years. He simply said:

Please let me know the source of this form letter
Thanks

So, I responded:

Hello!

I'm a member of a group of concerned citizens in North Davis County who are working to address some of the dire circumstances we're finding ourselves in here in Utah. The group provided a draft of the letter from another group called TS+Utah. I took that letter and significantly re-wrote it for my own use. I shared my version back to my group, and some of them may have used that in their own emails (I don't know if they did). The group coordinated to send the message yesterday; I sent mine later than the rest. They told me that the TS group composed their version of the letter after hearing the White House Press Secretary discussing vaccine mandates in a March 29 press briefing. This is the transcript that caused concern:

"QUESTION: And then finally, on the vaccine, Andy Slavitt talked about the idea of a “vaccine passport” in the COVID briefing this morning. He said it’s primarily going to be spearheaded by the private sector. But what’s the President’s position on whether, once the vaccine is more readily available, businesses should be able to tell employees who don’t want to get the vaccine for whatever reason that they can’t come back into the workplace, or that airlines could reject people from getting on the plane if they have decided not to get a vaccine?

MS. PSAKI: Well, we’re going to provide guidance, just as we have, through the CDC. There’s currently an interagency process that is looking at many of the questions around vaccine verification. And that issue will touch many agencies as verification is an issue that will potentially touch many sectors of society, as you have certainly alluded to. That’s guidance we’ll provide. We expect — as Andy Slavitt, I think, alluded to — that a determination or development of a vaccine passport, or whatever you want to call it, will be driven by the private sector. Ours will more be focused on guidelines that can be used as a basis. And there are a couple key principles that we are working from. One is that there will be no centralized, universal federal vaccinations database and no federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential. Second, we want to encourage an open marketplace with a variety of private sector companies and nonprofit coalitions developing solutions. And third, we want to drive the market toward meeting public interest goals. So we’ll leverage our resources to ensure that all vaccination credential systems meet key standards, whether that’s universal accessibility, affordability, availability — both digitally and on paper. But those are our standards. It’s currently going through an interagency process. We’ll make some recommendations, and then we believe it will be driven by the private sector.

QUESTION: And when do you anticipate those guidelines will come out?

MS. PSAKI: I don’t have a timeline to provide you at this point, but it’s obviously something we’re working through. And we want to provide that clarity to the public."

We want to make sure our rights in Utah are not in any way abrogated by these plans to co-opt private businesses in what is clearly an illegal/unconstitutional action by the federal government.

Thanks for your response.

And Curt replied:

Michael
I agree that we should not have a vaccination mandate nor should we use COVID to institute a requirement for “travel papers”. However, when I receive a number of very similar email messages it raises the question of who is behind these messages. This does not mean I disagree, but context and agenda of various groups helps inform the recipient of the message.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Curt

Agreement! Thinking that maybe I might make some headway here, I wrote back. Now, I'm not one to let someone say, "Yes, I agree...yes, I care...yes, you're right...yes, something should be done, and I'm in a position to do something, but I'm going to just blow hot air around." So I asked him what he's going to do about it:

I totally understand. Thank you. Given your agreement with the thrust of the message that's being shared by quite a few concerned people, what is your next step for helping make sure your rights and mine are protected? I'm worried that there's a lot of hand-wringing among our representatives, but not much in terms of strong, unequivocal, decisive action. That's not targeted at you; please don't take it the wrong way. It's just that this last legislative session was very disappointing for so many citizens. Thanks again for responding...that's huge.

Then he let loose with a pretty passive-aggressive rant:

Michael

All of the “hand wringing” you refer to appears to be universal, even among “conservatives” and “constitutionalists”. That’s not targeted at you, please don’t take it the wrong way. It’s just that many in your camp are demanding that the legislature fix what is being broken at that federal level. Utah does not have a vaccination mandate, nor will we adopt one. But it’s highly likely that we will not MANDATE policies for businesses, either. For example, should an employer be forced to employ individuals that refuse to wear masks? Or refuse to be vaccinated? Or refuse to comply with other “place of employment” standards or requirements? Should the employer be forced to pay unemployment benefits for an individual that refused to be vaccinated or wear a mask? These are likely inflammatory questions that many in your camp balk at while DEMANDING that their own freedoms be protected while DEMANDING that the freedom of others be infringed by government. Both employers and employees have rights, customers have rights, as d the businesses they patronize. It’s a question of whose rights are defended and whose rights are being trampled.

Your group DEMANDS individual freedom – no one should be required to wear a mask or be vaccinated and that the individual’s decision should not be a factor in how others make their individual decisions for their businesses of whether to allow admittance to the business, sell a seat on a plane, etc. It seems to me that the demand for freedom MUST be balanced between competing rights – employer/employee, business/customer, etc. It’s just that many that demand freedom ignore the concept that other also have freedoms that are being ignored and that’s very disappointing for many citizens. Exercising your right of choice means that you incur the consequences of that choice.

I wrote him right back:

You sound upset. Using lots of ALL CAPS and "scare quotes" just kind of comes off as hostile and combative, when I'm just trying to have a conversation with someone who's sworn to abide by the Constitution and serve the people. I really didn't mean to trigger you into a defensive position. It seems we should be working together, here.

You make it sound like the issue of "whose rights trump whose rights" is so complex and impossible to balance, but the law (Title 29 protections, for example) makes it very clear. So, I'll ask again: What is your plan to address the violations of the law below (citation for the law), as pertaining to the current conditions? This isn't that hard. It just takes the will and courage to do what's right.

• It is unlawful to discriminate against an employee in employment decisions such as hiring, firing, promoting, demoting, training, or assigning an individual based on his or her medical condition
• It is unlawful to discriminate against an individual regarding his or her ability to access recreational facilities, parks, commercial establishments, or educational institutions, based on his or her medical condition
• It is unlawful to discriminate against an individual regarding freedom of association, engaging in transactions, socializing, etc., based on his or her medical condition.

His entire response?

Lighten up - caps ate also used for emphasis.

That's a direct quote, and it's his whole response. It was also his last response.

As you can imagine, I'm unimpressed. And it doesn't explain his "scare quotes" or answer my direct question. He doesn't seem equipped to engage in a reasonable discussion.

So, I'm done with him.

I mean, what part of the proper role of government does this guy not understand? People are not permitted to just abrogate other peoples' natural rights simply because they don't like them having those rights. That's the whole point of government: to protect us against that.

It's the bare minimum we expect from government, and quite frankly, all I want from government.

I didn't know anything about this particular "public servant" prior to this exchange, but I'll just add him to the "needs replacing" list (which is sadly very long). He's made it clear we're on our own.

A final thought on this exchange:

Bramble used the loaded language of the COVID-cult: "refuse" to wear a mask, "refuse" to vaccinate. As pointed out in the meme above, "refuse" is their way of painting us as intransigent, selfish, unreasonable people.

The truth is, we object to being experimented upon. We're non-participants. We're free citizens exercising our natural rights to not comply. There are many better ways to say it..."refusal" is loaded, and a dead giveaway of his position as one of the COVID-cultists. Words matter, and I'm always examining their impact.

So, I guess I'll "lighten up" when he starts doing his job. His whole attitude was very "YOU people!"...how dare I ask him a legit question. Or be concerned at all. We serfs should shut up and do as we're told, and let the two-decade "leaders" do all the thinking.

Who, I ask, is looking out for us?

It's clearly got to be us.

[UPDATE:] Later, I heard back from one of the other legislators, Gay Lynn Bennion, a first-term Democrat who serves the Cottonwood and ski resorts area. She said:

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your email. I appreciate hearing your concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine.

There is no requirement for individuals to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. It is up to each Utahn to decide if they would like to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. During the 2021 Legislative Session, H.B. 308 COVID-19 Vaccine Amendments was passed which prohibits a governmental entity from requiring the COVID-19 vaccine under certain circumstances. If you have questions regarding federal vaccine policy, I encourage you to contact the Utah Congressional Delegation.

Best regards,
Rep. Bennion

This was a much more professional and decent response. Maybe I was going to get somewhere after all! So, I wrote back:

Hi Rep. Bennion,

Thank you so much for your response to my email. I was aware of, and appreciate that the State of Utah will not be mandating vaccines. That's a win. But my concern is with regard to businesses requiring proof of vaccination for employment or for access. As noted in my original email, medical discrimination by businesses is a violation of state and federal law, and it's the job of state government to ensure our rights are not violated — not only by government, but by private entities. The law is clear, so I'm just wondering if you can please let me know what your plan is to make sure our rights are protected under the law. Does that make sense?

Thanks again,
Michael

Aaaaaaaaand that was the last I ever heard. I'll ask once again: Who is looking out for you?