Brownstone Institute
The Djokovic Outrage
BY
Tennis champion Novak Djokovic, who played in the 2021 US Open final, will not play in the 2022 U.S. Open, because of a Biden administration rule that bans unvaccinated non-resident foreigners from entering the U.S. Unvaccinated citizens and foreign permanent residents, who are covid-19 positive, are allowed to enter.
CDC now says the unvaccinated should be treated like the vaccinated
The Biden administration’s excuse is that they are just religiously “following the science.” But, that excuse is no longer available as earlier this month the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) altered its covid-19 guidance saying that the unvaccinated should be treated as the vaccinated:
“CDC’s COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur, though they are generally mild, and persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection.”
Despite this reversal from the CDC, the Biden administration still bans unvaccinated non-resident foreigners, like Novak Djokovic, who test negative for covid-19. Welcome to the anti-science, anti-freedom world of Novak Djokovic Vax Mandate Land.
Even more hypocritical is the Biden administration’s present immigration policy that makes exemptions for foreigners who enter illegally south of the U.S. border. Where does “the science,” say that someone unvaccinated who enters illegally is not a health threat, and a foreigner who attempts to enter legally is? That the Biden administration allows unvaccinated, possibly covid-19 positive (untested) foreigners to enter the country illegally via the Southern border with Mexico, but bans an unvaccinated foreigner that tests negative for covid-19, from entering the country legally is unjust in principle and makes a mockery of the rule of law.
Why doesn’t Novak just get vaccinated?
Before he implemented his diet and lifestyle changes, Djokovic’s body tended to break down in long matches as I saw in his 2005 US Open match. I first saw Djokovic play in the 2005 US Open in the first round against French tennis superstar Gael Monfils, where his body broke down in the 4th set which he lost 0-6. After a medical timeout, he did come back to win in the 5th. His early history of breaking down led former US Open champ, Andy Roddick, to quip about Djokovic: “back and hip injury, cramps, bird flu, common cold, and SARS as well.” Today, Djokovic is recognized as the “iron man of tennis,” thanks to his meticulous attention to how he treats his body.
For people who are young and healthy, and do not have compromised immune systems, covid-19 presents a relatively lower threat to their health. This point is made in the Great Barrington Declaration in 2020:
“We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza. As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity….The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.”
Covid-19 vaccinations are not the panacea that those who religiously mandate universal vaccinations make them out to be, and are also not without their dangers. In some groups, particularly young athletes they have been correlated with heart issues. Though it is a rare phenomenon, it is one that must be considered.
Given that Djokovic has already recovered from a previous covid-19 natural infection, he has natural immunity which, according to a pivotal Israeli study in 2021, is as good as and even superior to artificial immunity:
“This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 [Pfizer-BioNTech] two-dose vaccine-induced immunity.”
Hundreds of other studies have confirmed similar results of protection from natural immunity over-vaccination alone. So, neither does Djokovic’s status as unvaccinated pose a threat to himself.
Vaccination, like any medical treatment, is a personal decision, to be made by the individual. Given that Djokovic has natural immunity from a previous infection (which is superior in terms of protection to double vaccination), covid-19 is far less dangerous to a younger, healthy athlete (covid-19 primarily affects the elderly with a “more than a thousand-fold difference in covid-19 mortality between older and younger people”), and some athletes have had health issues after injecting the relatively new vaccine, it makes sense that Djokovic chose not to get vaccinated despite what the chattering classes and armchair doctors opine. (As a sidenote Gael Monfils was temporarily sidelined for most of 2022, in part, after significant health issues that appeared after he received his third booster shot.)
If one gains natural immunity from prior infection and thus is “naturally vaccinated” why does the U.S. government not treat such “natural vaccination” the same as “artificial vaccination?” The answer is revealed by Dr. Paul Offit – a member, along with Dr. Anthony Fauci, of the FDA panel that advises the Biden administration on dealing with covid-19 – when he explains how the FDA panel came about the decision to not recognize natural immunity: it was not a scientific decision, but a bureaucratic one.
American Tennis players speak up for Djokovic, as the US Tennis Association (USTA) remains silent
Many American tennis athletes have spoken up for Djokovic including 7-time grand slam champion John McEnroe who voiced his support:
“US Government and USTA must work together to allow him to play. If unvaccinated American players can play, Djokovic as one of the legends of the game must be allowed to play. MAKE IT HAPPEN, USTA!”
Other American players supporting Djokovic, include American number one Taylor Fritz (“So it does seem like, you know, what’s the harm of letting the best player in the world come play the US Open?”), John Isner (the ban is “complete lunacy”), and unvaccinated American tennis player Tennys Sangren (who will be playing in this year’s US Open, unvaccinated), as have American politicians (all Republican).
The world’s number one tennis player, and the reigning men’s US Open champion, Daniel Medvedev has also spoken out saying that Novak should be allowed to play.
USTA should have asked for a “national interest” exemption for Djokovic
The “US Open” is named after the United States of America, a country founded on the idea of the individual’s inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Inalienable means that such rights do not come from the government, but are inherent in the individual by their status as a human being. One does not gain rights by being a U.S. citizen/permanent resident; one does not lose rights by being a non-resident foreigner. The Biden administration’s treatment of Novak Djokovic is a clear violation of those principles.
Given that Djokovic’s immunization status poses a health threat to no one, his presence on U.S. soil violates the rights of no one. Given that the CDC has said it is safe for Novak to play, he should be allowed to play. There were several ways this could have happened; the easiest way was for the Biden administration to “follow the science” that it claims to follow and repeal the vaccine mandate requirement entirely that targets non-resident foreigners. This did not happen for Djokovic.
The USTA could have asked for a “national interest” exemption for Djokovic given his status as a professional athlete and the given circumstances. Given the CDC has said the unvaccinated should be treated the same as the vaccinated, the USTA should have asked Mr. Biden to give Djokovic an exemption to enter the US legally, as Biden does for diplomats, refugees, and hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated illegal immigrants.
Sadly, the USTA refused to make any effort to speak up for Djokovic, as has its figurehead “woman’s rights advocate” Billie Jean King, for whom the US Open tennis center is named. (Sadly, for Djokovic, he both “identifies” as and is biologically a “man.”) Would Billie Jean King, and her virtue-signaling bureaucrats at the USTA be silent if such treatment was fostered on Serena Williams?
“My body, my choice” doesn’t only apply to women when pregnant (as in the case of abortion), but applies to all individuals, in all matters, regardless of sex, including the choice to be vaccinated or not. It appears that the USTA, being staffed by Democrats, does not wish to offend the unpopular Biden as if their lack of criticism would improve his popularity.
As a lifetime member of the USTA, I find their inaction toward the injustice towards Novak Djokovic a moral disgrace. The USTA should consider removing “US” from their name and moving the tournament from the city symbolized by the Statue of Liberty or renaming their tournament “US Closed” to immigrants and foreigners who do not genuflect to the whims of their leader. So much for the nation of “Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The United State Tennis Association’s refusal to speak against Biden’s anti-science, anti-freedom ban of Novak Djokovic from playing in the 2022 US Open is a disgrace.
Novak Djokovic is an international symbol for “my body, my choice”
Djokovic’s unjust treatment by the US government is an imitation of the Australian federal government banning him from playing in the first Grand Slam of the year, the Australian Open, which demonstrated the ban against Djokovic and foreigners like him has nothing to do with science but is purely political. Djokovic was allowed to play in the 2022 French Open and 2022 Wimbledon as the French and British governments have repealed their vaccine mandate policies. Do science and the laws of reality change when one travels to a different country? No, only politics does.
Early this year, it was the anti-freedom, anti-science Australian federal government which harassed, imprisoned, and ceremoniously deported Djokovic (who had a legal travel VISA issued by the Australian government) from Australia preventing him from winning the title on his favorite surface on the hard courts of Melbourne; it was the relatively more freedom-loving, more pro-science British government that allowed Djokovic to enter the UK and win his 7th Wimbledon crown. In the Australian Open’s defense, at least Tennis Australia fought the federal government to get Novak to play. No such effort is being made by the United States Tennis Association (USTA), which is hypocritically silent on the case of the 21-time grand slam champion.
Despite CDC change in guidance to treat the unvaccinated as the vaccinated, the Biden administration has chosen to follow “vaccine apartheid” fascism over “my body, my choice” freedom.
Vaccinations, like any medical treatment, have their pros and cons and must be considered in the full context, in line with other treatments available, based not on the utilitarian needs of government bureaucrats and their political interests, but on the self-interest (pursuit of happiness) and political rights of the individual.
As a world-class male athlete, Novak Djokovic’s example shows that an unvaccinated individual can be a model of health and sports excellence, and survive a covid-19 infection thus gaining natural immunity, all without being vaccinated for covid-19. Such an example is something no vaccine mandate/freedom-hating government official can tolerate.
Novak Djokovic symbolizes the countless number of individuals whose rights are violated because of unscientific and anti-freedom vaccine mandates. Novak Djokovic is not the villain in this story, he is the hero.
This article has been updated given Djokovic’s withdrawal from the 2022 US Open.
Reprinted from Capitalism Magazine.
Author
From the Brownstone Institute
Way back in the B.C. era (Before Covid), I taught Medical Humanities and Bioethics at an American medical school. One of my older colleagues – I’ll call him Dr. Quinlan – was a prominent member of the faculty and a nationally recognized proponent of physician-assisted suicide.
Dr. Quinlan was a very nice man. He was soft-spoken, friendly, and intelligent. He had originally become involved in the subject of physician-assisted suicide by accident, while trying to help a patient near the end of her life who was suffering terribly.
That particular clinical case, which Dr. Quinlan wrote up and published in a major medical journal, launched a second career of sorts for him, as he became a leading figure in the physician-assisted suicide movement. In fact, he was lead plaintiff in a challenge of New York’s then-prohibition against physician-assisted suicide.
The case eventually went all the way to the US Supreme Court, which added to his fame. As it happened, SCOTUS ruled 9-0 against him, definitively establishing that there is no “right to die” enshrined in the Constitution, and affirming that the state has a compelling interest to protect the vulnerable.
SCOTUS’s unanimous decision against Dr. Quinlan meant that his side had somehow pulled off the impressive feat of uniting Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and all points in between against their cause. (I never quite saw how that added to his luster, but such is the Academy.)
At any rate, I once had a conversation with Dr. Quinlan about physician-assisted suicide. I told him that I opposed it ever becoming legal. I recall he calmly, pleasantly asked me why I felt that way.
First, I acknowledged that his formative case must have been very tough, and allowed that maybe, just maybe, he had done right in that exceptionally difficult situation. But as the legal saying goes, hard cases make bad law.
Second, as a clinical physician, I felt strongly that no patient should ever see their doctor and have to wonder if he was coming to help keep them alive or to kill them.
Finally, perhaps most importantly, there’s this thing called the slippery slope.
As I recall, he replied that he couldn’t imagine the slippery slope becoming a problem in a matter so profound as causing a patient’s death.
Well, maybe not with you personally, Dr. Quinlan, I thought. I said no more.
But having done my residency at a major liver transplant center in Boston, I had had more than enough experience with the rather slapdash ethics of the organ transplantation world. The opaque shuffling of patients up and down the transplant list, the endless and rather macabre scrounging for donors, and the nebulous, vaguely sinister concept of brain death had all unsettled me.
Prior to residency, I had attended medical school in Canada. In those days, the McGill University Faculty of Medicine was still almost Victorian in its ways: an old-school, stiff-upper-lip, Workaholics-Anonymous-chapter-house sort of place. The ethic was hard work, personal accountability for mistakes, and above all primum non nocere – first, do no harm.
Fast forward to today’s soft-core totalitarian state of Canada, the land of debanking and convicting peaceful protesters, persecuting honest physicians for speaking obvious truth, fining people $25,000 for hiking on their own property, and spitefully seeking to slaughter harmless animals precisely because they may hold unique medical and scientific value.
To all those offenses against liberty, morality, and basic decency, we must add Canada’s aggressive policy of legalizing, and, in fact, encouraging industrial-scale physician-assisted suicide. Under Canada’s Medical Assistance In Dying (MAiD) program, which has been in place only since 2016, physician-assisted suicide now accounts for a terrifying 4.7 percent of all deaths in Canada.
MAiD will be permitted for patients suffering from mental illness in Canada in 2027, putting it on par with the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland.
To its credit, and unlike the Netherlands and Belgium, Canada does not allow minors to access MAiD. Not yet.
However, patients scheduled to be terminated via MAiD in Canada are actively recruited to have their organs harvested. In fact, MAiD accounts for 6 percent of all deceased organ donors in Canada.
In summary, in Canada, in less than 10 years, physician-assisted suicide has gone from illegal to both an epidemic cause of death and a highly successful organ-harvesting source for the organ transplantation industry.
Physician-assisted suicide has not slid down the slippery slope in Canada. It has thrown itself off the face of El Capitan.
And now, at long last, physician-assisted suicide may be coming to New York. It has passed the House and Senate, and just awaits the Governor’s signature. It seems that the 9-0 Supreme Court shellacking back in the day was just a bump in the road. The long march through the institutions, indeed.
For a brief period in Western history, roughly from the introduction of antibiotics until Covid, hospitals ceased to be a place one entered fully expecting to die. It appears that era is coming to an end.
Covid demonstrated that Western allopathic medicine has a dark, sadistic, anti-human side – fueled by 20th-century scientism and 21st-century technocratic globalism – to which it is increasingly turning. Physician-assisted suicide is a growing part of this death cult transformation. It should be fought at every step.
I have not seen Dr. Quinlan in years. I do not know how he might feel about my slippery slope argument today.
I still believe I was correct.
From the Brownstone Institute
Many news outlets reported the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday by saying President Donald Trump had missed out (Washington Post, Yahoo, Hindustan Times, Huffington Post), not won (USA Today), fallen short (AP News), lost (Time), etc. There is even a meme doing the rounds about ‘Trump Wine.’ ‘Made from sour grapes,’ the label explains, ‘This is a full bodied and bitter vintage guaranteed to leave a nasty taste in your mouth for years.’
For the record, the prize was awarded to María Corina Machado for her courageous and sustained opposition to Venezuela’s ruling regime. Trump called to congratulate her. Given his own attacks on the Venezuelan president, his anger will be partly mollified, and he could even back her with practical support. He nonetheless attacked the prize committee, and the White House assailed it for putting politics before peace.
He could be in serious contention next year. If his Gaza peace plan is implemented and holds until next October, he should get it. That he is unlikely to do so is more a reflection on the award and less on Trump.
So He Won the Nobel Peace Prize. Meh!
Alfred Nobel’s will stipulates the prize should be awarded to the person who has contributed the most to promote ‘fraternity between nations…abolition or reduction of standing armies and…holding and promotion of peace congresses.’ Over the decades, this has expanded progressively to embrace human rights, political dissent, environmentalism, race, gender, and other social justice causes.
On these grounds, I would have thought the Covid resistance should have been a winner. The emphasis has shifted from outcomes and actual work to advocacy. In honouring President Barack Obama in 2009, the Nobel committee embarrassed itself, patronised him, and demeaned the prize. His biggest accomplishment was the choice of his predecessor as president: the prize was a one-finger send-off to President George W. Bush.
There have been other strange laureates, including those prone to wage war (Henry Kissinger, 1973), tainted through association with terrorism (Yasser Arafat, 1994), and contributions to fields beyond peace, such as planting millions of trees. Some laureates were subsequently discovered to have embellished their record, and others proved to be flawed champions of human rights who had won them the treasured accolade.
Conversely, Mahatma Gandhi did not get the prize, not for his contributions to the theory and practice of non-violence, nor for his role in toppling the British Raj as the curtain raiser to worldwide decolonisation. The sad reality is how little practical difference the prize has made to the causes it espoused. They bring baubles and honour to the laureates, but the prize has lost much of its lustre as far as results go.
Trump Was Not a Serious Contender
The nomination processes start in September and nominations close on 31 January. The five-member Norwegian Nobel committee scrutinises the list of candidates and whittles it down between February and October. The prize is announced on or close to 10 October, the date Alfred Nobel died, and the award ceremony is held in Oslo in early December.
The calendar rules out a newly elected president in his first year, with the risible exception of Obama. The period under review was 2024. Trump’s claims to have ended seven wars and boasts of ‘nobody’s ever done that’ are not taken seriously beyond the narrow circle of fervent devotees, sycophantic courtiers, and supplicant foreign leaders eager to ingratiate themselves with over-the-top flattery.
Trump Could Be in Serious Contention Next Year
Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan falls into three conceptual-cum-chronological parts: today, tomorrow, and the day after. At the time of writing, in a hinge moment in the two-year war, Israel has implemented a ceasefire in Gaza, Hamas has agreed to release Israeli hostages on 13-14 October, and Israel will release around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners (today’s agenda). So why are the ‘Ceasefire Now!’ mobs not out on the streets celebrating joyously instead of looking morose and discombobulated? Perhaps they’ve been robbed of the meaning of life?
The second part (tomorrow) requires Hamas demilitarisation, surrender, amnesty, no role in Gaza’s future governance, resumption of aid deliveries, Israeli military pullbacks, a temporary international stabilisation force, and a technocratic transitional administration. The third part, the agenda for the day after, calls for the deradicalisation of Gaza, its reconstruction and development, an international Peace Board to oversee implementation of the plan, governance reforms of the Palestinian Authority, and, over the horizon, Palestinian statehood.
There are too many potential pitfalls to rest easy on the prospects for success. Will Hamas commit military and political suicide? How can the call for democracy in Gaza and the West Bank be reconciled with Hamas as the most popular group among Palestinians? Can Israel’s fractious governing coalition survive?
Both Hamas and Israel have a long record of agreeing to demands under pressure but sabotaging their implementation at points of vulnerability. The broad Arab support could weaken as difficulties arise. The presence of the internationally toxic Tony Blair on the Peace Board could derail the project. Hamas has reportedly called on all factions to reject Blair’s involvement. Hamas official Basem Naim, while thanking Trump for his positive role in the peace deal, explained that ‘Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims and maybe a lot [of] people around the world still remember his [Blair’s] role in causing the killing of thousands or millions of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.’
It would be a stupendous achievement for all the complicated moving parts to come together in stable equilibrium. What cannot and should not be denied is the breathtaking diplomatic coup already achieved. Only Trump could have pulled this off.
The very traits that are so offputting in one context helped him to get here: narcissism; bullying and impatience; bull in a china shop style of diplomacy; indifference to what others think; dislike of wars and love of real estate development; bottomless faith in his own vision, negotiating skills, and ability to read others; personal relationships with key players in the region; and credibility as both the ultimate guarantor of Israel’s security and preparedness to use force if obstructed. Israelis trust him; Hamas and Iran fear him.
The combined Israeli-US attacks to degrade Iran’s nuclear capability underlined the credibility of threats of force against recalcitrant opponents. Unilateral Israeli strikes on Hamas leaders in Qatar highlighted to uninvolved Arabs the very real dangers of continued escalation amidst the grim Israeli determination to rid themselves of Hamas once and for all.
Trump Is Likely to Be Overlooked
Russia has sometimes been the object of the Nobel Peace Prize. The mischievous President Vladimir Putin has suggested Trump may be too good for the prize. Trump’s disdain for and hostility to international institutions and assaults on the pillars of the liberal international order would have rubbed Norwegians, among the world’s strongest supporters of rules-based international governance, net zero, and foreign aid, the wrong way.
Brash and public lobbying for the prize, like calling the Norwegian prime minister, is counterproductive. The committee is fiercely independent. Nominees are advised against making the nomination public, let alone orchestrating an advocacy campaign. Yet, one laureate is believed to have mobilised his entire government for quiet lobbying behind the scenes, and another to have bad-mouthed a leading rival to friendly journalists.
Most crucially, given that Scandinavian character traits tip towards the opposite end of the scale, it’s hard to see the committee overlooking Trump’s loud flaws, vanity, braggadocio, and lack of grace and humility. Trump supporters discount his character traits and take his policies and results seriously. Haters cannot get over the flaws to seriously evaluate policies and outcomes. No prizes for guessing which group the Nobel committee is likely to belong to. As is currently fashionable to say when cancelling someone, Trump’s values do not align with those of the committee and the ideals of the prize.
Author
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