“We’re a year-and-a-half into this virus and Washingtonians just want to be left alone to go about their lives and make their own choices about their health and their children’s education,” said Aaron Withe, CEO of the Freedom Foundation. “By now, they know the facts at least as well as the governor. And they’ve demonstrated far more concern for the welfare of themselves and their families than he has. It’s time to trust the free will of the people rather than morphing into the nanny state Jay Inslee wants so badly to create.”

”At no point has Jay Inslee bothered to consider natural immunity or recovered immunity in his mandates,” continued Withe. “That tells us this isn’t about safety; it’s about compliance, and Gov. Inslee thinks the state can make better decisions for the citizens of Washington than the people themselves.”

“The issue is choice, and who’s going to exercise it.”

“We’re still waiting for Gov. Inslee to act in concert with the other branches of Washington government rather than simply issuing proclamations like a banana-republic dictator. The so-called emergency powers he cites were only intended to be used temporarily. We’ve seen many pandemics over the years, but none has required suspending our democratic form of government as Jay Inslee has done for far too long.”

“At the end of the day, it’s the job of the government to encourage — not force or coerce — us to do the right thing,” concluded Withe. “If masks, vaccines and social distancing are the magic bullet Jay Inslee claims they are, people are smart enough to embrace them voluntarily. Perhaps the reason they haven’t already is because the people giving the orders have earned so little of our trust.”