Contrary to popular belief, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution did not end slavery: it nationalized the practice. Only the state can now own people. This can be seen in all kinds of governmental practices. From the power to tax a person’s earnings, to the compulsory schooling of children, to military or jury duty conscription, to what you may/may not put into your body, to whether you may commit suicide, and numerous other political controls over what you mistakenly consider to be “your” person, the state insists upon the same control over you that a cattle rancher has over his livestock, and for the same reasons. Lest you think that government officials have any doubts about this, consider the dissenting opinion of Justice Harlan, in the 1905 U.S. Supreme Court case Lochner v. New York, a case that struck down a state statute limiting the number of hours employees could work in a bakery. Work for more than the maximum hours allowed by the statute could, Harlan stated, “endanger the health and shorten the lives of the workmen, thereby diminishing their physical and mental capacity to serve the state and to provide for those dependent upon them” (emphasis added).

This same logic is now driving efforts, in various states, to compel parents to vaccinate their children, a purpose designed not to protect children, but “to serve” the profit ambitions of the corporate-state’s Big-Pharma subsidiaries. Randolph Bourne’s phrase “war is the health of the state” is now transformed into health being part of the battleground for the state’s endless war against us all.

The Best of Butler Shaffer