Locke CEO, CJ publisher Cooke officially opposes Biden vaccine mandate | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the Carolina Journal. The author of this post is CJ Staff.



    John Locke Foundation CEO Amy Cooke says "we won't comply" with President Biden's plan to force private employers to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for workers.

    Cooke is publisher of Carolina Journal.

    "That one man - Joe Biden - wants to force free Americans to inject something into their bodies should be abhorrent to everyone," Cooke said in a prepared statement. "That some think it's acceptable shows how much our foundational freedoms have eroded. To my profound disappointment, authoritarianism has become mainstream.

    "Medical decisions are personal and private. Period," Cooke added. "President Biden's political party often cites Roe v. Wade as their own rationale for such medical freedom, yet in an alarming turn of events, he has turned full-throated authoritarian, announcing he will wield the power of federal labor officials to force private businesses to function as medical doctors for every employee. In short, Joe Biden believes he - not individuals in consultation with a doctor - knows what's best for every one of us.

    "In the United States, communal panic does not trump individual freedom. We learned that lesson during World War II, when President Franklin Roosevelt's executive action interned more than 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry, stripping them of rights and freedom.

    "We will not cower in fear, and we will not comply. Every American has the right to do what is best for themselves and their family, free of government coercion. We urge every American who values freedom, every business owner who is appalled by this massive government overreach, to do the same. We proudly lock arms with every governor, every attorney general, every business owner, every civil servant, every American who defies it.

    "This is our line in the sand," Cooke's statement concluded.

    Biden announced Thursday his plan to mandate that employers with more than 100 workers "require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans," the Associated Press reported. The president would require 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid funding to be fully vaccinated.

    "Biden is also requiring vaccination for employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government - with no option to test out," the AP reported. That provision covers several million more workers.