I received the comment below to an essay recently and I wanted to respond to it here. First I’d like to apologize for taking so long to respond, I’ve been feeling under the weather lately and the team has been highly engaged in trying to get the BreathEasy app up and running (we’re days away now!).
So, without further ado…
“Hi! Came here via KrisAnne Hall's website. I am with you 100% re the illegality of a private business acting as a place of public accommodation requiring a slave rag as a condition of entry.
To my surprise, KrisAnne Hall seems to think that "private" business owners do have this right to require this or any medical intervention as a condition of entry. Any thoughts on how she (or anyone) thinks this? It surprises me since she is an expert in the Constitution.”
I would be happy to expound on this. Let me begin by clarifying my stance on the businesses that enforced the illegal mask or vaccine passport mandates:
I fully support the private property rights of a business owner to run their business as they see fit.
I am no lawyer, but personally, I consider the “public accommodation” label as the government’s nose under the tent and the tool used to define and implement the government’s “compelling interest” to enforce/enact regulation over an individual business. Failing this how could a government enact any administrative regulation over a business? By applying this label, the government essentially neuters the private property rights of business owners.
Just as many of us out there, I too, railed against these business’ ‘requirements’ that I wear a mask to enter. I argued with them, I ignored them, I dodged the coppers when they were called. But after some time I realized that I was arguing with the wrong people.
My position is that it was the government that created the mandates that acted illegally. All the businesses were doing was what the government (as a licensing authority) told them to do. Complaining to the business owner that requiring masks is illegal is like blaming your waitress that your steak is under-cooked.
Yes, I despised the complying businesses for how they treated us, and accountability is coming for them in the form of BreathEasy Scores. But again, even the most enthusiastically complying business was just another slave to the system.
The way I see it, the government violated the law in two ways:
Mandating that the general population must take a positive action (i.e. wear a mask) and
Requiring businesses to enforce this illegal mandate without compensation.
So let’s lay the blame where it belongs: The tyrannical and illegitimate governments (both at the State and Federal levels) that thought they had the power to mandate anything on a free people. Now, the fact that some businesses enforced this illegal mandate (some more enthusiastically than others) was unfortunate and was exactly what inspired the creation of the BreathEasy app in the first place.
But because I feel so strongly about private property rights, if a business owner makes the decision that his customers must hop on one foot or twirl and curtsy as a condition of entry to his establishment, I say, “knock yourself out, buck-o.”
But we’ll see how that plays when a customer has the choice to NOT patronize your business and instead go to a business that respects their customers’ rights. There’s nothing more powerful than the power of choice. And not to beat a dead horse, but this is exactly what BreathEasy is meant to be: the patriot’s tool for choice.
What we experienced was the government conscripting businesses to be the enforcement arm of their illegality just like they do regarding the federal income tax. The automatic withholding of income taxes by businesses places business owners into the role of tax collectors on the government’s behalf without compensation (how many Constitutional precepts does that violate, I wonder?). Recognizing this fact alone should tell us just how LITTLE power the government really has when it is forced to contract out the enforcement of its insipid regulations.
Yes, of course we (vigorously) disagree with a business’s submission to, and enforcement of, the illegal mandate. And, yes, I absolutely will be holding a grudge against those businesses who were particularly enthusiastic in enforcing those illegal mandates (I’m looking at you, Southwest Airlines and Hilton Hotels). But let’s not forget who the true culprits are: the asinine bureaucrats more in love with their own power than what they are charged to do: protect our God-given rights.
While I support a business’s private property rights, I also support the patron’s right to say ‘no.’ Businesses don’t get to make their patrons jump through hoops to buy their wares without economic consequence. BreathEasy holds these businesses accountable, both the patriot businesses AND the knee-bending ones. Our Free Will insults their cowardice and it’s high time we began flexing the power we all inherently have. We need to support patriot businesses with every dollar we spend. This is the very definition of the Patriot Economy and the BreathEasy app is the purpose – built tool for that role.
And this is the great piece of the puzzle that the communists fail to understand: Mandates only work at the individual level. When the entire country’s citizenry decides with one voice that we will not comply, a petty tyrant’s power evaporates overnight and we will have freed ourselves, together.
So, to answer the commenter’s question that began this essay, the answer lay within a business owner’s private property rights. But the response to questionable business practices by the consumer is the exercise of economic freedom and support of those patriot businesses that respect our rights and freedoms.
Yours In the Fight,
R. Altomare
Founder of BreathEasy
Find Patriot Businesses, Spread the Word, Live Your Life