By Brownstone Institute at Brownstone dot org.
For years, people have been calling for a reckoning, some decisive way in which an official voice speaks to the outrages society experienced over the Covid years, the consequences of which are all around us.
What precisely would that look like? An official commission like the one unfolding in the UK seems like nothing but a template for establishment gaslighting. Anything short of total condemnation will forever fall short of dealing with empirical reality.
Several people associated with prominent organizations such as Health Freedom Defense Fund, Children's Health Defense, MAHA Action, and Autism Action Network, Stand for Health Freedom, Global Wellness Forum, along with Brownstone Institute, have been workshopping a possible Senate resolution. That at least would be a good start. The vote might be on party lines or not; there is no way to know.
The version below reflects a stable version for which Brownstone takes responsibility, while offering credit to people associated with the other groups. It can be considered a work in progress. Is it possible? We can dream.
A RESOLUTION
To affirm the permanent lessons of the Covid-19 response, to repudiate certain emergency measures as incompatible with constitutional liberty, and to establish binding principles for any future public-health emergency.
Whereas the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020-2023 occasioned the most widespread and prolonged suspension of civil liberties in American history;
Whereas many measures taken in the name of public health, at both the federal level and most states, lacked sufficient evidence of efficacy, in some cases were arbitrary, imposed disproportionate harm on the poor and working classes, and violated foundational principles of limited government;
Whereas the Senate now judges, with the benefit of hindsight and exhaustive subsequent reflection, that certain categories of intervention must never be repeated;
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate
(1) Declares that the following actions, however well-intentioned at the time, represented grave mistakes that shall not be repeated in any future public-health emergency:
(a) Prolonged closure of elementary, secondary schools, and colleges/universities for in-person instruction, which caused measurable and lasting harm to children's educational attainment, mental health, and social development while producing no demonstrable reduction in community transmission beyond what targeted protections for vulnerable adults would have achieved;
(b) Indefinite closure or capacity restriction of private businesses deemed "non-essential" by executive fiat, including but not limited to restaurants, gyms, hair salons, places of worship, and small retail establishments;
(c) Universal population-wide mask mandates imposed by state, local, or federal authority without individualized medical exception processes that respect bodily autonomy;
(d) Stay-at-home orders that confined healthy citizens to their residences for weeks or months at a time, criminalizing ordinary outdoor activity, in addition to the brutal division of the workforce between those deemed "essential" and those deemed "nonessential;"
(e) Restrictions on routine access of nursing homes, hospitals and other medical services, including dentistry, that fell outside emergency demands, resulting in missed diagnostics and medical disruptions for millions of people;
(f) Agency-led dismissal, deprecation, and even removal from access to known therapeutics for respiratory viruses, which were made unavailable even with a physician prescription;
(g) The eviction moratoriums issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that exceeded statutory authority and disrupted the contractual foundations of property rights;
(h) Vaccine mandates imposed directly or indirectly (through OSHA, CMS, Department of Defense, or federal contractor rules) upon private employees, healthcare workers, members of the Armed Forces, or...