My Letter to JCPH Executive Director Dawn Comstock

A couple of days ago, over 300 concerned parents signed and sent a letter to Jefferson County Public Health Executive Director Dawn Comstock detailing our concerns with Jeffco’s plan to forcibly mask 11-year-olds and younger (and leave open the option to do the same to all students) as they return to school this fall.

Dr. Comstock’s response was full of copy-and-paste platitudes and patronizing requests for parents to review guidance from the transgender-affirming (science-denying) American Academy of Pediatrics and the perpetually-lying CDC, and did not directly address any of the specific concerns raised in the letter. She also replied all to the original email, openly revealing the emails of every parent who signed the letter – although I trust any parent who would co-sign this email to educate my children far more than I trust Jefferson County Schools at this point.

It is clear that Comstock has no intention of changing course and supporting parental choice no matter how many families pull their kids out of Jeffco schools.

I sent her the following email in response:

Dr. Comstock,

My biggest problem with your response (and I have many, many problems with it) is that you fail to address the most fundamental concern we have – that of parental and citizen authority. Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, JCPH continues to perpetuate the idea that COVID-19 represents a measurable medical risk to school-aged children and is willing to continue using the force of law to insert themselves into the medical decision-making role for thousands of Jefferson County families. Jefferson County officials (along with thousands of other bureaucrats around the country) have taken it upon themselves to usurp the rights of individual citizens to choose what medical treatments and interventions are most appropriate for them and their families, and are holding our taxpayer-funded institutions hostage to force our compliance. You have redefined autonomous, normal societal choices as being at the whim of the government, and have done so apart from any true legal authority.

Through the continued forcing of masks onto the faces of children, our schools are conditioning our children to accept the idea that their body is not their own, their parents do not have authority or responsibility for them, and that ultimately their personal, private medical decisions are to be made by someone else as long as it’s for the “public good.” The issue is not whether masks slow or stop the spread of an airborne virus or the relative risk/reward of administering an emergency-authorized vaccine. The issue is who gets to make the decision. Fundamental to the existence of a truly free society is the unconditional right of the individual to have sovereign control over their own body (life and liberty). From the beginning of the COVID-19 era, we have been lied to by our government again and again. We have been told that “established science” was a justification for the suspension of our rights, and (worse) the absence of solid understanding has been used as a justification for controlling our behavior. We were told, “The science is certain, you must comply,” only to have the “science” change again and our compliance with new dictates demanded. We were told to deny what we saw in front of us (the relative harmlessness of the virus to children), and obey strangers on the TV and internet.

The unchanging truth for our children was not any scientific truth about the virus (and certainly not the truth of individual human rights). The truth was that the government had the authority to make their most personal decisions for them, could change their mind at any time, and non-compliance with mandates would be met with force.

Parents who are refusing to mask or vaccinate their children to thwart a virus that bears them no statistical risk whatsoever are not doing so out of ignorance or ideology, despite how nakedly political this issue has become. Most of us are more than open to vaccines, and would gladly administer them to our children if there was any statistical indication that they were needed. The same is true with masks, even though we believe that masks have long-term sociological, emotional, and physical consequences. We are refusing because we can look at the data that tells us only 19 Colorado youths out of over 1.4 million in Colorado have died with COVID-19 (not from – with). We can see the psychological and sociological damage being done to American youth through the forced display of lost individuality and compliance with the state – the very real reminder that they do not actually possess the rights guaranteed to all Americans. Our kids have been conditioned to see everyone around them as a threat to themselves or their loved ones instead of a fellow human being deserving of connection and neighborly treatment. They have learned that their trusted teachers and administrators are willing to fundamentally damage their educational experience on the false promise of guaranteed safety from sickness.

Unfortunately, the decision to not return to a normal educational environment leaves Jefferson County parents no choice but to remove our children from Jefferson County Public School’s educational custody. We simply cannot trust their education to an institution that has no respect for parental authority and decision making, or plain and simple epidemiological information such as data easily available on the Colorado Department of Public Health’s website (covid19.colorado.gov). Both my wife and I grew up in Jefferson County Public Schools and believe we had a good educational experience. Now we are faced with a situation where our sons have clearly had this educational experience denied them. Unless Jefferson County Public Schools allows parental choice with regard to masking and vaccines, we will be pulling our sons out and seeking alternative educational options. We will likewise be exploring all legal avenues to defend our rights as taxpayers who are clearly not getting the public services being paid for.