Chip Roy takes Washington to task for Covid-19 lockdowns

U.S. Representative and COS endorser Chip Roy chaired a congressional hearing this week on “Liberty, Tyranny, and Accountability: Covid-19 and the Constitution,” examining how the federal government’s response to the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic impacted Americans’ civil liberties.

“The government response to the COVID-19 pandemic triggered some of the most aggressive usurpations of freedom present-day Americans have experienced,” declared the Texas lawmaker during his opening remarks. “When we look back at the trillions of dollars spent, the immeasurable loss of freedom, the lost jobs and businesses, the lost confidence in public health, and the immense societal harm created, Americans deserve to know it will not happen again.”

Amazingly, Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon shifted the investigation’s focus from alleged government tyranny to delivering a passionate screed against what she called pro-life assaults on a woman’s “right to choose.”

“You can’t have a hearing on liberty without mentioning one of the most important civil liberty issues facing our country today: a woman’s freedom to make existential decisions about her own health care without the meddling of politicians,” said the representative. “And you can’t have a hearing about tyranny without acknowledging that a person being denied medical care because of someone else’s political or religious beliefs is certainly an exercise of tyranny.”

Representative Jerry Nadler, another opponent of the topic being discussed, accused Roy of “trying to capitalize on that global trauma [the Covid-19 pandemic] for political spin. Today’s hearing is nothing more than a platform for extreme MAGA Republicans to spread skepticism [about] public health officials,” he contended.

Despite these objections, however, polling confirms that distrust in federal agencies skyrocketed after the pandemic. From December 2020 to April 2022, for example, the number of Americans who said they had “a great deal or a fair amount of trust” in the CDC, the FDA, and Dr. Anthony Fauci collapsed among both parties.

Florida State Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD, who testified at the hearing, pointed this out, noting that Americans should not be treated as “pharmaceutical guinea pigs.”

“Unfortunately,” he added, “the WHO is in the process of drafting a pandemic treaty,” which “would expand… their power in response to a pandemic, and this would have pernicious implications for the sovereignty of the United States and our citizens….”

“Our rights [should not] be negotiated,” Roy agreed. “No matter how much they try to change the subject or rewrite history, we should never forget what they did to us. We must not be the victim of another government science experiment ever again.”

Ultimately, this issue revolves around the question of whether Americans are free to govern themselves — or whether we cede that power into the hands of a distant intellectual elite in Washington, Davos, and Geneva. Join the nationwide grassroots movement to rein in centralized power by signing the Convention of States petition below, and together, let’s ensure that the federal government is never again permitted to infringe upon our rights.