Op-Ed by Rosanne Lindsay
Does a government-issued license protect your right to travel, or practice medicine, to choose for yourself?
The Institute for Justice estimates that one out of four American workers needs some sort of government-issued license to do their job. But, having a license is no guarantee of job protection.
That’s because a license is permission to do something otherwise deemed to be illegal by government. A license is a standard to which everyone is measured to be “average, “ordinary, nothing special.” A license turns inherent “God-given” rights into privileges, granted by government, that can be altered, suspended or revoked.
When Heather Del Castillo began her practice as a holistic health coach with a private license in California she was not precluded from offering nutritional advice. However, when she moved to Florida, the turf changed. In Florida, Heather was targeted by a licensed Nutritionist for practicing nutrition without a license. It doesn’t matter that she writes about what she practices, which is not illegal. Based on a new interpretation of existing law, she can no longer practice what she preaches.
A license is power in the hands of government, or a group, to legislate choice. It grants government the right to say whom you can and cannot do business with. It restricts the right of individuals to travel freely. It prevents practitioners from sharing holistic health advice and individuals from choosing holistic options of their own free will. It destroys careers.
When Dr. Dave Laposky, M.D., signed up to be a physician and opened up practice in Pine River, MN, he didn’t expect that he would be mandated to take a seasonal flu vaccine to keep his job. Yet he is one of 69 employees who were fired by Essentia Health for refusing to take the flu jab. Even without any published scientific evidence that the flu shot prevents transmission of the influenza virus, Dr. Rajesh Prabhu of Essentia Health responded, “We thought this was the best way to protect our patients.”
An 84-year-old doctor who sees 25 patients a week in New Hampshire, Dr. Anna Konopka, M.D., felt forced to surrender her medical license after the “New Hampshire Board of Medicine officials challenged her record-keeping, prescribing practices and medical decision-making.” Perhaps the real reason was that Dr. Konopka saw anyone who could pay $50 in cash, kept handwritten notes, and refused to use technology to diagnose her patients or log her patients’ prescriptions as part of New Hampshire’s mandatory electronic drug monitoring program.
In this dog-eat-dog world, the government says every dog must have a license. But, if you practice licensed medicine and do not toe the party line of the health insurance industry, or the policies of the licensing board, be prepared to give up your license and your ability to practice.
Ironically, as government taketh away, the push for all holistic practitioners to become licensed is happening nationwide. Uniformity over unity. Homogeneity over identity. Medicalized (licensed) naturopaths are becoming like their conventional medical counterparts in attempting to pass laws that would criminalize all traditional (unlicensed) naturopaths for practicing medicine without a license, while allowing themselves to perform risky procedures that can cause harm (puncturing the skin and cutting into the body). Such a trend would not only prevent the choice for safer alternatives, but would damage the reputation of traditional naturopaths everywhere.
Meanwhile, 40% of Americans spend $40 billion annually on supplements and use alternative health care approaches to achieve wellness. The State of Wisconsin was featured in the March 2000 issue of the Journal of Family Practice showing consumer demand for more (not less) alternative healing options. Four reasons emerged as the basis for this: 1) Holism (whole person approach), 2) Empowerment, 3) Access, and 4) Legitimization.
Forced medicine would prefer all citizens to roll up their collective sleeves under the Healthy People 2020 Act (it’s all an Act) under the guise of Public Health over Individual Health. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Medicine is an art to be practiced, not controlled.
We need to be asking ourselves what qualifications does the government have when it comes to determining individual health? Why should anyone be forced to follow the government’s advice on health as we see rising rates of obesity, diabetes, autoimmune disease and cancer?
More importantly, why should we allow an entity or one group of people to give themselves power to legislate choice for all others? No matter what mandates come down the pipeline there is always the choice to say NO. Just as Drs. Laposky and Konopka stood their ground and said, “No more,” anyone can do so. It only takes practice.
The practice of saying “No” does not require a license.
Rosanne Lindsay is a board certified Naturopathic doctor under the Turtle Island Provider Network. She is a writer, Earth Keeper, President of the National Health Freedom Coalition, co-founder of Wisconsin For Vaccine Choice, and author of the book The Nature of Healing, Heal the Body, Heal the Planet. Find her on Facebook at Rosanne Lindsay and Natureofhealing and consult with her using the tools of nature to heal yourself (virtual consults available) at natureofhealing.org., where this article first appeared.
Great article~ We do need to stop asking permission from the government to do stuff that’s perfectly legal to do without it, like drive, give birth, get married and own property. What we are doing is, taking our God-given liberty/right, handing it over to the government for nothing in return, then on top of that paying them money to dole it back to us as they see fit. It’s insane. Take back your power! Rescind consent!
* “No State shall convert a liberty into a privilege, license it, and charge a fee therefore.” Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 US 105.
* “Where a person is not at the time a licensee, neither the agency, nor any official has any jurisdiction of said person to consider or make any order. One ground as to want of jurisdiction was, accused was not a licensee and it was not claimed that he was.” O’Neil v. Dept. Prof. & Vocations, 7 CA 2d 398; Eiseman v. Daugherty 6 CA. [It’s ALL about contracts, commerce. The ONLY way they can get jurisdiction is through a contract.]
* “License, contracts, is a right given by some competent authority to do an act, which without such authority would be illegal. The instrument or writing which secures this right is also called a license. Vide Ayl. Parerg, 353; 15 Vin.Ab 92; Ang.Wat. Co, 61,85. [So driving your car is illegal in their jurisdiction.]
* “A license is express or implied. An express license is one in which in direct terms authorizes the performance of a certain act; as a license to keep a tavern by public authority. An implied license is one which though not expressly given, may be presumed from the acts of the party having the right to give it.” Bouvier’s Law Dictionary 1843 Edition, Volume 2, page 53. [Express license is like a drivers license, an implied license is an excise tax – you’ve just bought a license to do something that is otherwise illegal to do without one.]
* “2. The requirement of payment for such licenses is only a mode of imposing taxes on the licensed business, and the prohibition, under penalties, against carrying on the business without license is only a mode of enforcing the payment of such taxes. US Supreme Court.
* “5. The recognition by the acts of Congress of the power and right of the states to tax, control, or regulate any business carried on within its limits is entirely consistent with an intention on the part of Congress to tax such business for national purposes.” License Tax Cases 72 US (5 Wall.) 462. *1866)
* Right to Travel – “A license is a privilege granted by the state and cannot possibly exist with reference to something which is a right… to ride and drive over the streets.” “If we allow the City of Chicago to require the licensing of horseless carriages, how long be the City of Chicago would want to require licenses to ride a horse or to walk upon the streets?” City of Chicago v. Cullens, et al., 51 N.E. 907, 910, etc. (1906)
* “The individual, unlike the corporation, cannot be taxed for the mere privilege of existing. The corporation is an artificial entity which owes its existence and charter powers to the state; but the individuals’ rights to live and own property are natural rights for the enjoyment of which an excise cannot be imposed.” Redfield v. Fisher, 292 P. 813, 135 Or. 180, 284 P. 461, 73 A.L.R. 721 (1931)
* “If the State converts a right (liberty) into a privilege, the citizen can ignore the license and fee and engage in the right (liberty) with impunity.” Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham Alabama, 373 US 262.
* “Those things which are considered as inalienable rights which all citizens possess cannot be licensed since those acts are not held to be a privilege.” City of Chicago v. Collins, 51 N.E. 907, 910.
In other words: The state can only regulate that which it creates.
Precisely!
The very idea that a license will ensure anything is absurd.
I choose not to partake in any form of meds.
There is plenty of info about herbs, minerals and vitamins.
License/permit; Receipt of purchase of privilege.
Licensing is nothing new. See the quote below.
“Laws restricting the practice of the healing art to one class of physicians and denying equal privileges to others, constitutes the Bastille of Medicine, for they prevent progress. They are relics of Monarchy, and therefore have no place in a Republic.”
Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence