Anthony Fauci, prime architect of government tyranny during COVID-19, made a spluttering return to Capitol Hill. A far cry from the rockstar persona he cultivated during the pandemic, Fauci appeared deflated as his authoritarianism was laid bare before a furious American people.
But though Fauci has been appropriately marked as a tyrant, his domineering ilk will continue to exist in perpetuity. Centralized government power has always been the greatest threat to individual freedom, a reality the Founders understood intimately. It is apparent in the enduring system they crafted for us.
Yet a free society requires citizens backed by institutions willing to defend these principles.
This is where organizations like The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action play a vital role. We act as a bulwark against government malfeasance and correct injustice when the state becomes anathema to the public good.
For example, when Fauci and his allies in teachers’ unions did everything in their power to keep schools closed—in the face of mounting evidence such closures had crippled the educational prospects of America’s youth—Heritage acted.
We argued policymakers were underestimating the costs of prolonged school closures and teachers’ unions were cynically using the pandemic to advance leftist goals. To counter the devastating impact of so much time away from the classroom, we promoted “pandemic pods” as a homeschool alternative to captured public schools.
And we were right.
CDC studies later found schools were a poor vector for COVID-19 transmission so long as basic steps were taken to mitigate risk. Additionally, reduced access to in-person education was associated with poorer academic, mental-health, and behavioral outcomes.
When Fauci joined the Biden administration in demanding Americans receive experimental vaccines on pain of job loss or social ostracization, Heritage was there.
Heritage Action maintained that the OSHA vaccine rule was an unlawful expansion of federal authority and urged legal challenges to the mandate. We mobilized activists to submit more than 20,000 public comments opposing the OSHA rule. Vindication came when the Supreme Court blocked the rule in January 2022.
The next month, Heritage Action backed Senate GOP efforts to block federal funds from going towards vaccine mandates against military personnel, healthcare workers, and other state employees.
In 2023, as it became clear the pandemic had long since become a convenient political tool for the Biden administration’s radical agenda, Heritage Action supported legislation to terminate both the national emergency and public health emergency declarations tied to COVID-19.
At every turn, the Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action advocated for the American public. When Fauci and his authoritarian ghouls took away freedom of movement, freedom to worship, freedom to see dying loved ones, we were there.
That’s because we know whenever a bureaucrat asks for a little more control over public life, it’s an opportunity for a Fauci-style takeover of American liberty.
When civil society weakens, government naturally fills the vacuum. Organizations like Heritage exist to push back against such tendencies. For more than five decades, we’ve striven to expand liberty in the face of government oppression.
As the Heritage Foundation has developed policy proposals rooted in constitutional government and free enterprise, Heritage Action has sought to unify the power of everyday Americans to impact their communities for good.
Liberty survives only when citizens are willing to defend it. Organizations like ours represent just one avenue of civic responsibility. There will always be authoritarians primed to tear away the beloved liberties of the American people. Fauci was not the first, nor will he be the last.
But as long as there are groups of patriotic Americans willing to take a stand against such despots, willing to fight tooth and nail to protect their freedoms, such tyrants will never win.
Heritage Foundation co-founder Ed Feulner once mused, “In Washington, there are no permanent victories or permanent defeats, just permanent battles.”
Thus shall it forever be, but Americans have a 250-year-long record of beating tyrants.
Fauci was no different.
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
