I moved to North Dakota decades ago.  My husband and I are happy to “hand” raise our children here. (As in we are doing it ourselves, not paying someone else to do it.)  I’m no one extra special, but I’m a mom and that is the most important job God has ever or will ever give to me.  It comes first.

As a mom, I, of course, want to do what is best to protect my children and all children.  Which is why God gave children to each of us, instead of having them be born in test tubes and managed by a ‘collective.’ (Not that I spent hours upon hours watching Star Trek or anything… Nope. Couldn’t be.)

God gave our children to us. I felt each of my babies kick and move inside of me. I’ve have lived with them and have watched them grow for thousands upon thousands of days. I have caught their vomit (mostly right down the front of my shirt) and delicately cut their sandwiches into stars and hearts just to see them smile, or to stop them from crying.  I know them best. Their father knows them best, too. They are our own, personal, first priority.  Just as your kids are likely your first priority. Neither convenience, nor monetary gain will distract you or I from doing what is best for each of our children, which is why parents, whenever possible, must be the ones in charge of caring for their own flesh and blood, their babies, their children. Our hands are the most caring, tender and focused.

It’s why the founders of our nation and our state wrote down our freedoms and declared them as the highest law of the land.

North Dakota Constitution Article 1 Section 1 says,

“All individuals are by nature equally free

and independent

and have certain inalienable rights (rights which cannot be taken from us)

among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty

acquiring, possessing and protecting property and reputation,

pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness…

[the defense of your] person, family, property…

and other lawful purposes which shall not be infringed.”

Our constitution locks in the right to keep your children happy and safe.

The founders knew that there will always be those that wish to force, demand or coerce us out of freedom. Our constitution goes on to say,

“All political power is inherent in the people.”

That’s you. That’s me. That’s us.

“Government is instituted for the protection, security and benefit of the people.”

It’s a government that we are to control.  Its job is to protect all of the people, not just some of them.  There is no “we can’t do that” or “we can’t protect you” or “you can’t decide what’s best for your child” in our constitution.  Nor should there ever be in our state, or our nation.  Our leaders took an oath to protect all of us, and to protect our constitution which guarantees our rights and our freedoms.

Mandates and orders regarding masks and injections, regarding social distancing and conditions for entry are not judicial, lawful or constitutional.  They are a trampling the highest law of the land and a theft of our sacred role as parents.  The Constitution, the Right to Assemble, the Right to Freedom of Speech, the Right to Religious Expression, the Right to Travel Freely, the Right to Privacy, the Right to Property, the Right to Protect Your Person, your Property and your Reputation, the Right to Due Process and more.

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the right to assemble.  Requiring someone to wear a mask or get a shot as a condition of assembly is an infringement on this Right protected under the US Constitution. Restricting “assembly” to six feet is an outright violation.

The First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments provide for the Right to Privacy.  Ordering, mandating or enforcing the gathering of personal information such as one’s temperature or test results is a violation of your Right to Privacy.  As is segregating people based on private, personal medical or genetic information. 

And yeah…  there’s more. Lots more.  We have not only the foundation of our constitutions to guarantee our right to decide what’s best for our children and ourselves, we have numerous legislative laws as well.

The Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act, The Americans with Disabilities Act, The Equal Employment Opportunity Act, The Health Information Portability and Accessibility Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are all available to us as people and as parents. 

Title 21 Section 360bb, Title 29 Section 1635.3, Title 31 Section 3729, Title 42 Section 2000ff-1 Section 202(b)  and Title 45 Section 160.103 of the Federal US and Civil Code protect us in our rights to make informed decisions for ourselves and our children.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal to discriminate in a place of public accommodation.  What makes a place of public accommodation?  Only private clubs that offer no services to any except its very select members are not public accommodations.  Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Acts has an even broader definition of public accommodations. These include:

Inns, hotels, and motels, restaurants and bars, theaters and stadiums, bakery, grocery store, clothing stores, and any sales or rental establishment, laundromats, dry-cleaners, and banks, accountants and lawyers’ offices, museums, libraries, zoos, sidewalks, parks and YES public schools. However, this is just a short list of the many venues considered to be public accommodations. Essentially, if a something is open to the public, it must be open to all members of the public.

Any requirement for entry is illegal. Though we’ve all seen the signs declaring that a mask “protecting others” is required to enter. Rather than just shopping elsewhere, we need to be filling complaints. Using our rights. Use it or loose it.

Did you know, that as it turns out… any claim or implication that masks prevent disease are themselves unlawful under the Federal Trade Commission Act, Title 15, Section 41 of the US Code. Unless a claim can be absolutely proven to be true it is illegal.  The label on a package of masks alone is enough to prove such claims false. “This product… will not provide any protection against COVID-19… or other viruses or contaminants.  Wearing an ear loop mask does not reduce the risk of contracting any disease or infection.”  The FDA itself states, a mask “is not intended for antimicrobial or antiviral protection or related for use such as infection prevention or reduction.”  The same holds for false and unverifiable claims about injections and social distancing. Yes, we (me too!) should all be filing complaints for this as well.

As many others will attest, and as I have written about previously, the regular wearing of masks for long hours has a horde of harmful side effects and the correlation between requiring shoes and shirt is in no way comparable to mask or an injection.  Nor an injection that may result in death or severe life-long disability. Shirts and shoes do not cause death.  There is no legal ability of a school or business to force masking, medical treatments, nor social distancing, nor even routine temperature taking. They are bluffing. Their holding a pair of twos, a six, a five and a four. Despite the fact that our hands hold a royal flush, we are folding.

And while yes, there was once what is now a popularly cited Supreme Court Ruling in 1905 that supported mandating vaccinations, there are many flaws with utilizing this as a guide, the greatest of which are

1) the idea that science has not advanced nor changed in anyway in 116 years,

 2) this is the ruling that justified forced sterilization of the socially unworthy and it has no validity in today’s society nor in any society defined by the constitution and

3) there is no legal means for mandating an injection that has been approved for use only under an EUA.

“Well! They did it that way in 1905!” is no reason to continue on in the same rut without question or conscious thought about the matter.

When it comes down to it, in our everyday lives, we need to know that School Boards, Public Health Officers, and Executive Branch members of government have no business, nor any legal nor constitutional authority to be making these decisions for any of us, adult or child.  Read your constitution. You won’t find them in there. Further, they are not qualified to determine if any individual will receive any medical or health benefits from these.  Neither are they qualified to determine the extent to which any of these may adversely affect an individual.  Even on the off chance that they have a Dr. before their name, they are not your doctor, nor your child’s doctor. They will not be there to sit at your child’s bedside, holding their hand, when an adverse reaction steals their ability to simply be a child.

That is why it is our Right, to make such decisions for ourselves and our children.  Parents are the best equipped to lead these personal, individual, medical inquiries and make these decisions for themselves and their children. Our hands hold our children throughout their lives.

School employees, Public Health Officers, and Executive Branch members of government are additionally not given the role of enforcers of the law.  Were these orders, mandates and directives to be legal, only a member of law enforcement may enforce them.  Any attempt to enforce unlawful rulings by those who are not granted the authority is again illegal and unlawful under section 12 of our North Dakota Century Code.  There are so many aspects of the law that support us, if we only take the time to read and understand them.

At the end of the day, please know most of all that our public representatives have legally agreed to act as our servants.  As such we are supposed to lead them in the way we want our government to go.  We ask only that they fulfill their oaths to protect the people and the constitution.  However, the responsibility lies heavily on us to take the lead.  Without our lead, well…  we’ve seen where we have been and where we are headed. 

We have to stand up.  We have to learn and lead.  We have to use our hands and our hearts and our minds to guide not only our children but our township, city, county, state and nation as well.

Else, when we do not assert our legal rights to decide what’s best for ourselves and our children, we leave ourselves open to, as Supreme Court Justice White put it, health officials [acting] “with an evil eye and an unequal hand.”