State Representative Taffy Howard is in the news this weekend chirping up that we need a statewide mandate on private businesses.
From KOTA News:
State Representative Taffy Howard announced her plans to introduce legislation that would limit private businesses from making vaccination mandatory for employees.
And..
She’s called on Johnson to bring forth legislation at the national level to ban certain private businesses from instituting their own vaccine mandates for employees.
So, if I have a business installing and delivering oxygen tanks or providing respiratory therapists in homes for people who have trouble breathing, Taffy opposes having the employees going into the homes of sick and old people being vaccinated against COVID or other diseases?
So, the first issue out of the gate in the Congressional campaign is the challenger being on an anti-vaxxer kick. Nevermind she’s openly using her office as a soapbox for her congressional race.
I don’t particularly want a government so intrusive that they can tell me who I can hire and who I can fire. But Taffy is going to legislate this?
It’s going to be one of those campaigns, isn’t it?
Will noem support this or fall in line with Sanford again?
This is dumb and big government, so Kristi will probably be against this mandate.
The legislature should just clarify that it is a person’s right to determine what goes into her/his body.
It’s really about patient choice (and always has been). If someone requiring healthcare is informed that it is possible to get sick after going to the hospital (and always has been), they go anyway, and get sick, we don’t blame front-line workers. We don’t blame anybody. Getting sick is party of the human condition. Blame the universe.
Don’t reward the snake-oil salesmen and saleswomen.
It shall be be a class 1 felony to force a person to take something into their body without informed consent.
One could add language about conditions of employment or access to school, but doesn’t have to do this.
Murder is murder.
Damage is damage.
Corporations do not have the right to stab ANYBODY, especially as a condition of employment!
GROSS.
Pat,
Your boy was fundraising with BOHNER. Nothing on that?
Actually it’s John BOEHNER.
Not much to tell, as I was out of state.
I did hear through the grapevine that it was a crazy good fundraiser. Was told Gov was there, and she and Boehner were razzing each other, and it was a hoot.
Whoever wants the bill passed must not be serious because if they were they wouldn’t get Taffy Howard, they’d get someone who knows how to pass legislation. When your colleagues equate you with fingernails on a chalkboard, you’re not going to get much done.
You mean they would want someone feckless who doesn’t stand up for principles even when they’re not popular?
Let’s presume this is the right, but unpopular thing to do.
If she doesn’t get support, she’ll be accused of not getting anything done.
But I see this as leadership. Corporate America more and more resembles a government in its scope and power to influence human behavior.
The role of legislature is to limit government.
As such, limiting the power and reach of de facto government initiatives by corporate fiat seems reasonable.
It should be illegal for employers to abuse children, to assault people, to require indentured servitude, and a litany of other really terrible things.
This proposal by Ms. Howard, in my view, is well within the Overton Window.
That’s a long, drawn out, circular argument for bigger and more government.
There is nothing circular about my argument.
Corporations have usurped government responsibility.
Corporate policies are law, and it is not practicable or reasonable to “find another job or career” if a corporation exhibits unethical and fascistic behavior. We have many examples of this, including a vaccine mandate (even the flu vaccine, which has failed to eradicate flu, a negative ROI, a product failure).
I think the legislature should hobble corporate power capable of usurping government (elected) responsibility.
I’m not surprised that overreaching corporations would have a problem with this.
When driving to work, corporate actors must obey stop signs. The horror!
Bosses may not rape employees. Communism! We must eradicate rape laws and employees being raped can find another job!
See the absurdity?
The argument that a corporation may force a vaccination is just as OFFENSIVE.
Our legislature should simply clarify that a person does not, under any circumstances, have to take a metal projectile into his or her body as a condition of employment.
We should arrest and prosecute administrators/employers mandating bullets or needles.
That’s it.
That’s the argument.
That is all.
“The role of legislature is to limit government.” Did you just make that up?
Not at all. I stand by my statement.
Corporations have usurped the function of government, except they are unelected.
That’s why we have a pandemic of fascism.
The argument can be made, then, that the legislature (extension of we the people) should move to limit the power of corporations behaving fascistically.
Which is a smaller set; what government can do or what government cannot do?
Seriously unhealthy idea!! Polio is gone nearly worldwide thank you to vaccines, smallpox is gone nearly worldwide thank you to vaccines, whooping cough is a minimal issue thanks to vaccines. We are grateful to receive annual vaccines for flu. Vaccines have saved millions of people worldwide. Only the foolish do not actively welcome vaccines. Businesses do not need Laughy Taffy telling them how to protect their employees.
Seriously unhealthy idea!! Polio is gone nearly worldwide thank you to vaccines, smallpox is gone nearly worldwide thank you to vaccines, whooping cough is a minimal issue thanks to vaccines. We are grateful to receive annual vaccines for flu. Vaccines have saved millions of people worldwide. Only the foolish do not actively welcome vaccines. Businesses do not need Laughy Taffy telling them how to protect their employees.
I think she should make this a central issue of her campaign. I have a friendly wager she will not get 15% of the primary vote (I couldn’t get a wager at 18%). This will guarantee me victory.
Interesting lack of respect for private property rights by Rep Howard. In a free market, now this is just for conservatives, I get the lefties don’t like this concept, employees that don’t like the job conditions the private entities require – are free to take their services to a different entity. Pretty easy to understand conservative principles on this one.
You pick and choose too, Lee.
“Rep. Howard’s legislation will differentiate between truly private businesses, which should not be regulated, and businesses which accept government funding or special legal protection.” Is it a free market when a private business accepts money from the govt? Are you truly free to say what you want when your number one campaign donor is Sanford?
“I applaud the people who decide to get the vaccines, and I respect those people, many of whom fully accept vaccines, who choose not to get an experimental treatment before it’s fully tested and approved,” said Howard…. anti-vaxxer? That doesn’t sound much like an “anti-vaxxer” to me, but I get it, that quote is not found in the linked article.
“Is it a free market when a private business accepts money from the govt”
Yes.
The government can be a customer of a product or a service.
In fact, this is more free market than when the government makes the product or provides the service itself.
Politicians with no medical expertise are objecting to mandatory vaccinations with the result that people who are afraid to be vaccinated believe that their fears are valid.
Worse is when a politician justifies his or her objection to such mandates with horror-anecdotes about rare adverse reactions.
The only legitimate political objection to vaccination is the freedom to choose. That is where they all need to stop talking.
South Dakota is an “employment at will” state with few exceptions. We should keep it that way.
Howard’s measure to prohibit a mandate for any vaccines will not go over well with the large health care systems in the state, and if it is restricted to vaccines which have not received FDA approval it will be out of date before it ever gets out of committee. If she doesn’t know that she’s not fit to be in office, if she does know that, she’s just grandstanding.
Not a good look either way.
There is a block of wood out there getting whittled away…..
Laughy Taffy wanting government to control your business! Isn’t that a communism tenant?
Laughy Taffy wanting government to control your business! Isn’t that a communism tenant?
I was at a business that had a sign that said employees must wash thier hands. So Taffy would like it so the employees shouldn’t have to wash their hands? The other sign asked customers to not pee on the floor. What would Taffy do?
I don’t think the government or a business should be making Healthcare decisions for citizens or employees
I don’t think the government should be making hiring decisions for a business. Why do you want so much government?
Government already does that. Go try and hire a couple illegal immigrants
Didn’t Ms. Howard refuse to wear a mask during the legislatures because she wanted to show her pretty face, and then she was coughing and hacking in a meeting and turns out…she had the covid bugs and had to apologize?
Yep. Ms. Howard, you need to learn what conservative principles mean when it comes to private property rights. Mr. Dusty is going to really mop on you with this one.
This!
Wow I see Dusty has the sexist vote wrapped up. Maybe she should take her pretty face and go back to the kitchen where she belongs?
See above .. a person should not have to get shot (and hopefully survive) as a condition of employment.
Conceptually, morally, the forced shots as condition of employment violate existing laws.
We are a nation of laws.
LAW AND ORDER.
“Let multinational corporations do whatever they want” is not the conservative position.
Take a moment to prove to me there is a Covid bug.
Or a Delta variant.
Or a Lambda variant.
In the process, perhaps you could find the flu.
I’ll wait.
RushmoreRep, you highlight an important point. Conservatives recognize that the business is entitled to make decisions about its business and employees can choose to take their labor elsewhere if they don’t like the job qualifications.
Liberals wouldn’t allow owners the right to their free ownership and management. Liberals would call a term of employment, employment that can freely be refused, “making health care decisions” for that employee (which, of course, wouldn’t be true)
You should read Atlas Shrugged. Great novel that will seriously impact your thinking about freedom
The unvaccinated are killing us! Once the childish, “you can’t tell me what to do” folks get over their selfcenteredness and get vaccinated, we’ll put this COVID pandemic to rest and quit killing the public. Government needs to stay out of business way when it comes to saving lives.
How on earth are the unvaxxed & unmasked killing the vaxxed and masked? And let me guess, you even think they are killing others more than dying themselves?
You all need to stop treating the Govt like your parents and your Savior and start living for yourself. The Govt and their lackeys will never be effective, efficient, under budget, or ever do a better job of protecting yourself from yourself than you ever will. Stop begging them to rule over you and your fellow citizens.
So we should legalize murder?
I won’t sign your petition.
More than 64,000 South Dakota businesses used the PPP program through the Small Business Administration last year. The first thing Taffy wants to do is make more government rules punishing them for using every available option to keep their businesses open and employees paid?
Employers should have the flexibility to manage their business and employees as they deem optimal to the interests of the business, employees, customers, vendors and other stakeholders.
That means one size doesn’t fit all. This is a horrible idea.
This is a rather asinine take.
So, Dominos Pizza can have their drivers ignore stop signs to get pizza delivered faster?
Real Estate firms can have their handymen steal fixtures from nice houses and transfer them to their listings?
😀
Nice.
Bye bye civil society.
The Ancient Greeks solved this a long time ago, but I think it’s noble you’re revisiting it.
You folks have some homework to do!
If those are the analogies you want to use, who am I to argue?
But a libertarian who thinks more freedom comes from government interference of business? Speechless.
I am NOT a libertarian.
I got into this with my last interview with Tara.
Libertarianism is not practicable or compatible with civil society.
It’s pretty short shrift, but still cogent, valid, and sound to say that “freedom from being murdered by a projectile” is a type of freedom.
I like roundabouts, but where there are stop signs, it is a good idea to at least slow down and take the warning.
I think the libertarian position applies to speed limits and stop signs, and I’m against speeding tickets and tickets for running stop signs. If you haven’t hurt anyone by breaking the speed limit or rolling a stop sign, there is no victim. This type of enforcement is pre-crime. Pre-crime is clearly a bad idea even with a simple appeal to intuition.
I like the mens re precursor – no victim, no crime.
It applies to the vaccine situation as well. When you force someone to take a metal projectile (let’s focus on this case) as a condition of employment, there is a victim even if there is no death or side effect.
But mens re is not absolute, either.
We have to do the thought work on a case-by-case basis.
There is no instruction manual that can do the work of application of a law to the set of infinite possible circumstances. Good law, though, can be interpreted sufficiently with a good amount of thought work on a case-by-case basis (I refer to this as a functional law, in the mathematical, computer science sense).
“Govt’s goal is CENTRALIZATION — global centralization. Multinational companies are the means for global governance. This is not prediction but observation. We’re there already, but it will get much worse. Begin making your plans to live independently in as many ways as you’re able” — David Knight