Though referring to itself in various terms, what we know today as the Health Freedom Movement has its roots in at least the 1970s. It represents a libertarian coalition working to restrict government regulations of health practices while advancing access to “non-traditional” health care.
Among its victories, the Movement pressured the government to exempt vitamins and food supplements from requiring rigid standards of evidence of safety and efficacy applied to most other over the counter and prescription medications.
The federal Food and Drug Administration granted this exemption even though significant segments of the medical community have shown that these supplements may not discernibly improve health and longevity, and that extremely large doses of certain vitamins can cause harm.
The Movement also succeeded in lobbying health insurance companies to cover such treatments as chiropractic medicine, acupuncture, and other forms of non-Western treatments.
As stated as part of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, the FDA can take action only if the manufacturers of these products make unfounded and unreasonable claims of their products or if consumers become seriously ill.
The US Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry in 1998 is also known as the Patient’s Bill of Rights, which enumerates our rights and responsibilities within the healthcare system.
Under the overarching umbrella of the Health Freedom Movement is the demand that women have the right to control their own bodies without governmental restraint.
In addition, stemming from large scale social activism in the early years of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, we fought for and ultimately won the streamlining of clinical trials and “compassionate use” for those unable to join to trials of promising drug therapies that prevented or slowed the progression of opportunistic blinding conditions, rare cancers, and rare pneumonias.
We recently witnessed past successes of the Movement in the speedy and more humane emergency approval process for various treatment therapies and vaccines to tackle the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Movement has also been instrumental in the passage in some states of Death With Dignity statutes that give people to right to end their lives when medical officials determine their chances of living beyond approximately six months is slim.
The philosophy of the Health Freedom Movement is based on the simple notion that the individual has the right to control their own bodies, and that government regulation must not play a factor.
Unfortunately, however, interlopers have fraudulently jumped onto the Health Freedom Movement thereby perverting its message.
Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.
— from “Me and Bobby McGee” by Kris Kristofferson
It appears obvious that the thousands of people demonstrating in an increasing number of state capitals and other places across the country against their governors and mayors’ “stay-at-home” mandates never got Kristofferson’s memo.
From Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia to California, conservative coalitions are out in force pressuring local and state governments to rescind mandates to shelter in place and allow businesses to reopen immediately. The coalition includes groups of conservative veterans and a network of right-wing and corporate financiers bent on reducing taxes and regulations on industry.
Protestors garnered support and encouragement by the previous White House’s Anti-Science-In-Chief himself, Donald J. Trump in a series of Tweets:
“LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” Trump tweeted. “LIBERATE MINNESOTA,” he continued. “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”
During a press Coronavirus briefing, Trump defended his tweets by asserting they were in response to the “tough” state guidelines. He continued that the protesters demonstrating against the governors, “seem to be very responsible people to me.”
“Responsible”? Really?
Unmasking “Rugged Individualism”
Picture this: Two people, a middle-aged man and woman are walking from a Trump rally last year. They are carrying together a large hard-board sign with clearly distinguishable professional lettering declaring:
“I WILL NOT TRADE MY ‘FREEDOM’ FOR YOUR SAFETY!”
Above the wording on the sign, they placed two stickers, the American flag and the so-called Gadsden flag named after general and politician Christopher Gadsden (1724-1805): the famous American Revolutionary motto flag “Don’t Tread On Me” below a coiled timber rattlesnake ready to strike.
The man holding the sign on the right side is dressed as a Sheriff Arpaio want-to-be, the notorious over-the-top officer accused of racial profiling and abusive treatment of residents in his Arizona town. He wears a black wide brimmed hat, black shirt, blue jeans, boots, and around his waist a thick leather belt attaching a holster and pistol.
The woman on the left sports a red, white, and blue with white stars “President Trump” baseball cap, Trump T-shirt with a decal of her fearless leader speaking in front of a large rally crowd with a giant U.S. flag, blue jeans, and jogging shoes. In her left hand and hanging over her left shoulder, she totes a wooden pole holding a large U.S. flag.
Researchers have charted cultures as falling along a continuum with several variables, including Individualism versus Collectivism: the degree of support for and emphasis on individual goals versus common or collective goals. Most of these same researchers place the U.S. and many other Western nations on the “Individual” side of the continuum
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. — Ayn Rand, Appendix to Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand, who has become the intellectual center for the economic/political/social philosophy of Libertarianism, constructs a bifurcated world of one-dimensional characters in her novels.
On one side, she presents the noble, rational, intelligent, creative, inventive, self-reliant heroes of industry, of music and the arts, of science, of commerce and banking who wage a noble battle for dignity, integrity, personal and economic freedom for the profits of their labors within an unregulated “free market” Capitalist system.
On the other side, she portrays the “looters” represented by the followers, the led, the irrational, the unintelligent, the misguided, the misinformed, the corrupt government bureaucrats who regulate and manipulate the economy to justify nationalizing the means of economic production, who confiscate personal property, who deliver welfare to the unentitled, the lazy, who thereby destroy personal incentive and motivation resulting in dependency.
The “Social Contract”
The theory of a “Social Contract” developed as far back as ancient Greece. Though iterated, reiterated, and reformed by numerous philosophers and public figures, the foundations of this social contract stand on the premise that people live together in community with the agreement that establishes moral, ethical, and overarching political rules of behavior between individuals, groups, and their government in the formation of a civil society.
A violation by any of the signatories – individuals, groups, governments – jeopardizes the very stability of that progress toward a fully civil society.
We witness politically conservative figures either refusing to sign this contract, or for those who may have previously etched their names, reneging on the terms and stipulations.
If these conservative politicians and protesters don’t care about or trust politicians who are taking decisive counter measure to inhibit the spread of the virus, if they don’t care about their own health and that of their loved ones and neighbors, they should at least care about and trust the frontline workers – police officers, firefighters, members of the National Guard, medical professionals, caretakers, essential service workers who are risking their lives to save ours, and yes, to save the lives of the protesters in this war against an invisible enemy.
The Health Freedom Movement covers (pun intended) the rights of the individual to control their own bodies. It does not give license to maskless marauders breathing deadly viruses that infect so many others. It also does not give license to the anti-vaxxers who refuse to vaccinate themselves, thereby slowing the level of herd immunity and, therefore, slowing our control over the virus.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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