Forget Labels, Not Liberty

To the Editor:

Mr. Mikus (in his letter last week) assumes I am part of the Religious Right because I love Jesus and liberty. Should I assume that his animosity towards corporations makes him Antifa? Let’s not put labels on people, they’re plenty busy applying them to themselves.

I want to thank him for the history lesson, I was unaware of the Fayetteville schools consolidating and am grateful that you shared it. We certainly were more European back then, people have a tendency to gravitate towards those who share a common heritage, faith and language but in time, we learned the language and assimilated to American culture. We left the farms and went to the cities, we became more American and less segregated.

As for Europe, our ancestors left for a reason, whether for opportunity, because of persecution or due to taxation without representation. My grandfather had to parachute into France to defend American freedom and liberty from European tyranny. His wife, my grandmother, was a Jew of Hungarian descent so I get a little concerned when I hear someone categorizing people because of their beliefs. History doesn’t always repeat itself but it often rhymes.

I completely agree with him that corporations shouldn’t be polluting the air we breathe and water we drink but I take it one step further and believe that they shouldn’t be poisoning our bodies either. Vaccine makers, who are also corporations, have zero liability if their products don’t work as advertised, cause harm to or kill its users. This is not the case with those that pollute the air and water and pay billions when they are found to be at fault. As a lawyer, I would think that he would find the lack of liability given to vaccine makers appalling and maybe even criminal.

These vaccines are still in clinical trials, have not been FDA approved but “authorized for emergency use” and have even been stopped from being used. Once vaccinated, we are still advised to wear a mask and practice social distancing because we can still contract and spread the virus without showing symptoms. Forgive me for my hesitancy in being part of an experiment to stop a virus that I have greater than a 99% chance of survival and will gain natural immunity if I do happen to get it. No one knows what the long-term effects will be for those who chose to be injected with experimental vaccines, only time will tell.

America was created on the idea that the rights and liberties of the individual are greater than the desires and fears of the collective. Liberty allows the individual to choose their own path, tyranny forces you to follow someone else’s. May we never relinquish our liberty to tyranny, our faith to fear and our country to that which our ancestors escaped.

Chad Zimmermann Cozy Corner by way of Schulenburg