American Thought Leaders - Inside the Amish’s Battle Against Crippling New York Vaccine Fines | Aaron Siri

Episode Date: October 23, 2026

In 2022, New York fined three private Amish schoolhouses $118,000 in combined fines for allowing unvaccinated children to attend. This came after New York repealed its longstanding religious exemptions for school vaccination requirements in 2019.New York law allows the state to fine a school up to $2,000 per student per day for noncompliance, which could add up to multi-million-dollar fines for a single school year.In response, the Amish school administrators and parents filed suit against the state, arguing that compulsory vaccination violated their First Amendment rights and the parental right to direct the upbringing and education of children.Now, Miller v. McDonald is on its second appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.In this episode, Aaron Siri, managing partner at Siri & Glimstad LLP, breaks down the profound implications of this case.“If we can’t protect the Amish, if we can’t protect their religious freedom in the United States of America under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, then,” Siri said, “it really is concerning as to what real reach, almost if any, that right has.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

The state of New York has in fact levied over $100,000 on just three Amish schools. The state of New York repealed its longstanding religious exemption for vaccines in 2019. Shortly thereafter, the state went after small Amish schools for allowing unvaccinated children to attend. Now the case is on its second appeal to the Supreme Court. If the Amish lose, it has profound, in my view, national repercussions. Aaron Siri is managing partner at Siri and Glimstad. In this episode, he breaks down what's really at stake in the Miller v. McDonald case. It's not hard to rule in favor of something that is popular.

It's when it's not easy. It's when it is difficult. It's when not everybody agrees. That is when the First Amendment rights religious liberty matters. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yankee Kelleck. Aaron Siri, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. It's great to be back. Aaron, there's this case involving the Amish that's come back to the Supreme Court on a fresh petition that seems to have some really profound implications for us all.

Tell me, what's going on? What it has to do with at its core is religious freedom. The Amish want to be able to practice their religion in peace in New York. That's what they want to do. They want to continue engaging in the manner that they have lived for almost 200 years in New York. One of those things is that they send their children to school without receiving certain man-made products. And they've been able to do that for about 200 years with no problem. And the state of New York has now told them, hey, Amish, you want to stay in this state?

You need to abandon your religious beliefs. You need to give these products to these children. to your children in order to attend school. And if you do not, we are going to levy ruinous fines that will force you to pack your wagons and leave the state of New York. The state of New York has, in fact, levied, and this is at the heart of the case that you're talking about,

over $100,000 on just three Amish schools. These are small, you know, one-rooms, classrooms, and Amish buildings on Amish land with Amish teachers all paid for by the Amish, over $100,000 in fine and said to them, okay, you know, we're going to be lenient the first time we do this. We're only going to find you for one day of noncompliance per student. That's $2,000 per student per day, not fine you for all the days they were not compliant, which would have been tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars. Even over $100,000 is far too much to ask the Amish to pay. The state of New York knows that, and they are intent on having the Amish abandon their beliefs

or leave New York. And that's really what this case is about. And so the trial court, the federal district court, ruled in favor of New York State and told them, the Amish, pack your wagons, and leave New York. The second circuit, which is the federal appellate court that sits above New York, again ruled on the side of New York State and told the Amish, no, we're not going to respect your religious beliefs. You need to comply or you effectively need to leave the state. And then we went to the U.S. Supreme Court once already. The U.S. Supreme court vacated the lower court and the Second Circuit ruling, threw them out. Reading it protected the Amish.

It said, no, we're going to expect the Amish's religious beliefs and told the Second Circuit, why don't you try again? And in fact, told the Second Circuit, we recently ruled in a different decision called Mahmoud that involved parents who didn't want their kids exposed to certain, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, ideologies in public school that the Supreme Court told them in that Mahmood case, no, you do need to accommodate these parents. They do have a right to raise their children how they want. And if they don't want them exposed to those ideologies, they shouldn't have to.

So, hey, Second Circuit, why don't you really think about what we just ruled in that case, a case where, you know, to some degrees, ideologies can change. Injecting a product, you can't undo. That's permanent. and reconsidered. The Second Circuit decided to essentially thumb their nose at the Supreme Court and went and reconsidered it, but reached the same conclusion and said, nah, Amish, pack your stuff, get on the wagons, get out in New York. And so we're going back now to the Supreme Court to again ask it to take the case again, to again consider this issue, and to this time rule on it

substantively, you know, last time it was a short order, very short order that was just vacating it. And I'll just, I'll, you know, I'll cap it off by saying this, that if we can't protect the Amish, if we can't protect their religious freedom in the United States of America under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, then that right really, it really is concerning as to what real reach, almost if any, that right really has. The whole idea of the First Amendment, the whole idea of the liberties we have in there, is that it restricts government.

And not when it's easy, not when we all agree. It's not hard to rule in favor of something that is popular. It's when it's not easy. It's when it is difficult. It's when not everybody agrees. It's when it's even, very controversial. That is when the First Amendment rights religious liberty matters. It's useless

when everybody agrees. And if we can't make room in our society, in our freedoms, in our hearts even, if I dare say, to respect the rights of this group, to live in peace, to be able to live their life without government interference and their religious convictions, then that right unfortunately, in my view, is I'm not very meaningful. Absolutely fascinating. And maybe can you tell us a little bit more about how you understand the Amish belief system to work and why it's so important to them that they don't comply here with this order from New York State? Well, one of the things that's core, right, to how they live is that they don't adopt ever-evolving new technologies that come about, right? They don't have electricity in their homes for a reason.

They don't drive cars, and you can go down the list. And one of the things that that permits them do is to allow them to practice their Christian faith in the manner that they practiced it for hundreds of years. without emmeshing themselves in modernity. In many ways, if you think about it, right? If you're not constantly bombarded with social media, with all the things that we have these days, think how much more in tune we could be with ourselves, with our soul. You know, when I think of the Amish,

one of the things that is so beautiful to me is that, you know, unless you like strictly observe the Sabbath, so you maybe get one day of this where you just completely disconnect. No telephones. No social media. No televisions. No screens whatsoever. When you're in that room with your kids and you're spending time with them,

you are really spending time with them. And your kids are probably really spending time with you. It's a level of engagement that I think most people can't, It's hard to even, they don't experience anymore. They're really in tune, I think, with each other and themselves in a manner that the modern mind, I think, is hard to even conceive of. And so, you know, they have a beautiful way of life. You know, they're, from my experience, I'm an incredibly, you know, wonderful people who

truly just want to do good, when New York State came after them and issued those fines, they went to the initial hearing by themselves, okay, to go. And when they went there, they wrote a statement. And in that statement, they didn't put up some big defense. They didn't make some big arguments. You know what they said? They said, we are genuinely sorry that we are causing the state of New York any issues. We don't want to cause any issues. We want to live in peace. This is what our religion provides. And they explained it in this statement.

It's on the federal docket now in the lawsuit we had to bring. I mean, that is the approach that they have. They really want to live in peace and they don't want to cause any trouble. And I will tell you, it embarrasses them. It pains them to even be part of this lawsuit. It's the last thing that they want to do. It really does. but they're really left with no choice.

Their choice was truly pack their wagons and flee or push back against the state of New York in trying to evict them effectively. Well, and the third option, of course, would just be to comply. They could comply, but, you know, as I think they will tell you is that, you know, they'd rather be judged in the court

of man and in the court of God, that when they have to answer to their maker, did they follow, you know, their beliefs, did they engage in things that they believe are truly sinful? And so, you know, we place a premium on protecting the body and society as we should. But we also need to respect people who want to protect their eternal soul. That is meaning, that is value. You know, if all we are is just, you know, a saccharacterial. carbon and we're not going to give any value to the soul. Whether one views it as God, whether one views it as an intelligent creator, right? People come at it from different senses, but the humanity has put value in what I will call the soul and something that is beyond just,

you know, the simple atoms that comprise each of us as humans. How did you get interested in this case, Aaron? Well, number one, I will say, is that religious liberty is obviously critically important. And I would be, it's my honor, actually, to be able to defend that right and to act as an attorney, along with co-counsel. And we have a number of other firms involved with this who are incredible and doing incredible job. But of course also the products at issues are ones that we litigate around, right? And so in some respects, our firm was kind of a natural place to maybe start if they were going to look for attorneys. But I already had a relationship with some of the folks in the Amish community.

And so I was maybe a natural segue. way. But with that said, this case is really about religious liberty. It's not about the products, per se. With that said, at least when I think about the First Amendment rights, and I think about what they meant in 1791 when they were ratified by the states. And when you think about what the founders meant when they said, you know, enshrine the right to religious liberty in this country. Religious liberty back then wasn't like it is today. It's not like, you know, church on Sunday, and it's a few other things you do, and then everything else is secular. No, 1791, people lived their convictions. They lived their religions, so to speak. Their life was about convictions in many

respects. This separation of, well, this is secular and this is religious wasn't a thing in the manner it is today. And so in the First Amendment enshrine that right to religious liberty, it was the ability to live your convictions. And I think it's really important, even if some no longer view it that way and some don't aren't, you know, don't want to have convictions in that manner. For those that do, it's essential. It's critical as a nation that we respect those religious freedoms and those liberties. In fact, in many respects, when you look at what underpins this country, makes this country so great. I mean, there are a lot of other countries, Jan, that have the same exact Constitution as we do in many respects, have similar laws as we do on the books. Those countries don't have a lot

of freedom. And those countries, though dubbed democracies, don't work very well. They're dysfunctional. what's the difference in many respects between some of them? There is one difference that does exist for some of them. One of the major differences that you can often find is the values that exist amongst those in the society of that country. And in the United States of America, what many people often dubbed Judeo-Christian values really spread in this country by Christians,

right, are, whether you're secular and realize it or not, inform so much of the value system that folks in this country have. And I think it's an underpinning of what makes this country, one of the founding pillars that make it great. I think America really works well as a country because I think most Americans, they want to do good for the sake of doing good.

That's been my experience in this country. And I think that without that, it's very easy, no matter how good your laws, no matter how good your courts, for things to devolve and descend into what you see in other countries. The way I was called racist for this point when I made it at Berkeley. And I was in law school. But it's, you know, that pejorative doesn't erase reality. Why would that be considered racist? I don't know. You'd have to get into the minds of people that go to Berkeley. I've never really understood it. They told me that it was like white privilege or something.

And I said, are you talking to me? I'm like, I'm darker than all of you. I don't know what you're talking about. But anyway, let's not get into that. The important, I never really understood it. But the important point is that those values, they underpin. whether many people realize or not, I think a part of what makes this country so great. And having separation of church and state does give us the room here for folks to practice that religion freely and the shared values that I think most Americans have. And I think that it's worthy to protect those values. It's worthy to protect those who want to continue in the tradition of this country.

of living out their convictions, either for not only for their own sake, but because they provide an example, they provide a light to others, I believe, right? And not by the sword, not trying to, not by bullying people, not by badger people, but by being examples of goodness, being examples of what's right. And if there were any community that I wanted to, that I, you said, why would I do this, that I wanted to defend that I think helps provide that light. This is certainly one of them. And so it's my honor. It's my privilege, frankly, to represent them to try and fight for their rights. And I obviously really sincerely hope and pray that the Supreme Court will take this case on again and will again strike down what the Second Circuit has done so that the Amish just continue to live in peace

as they've done for 200 years and not to yet again have to be. packed their wagons to flee persecution, which is what they did when they came here. Why did they come to New York? They came here because, why did they come to the U.S.? Precisely because they had to flee once? Here they are. They came here for the promise of freedom. They've had it for all this time, and now the state of New York wants to take it away.

From what I understand, in most states in America, there's both religious exemptions and medical exemptions for vaccines, because these are the products that question here. And so why can New York State be different here? Well, they decided to repeal their religious exemption, and, you know, 48 states in America had religious exemptions. The only outliers at one point were Mississippi and West Virginia. Mississippi brought a federal lawsuit where the federal judge reinstated the religious exemption. We're in the middle of a lawsuit in West Virginia. Four states recently decided to repeal their religious exemptions, which is New York, Connecticut, Maine, and California.

And so why should they be able to be in this situation? They shouldn't. There should not be a state without a religious exemption because in my view, and I'm hoping the Supreme Court agrees with this, that the First Amendment of the Constitution provides protections for those who sincerely held religious beliefs that are contrary to the practices of receiving these products, to not have to, you know, in this instance, basically undo the Amish way of life in order to comply. So it shouldn't be that way, and we hope the Supreme Court will agree with that. And when it comes to medical exemptions, all 50 states do have a medical exemption. But that's not really, that's not the issue here, first of all. They have religious beliefs contrary to receiving these products. But they also are healthy.

among the families of the kids in these three schools, there's about 168 children, something like that. It's in our court papers. And they don't suffer from any of the chronic diseases that plague American children. In fact, we provided a declaration from a medical doctor that compared that population of the Amish children, explained that there should have been like 15 cases of asthma and a whole host of other medical conditions. And they don't have any of these. So these kids are healthy, so they don't have. cause for medical exemption. They apparently have been able to do that without the need to violate

the religious beliefs. They shouldn't have to violate the religious belief to, quote, unquote, make themselves healthier. And when you think about these over 160 children who are healthy, if this was about health, New York State should be looking at these kids as models and asking, why are they healthier? Why do these 168 approximately Amish children not suffer from the chronic health conditions that are plaguing over 40% according to the CDC. Some data reflects even higher of children in America today. And not only do they have chronic health conditions, often multiple, often far more severe, and this is up from under 10% of kids having a chronic health condition in America in the early 80s. What's changed? Well, maybe they should take a look at this community

instead of trying to force upon them the same type of lifestyle that is apparently something about it has resulted in that increase. Instead of New York State looking at this from that vantage point, they're just looking to go in and force their views on what will make this Amish community healthier. And if this was really about health, truly about health, then they would first study that. And then separately, they might begin by addressing over 90,000 other students who are apparently in schools in the state of New York who aren't compliant with the vaccine requirements. And they're not even seeking religious exemptions as far as we know. Why to start with them? Why start with the tiny relative to that?

Amish community. There's 20,000 Amish, only a small percentage of them are in school, right? But yet that's who you're going to go and persecute. That's who you're going to go after. I think that the state of New York, you know, it's like every religion. You always go after the apostates first. You always have those who appear to really, you know, refuse to adopt your beliefs in something. And New York State's got a certain set of beliefs. Those who are just, you know, getting or failing to comply or for whatever reason, they're not like apostates. They're not going to go and try to persecute them because they don't feel like they're, you know, refusing. The Amish, in other hand, do have genuine, sincerely held religious belief contrary to the practices that New York State wants.

And so maybe in that respect, they are being targeted for what, you know, those, there are members of the legislature who went to repeal the religious exemption. You know what they call the religious contrary to vaccination, the kind of beliefs of the Amish have, they literally called them garbage. And I think that that kind of thinking, unfortunately, not only permeates the members of the legislature who went and repealed the religious exemption in the state of New York to attend school without these products, but also those who are now trying to seek to persecute the Amish in the state of New York. I mean, just in general, is it even constitutional to allow for, you know, sort of no religious exemptions for any medical product? I mean, when it comes to these products, you know, if you can make an exception for secular reasons, so during COVID, if you could let Walmart state open, the Supreme Court,

held, wait a second, you can let Walmart stay open, you should be able to let the church stay open, right? If you can, if there is enough, if it is not such a medical imperative that you have to close everything and you can allow certain things to stay open, then you have to respect religious beliefs as well. If it's a medical imperative that no unvaccinated kids to be in school, then let them start with saying that. But they don't say that. They say, well, we can let unvaccinated kids in school, but we can only do it for a secular reason, a medical exemption. Well, if you can make room for accommodate secular exemptions, you should be able to accommodate religious exemptions. So you can accommodate folks who want to protect, you know,

on one, for some other secular reason, you should be able to protect those who want to protect their souls, their eternal souls from damnation. So this is this legal principle that you made me aware of when we were speaking earlier of strict scrutiny. Just kind of explain how that works. The simplest way I could say it is this, is that strict scrutiny is the standard that most fundamental rights are judged by in most context. So the government wants to infringe on your right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and so forth. It has to show a compelling interest, a compelling state interest. And if it can show that it's infringing in the smallest way possible, the least restrictive means,

that standard, unfortunately, is not since 1990 or under a decision called Smith, been the standard applied to religious freedom in this country. It should be the standard, but it's not under the Supreme Court jurisprudence since 1990. and I and many think that was a colossal mistake. And so in this case, what we have to argue is why the court should get to strict scrutiny, why this law is not neutral and generally applicable. And that is what the Smith decision found. It found that if a law is neutral and generally applicable, you don't get to strict scrutiny.

So we have, in this case with the Amish, we have to prevail in arguing to the Supreme Court that in fact, this law is not neutral in general applicable or requiring them to get these products unless it has a religious exemption. Yeah, and this is a bit confusing maybe because it seems like the Supreme Court already has a pretty clear opinion on this, right? Like they sent it back to the, they sent it back because they felt the decision was, you know, a problem back to the Second Circuit. Yes, but when they did that, they did it in a like, you know, in a few sentences without really fleshing it out. I think that in some ways they wanted to give the Second Circuit an opportunity to do the right thing, right?

And the Second Circuit didn't. you know, the Supreme Court takes very, very few cases every year. Very, very few. And so if it can avoid deciding an issue, I think that would be reflected by the, you know, the tiny, tiny percent of cases that seek cert review by the Supreme Court that it takes. And so in this instance, this case is specific to the Amish, and I think the Supreme Court wants to protect the Amish, but it is specific to the Amish, this particular case. And so, you know, there's a lot of issues that come before the Supreme Court. Many of them have national implications. And so, you know, it maybe was hoping that in New York state, and, and right now, it's only an issue that's specific to the Amish in New York. So it's not,

you know, affecting the whole country at the moment. And so, you know, maybe it was hoping the Second Circuit would do the right thing for the Amish in New York. Clearly they haven't, and the Supreme Court will hopefully take the case and weigh in. Not to beat a dead horse here, but it strikes me that this does have pretty profound implications for other faiths other than the Amish, because it would set a kind of precedent, wouldn't it? Well, I mean, to me, it should just set the precedent that religious liberty in this country should be respected, period. I tend to agree with you here, but if the decision goes in the other direction, it's setting the opposite president, not just for the Amish, right? Like, that's why it strikes me that this is something quite a bit beyond the Amish, isn't it?

You know, you make a very good point, actually, which is that, because I'm thinking about it from the perspective of prevailing. You're thinking about it from the perspective of if the Amish lose. If they lose, I agree with you. It has profound, in my view, national repercussions. I think that you might very well see judges across the country, you know, use that as a precedent to say, look, even an injection into the body amongst the Amish living, their lives separate and apart,

we don't have to respect under the First Amendment religious liberty. And so, you know, why should I respect your rights? Why should I grant you an injunction? Why should I stop the government from infringing on your religious freedoms? You're absolutely right. I was thinking about it from the other perspective that if the Supreme Court protects the Amish, this case is brought as an as-applied challenge for the Amish, which means that we're not seeking to strike down the law in New York for everybody

and say everybody has a religious exemption. This case is only seeking to restore religious exemption for the Amish. specific to them. They're in a specific situation. And so in that regard, if the Supreme Court rules for the Amish, it will be an Amish-specific decision, at least as to that particular case. But it is important, and it's why I was saying that, you know, if religious freedom is important writ large, and to your point, if the Supreme Court doesn't side with the Amish, it does. It can have very devastating consequences, I think. I'll give you a quick example, actually, you know, and it's this. Before they repealed the religious exemption in New York in the summer of 2019,

religious leaders across the state of New York actually lobbied the state of New York to repeal the religious exemption, as incredible as that sounds. And I met with some of these religious leaders. And I said to them, look, if you don't hold the long, if you don't hold the line at literally piercing the skin going into the body and injecting foreign matter and say that somebody can have a religious belief contrary to that practice. And you want to say, no, no, no. The government does not need to provide any respect for that religious, that view. And so what religious freedoms you have left?

what rights you think you're going to have left? And sure enough, some of these very same religious leaders were out there pounding the pavement and loudly protesting just a year later when their churches, when their synagogues, were shut down by the government during COVID, the COVID in 2020 and 2021. Right?

And here they were saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, how can you shut down my religious institution? Well, in some respects, those very same religious leaders had already ceded their rights to the government. They already said to the government, no, no, no, no, it's okay. You could take a religious freedom even when it comes to piercing the body. I mean, think about it. In terms of infringement, what's a greater infringement? That? Or just closing a building?

Anyways. No, I mean, this is pretty fascinating and important. And I think that for many of us, we don't think through the nuances of these decisions. And I suspect these religious leaders, likewise hadn't really thought through the ramifications of those decisions at the time. Well, you know, obviously that's not true of all religious leaders to be very clear. I mean, there's some incredible religious leaders. I mean, they will say that all are God's children.

I would, you know, and who will never, and it doesn't matter what state they're in, refuse to exclude any child from their school because they're God's children and they're going to raise that child in the faith, you know, that God commanded. With that said, the ones that I'm speaking of, yeah, maybe you can. give them a pass except that I told them the repercussions, but, you know, maybe they needed to hear from somebody else, not a lawyer. Aaron, tell me just a little bit about your background. How is, you know, I kind of asked you a little, I asked you earlier how you got into this issue specifically, but if you could just

tell us a bit about your practice and what you do. Sure. You know, I'm the manager partner of a law firm that's got. around 120 individuals in it. And about half the firm does, you know, plaintiff's side class action work, a lot of privacy to work. You know, we sue for data breaches, protect biometric privacy, genetic privacy. We've got the biggest practice on that, for example, or biggest practice in country that I know that sues for camera surveillance, flaw cameras, for example.

So we do internet artificial intelligence violations. In any event, we massive privacy practice. we do lots of other things in that regard. The other half of the firm I called, you know, I refer to just kind of the vaccine related practice, even though it's a bit of a mix where we do vaccine policy work. You know, that's the core of kind of what I focus on. And that is about impact litigation.

That's about assuring that everybody in this country, you know, has the freedom to, on the one hand, if you want to get a vaccine every single day and you want to wear a mask and you want to have a self-imposed stay-at-home order, I'll fight for your right to do that because this is America and that's freedom. Right. On the other hand, if you don't want to receive these products or wear masks on a plane or you name it, that's freedom too, that the government shouldn't be compelling you to do it.

Everybody should be free to do it. Anybody who wants to, you should wear one mask, two masks, five masks, ten masks, whatever they want to do. They can wear them from the start of the plane ride to end of the plane ride, but nobody should be compelled to do so. So we bring those cases on an impact basis to what could be most effective. So, you know, we challenge a mass mandate on planes during COVID on behalf of 17 members of Congress. We mentioned earlier, fought on behalf of members of the military so they wouldn't be kicked out.

We did the Air Force in the Army case. You know, we fight to get transparency by getting the updated release all of the documents that relied upon to license, for example, COVID-19 vaccine, so on and so forth. And then we also do a lot of things surrounding that, you know, we represent people injured by vaccines, but we can't do the manufacturer. we bring in something called the Vaccinejury Compensation Program. We help folks who want to get exemptions to vaccines, including an immigration, to immigrate legally without getting vaccination if they want. And we also represent people who are fired for refusing vaccinations. And our immigration and employment practice also do other things as well.

And a lot of that, and especially in the employment practice, folks around religious freedoms and the violation of employees' religious rights. I went to Berkeley for law school. I clerked for a year after that, and then I was working on one of the biggest firms in the country for five years, representing, you know, massive corporate interest, typically on the defense side. And then I opened my own firm, I was doing some of that initially, and then I switched over into doing plaintiff's side work where I sued big companies as I was just walking you through. And my very first vaccine-related crease, it was actually by a colleague of mine from the old firm. I was. at who was representing a nurse that had developed some serious disautonomic issues after getting an influenza vaccine. And he was going to work at the Department of Justice, which is actually on the other side of vaccine injury cases. Like I mentioned, you can't sue for vaccine injuries. You bring it in this federal program and against the federal government and the Department of Justice defends on the other side. So he said, hey, I got this case. Do you want it? Can you

take it from me? I can't keep representing this woman because I'm going to be going to work for the Department of Justice. And so I said, sure, and that was the very first vaccine injury case that I ever did, or the first vaccine case, I believe I ever did. So how did that work out? Oh, sure. Well, we got our compensation. You know, the Department of Justice, they're not a rational actor. You know, when you sue against most corporations, there are pressure points you can hit. Usually they're economic, they're reputational, you know, and you can bring them to settle at what I would call value.

With the government, though, in terms of economics, there is no pressure point. They just take more of your money. It's your money to begin what they're fighting you with, and then you can take as much as they want to fight you forever. So they don't care. And then, you know, reputationalally, they don't really care either. So there's not really much pressure point. So the entire attack the Department of Justice has in these cases is delay, delay, delay, delay,

and just basically to burn out not only the petitioner, but the lawyers, that are bringing the case until they finally get the the the client unfortunately will capitulate something unreasonable which i believe is typically what happens in this program uh to the extent that you know you even can get compensation because it's not you don't get like an article three judge you get a special master there's no rules of discovery you i mean there's no excuse me there's no real discovery as of rights you can't just go depose the company that made the product get their documents which you would normally do in a case to prove that it caused the injury so in any event But with that said, yes, we're able to get her compensation that in this program would be considered appropriate.

In a regular court, no. So as we finish up, Aaron, what's the timeline on all this? Well, the briefing on asking the Supreme Court to take the case, that will go on for a few more months. And then we'll get a decision. And then hopefully, God willing, the Supreme Court will take this case on to protect the And then we will have another round of briefing, which will then end up with oral argument, and then eventually we'll get a ruling from the Supreme Court. Any final thoughts as we finish?

Yeah, I mean, my final thought will be about, you know, putting this in an even bigger context of why this case and religious freedom in general is so important. You know, for me, what makes America so great and what really set it apart from all the forms of government for the most part that preceded the founding of this country is the respect for individual and civil rights. You know, when the founders wrote that, you know, we are all endowed with inalienable rights, it was in some respects a Judeo-Christian value, but it was also an incredible thing to use as the premise to found a nation, found a country to create a form of government. And what it was was really saying, look, we're not going to have a government like all the ones that preceded this where a king, a dictator, a central bureau is going to decide what's best for each one of us, we the people. We're going to decide that. We're going to create a government with limited rights. It's not allowed to infringe on our right to what we can say. It's not allowed to infringe on who we

assemble it. It's not allowed to infringe in what religion we practice go down the list. Okay? And that, to be sure, was not perfect when we started. But we've aspired toward that for over 200 years in this country. When I was growing up,

you know, this notion of individual and civil rights that we protect even the most despicable speech so that we can all protect our own speech. We protect the speech of neo-Nazis. Not because we like it. We abhor it. Because protecting their speech protects all their speech, that was an ethos that I think that most Americans appreciated and understood and valued.

And it really is what has made this country with that underpinning of values so great. And unfortunately, I think that we have seen particularly in the last five to six years an acceleration move away from that to this notion of what I call collectivism, where we, the group needs to seed their rights to the government because the government knows best, whether it's what you wear on your face or what you inject in your body, or where you're allowed to go out of your home or not, or whether you're allowed to go get a latte from the corner store in 2021, right? If you want to stay at home in 2020 or 2021 and get a vaccine and wear masks and never leave your house, should be free to do that.

But a World War II veteran who's got a lot of comorbidities, who wanted to not get a vaccine, not wear a mask, and go to a store and get a latte, and that store wanted to stay opening. Sell them not latte should have been free to do it. Because that's the liberty that individual fought for. And we lost our way a bit. And I hope that, you know, this case and the many other cases like it, we can go back to appreciating those liberties, those individual rights and freedoms,

in the manner that we've been doing for so long in this country, and not go in the other direction, which unfortunately some in this country, I think, are working very hard to move us in the direction of. So I will leave it on that note. And maybe add us one other point, which is this,

when people think about those rights, like religious liberty and freedom of speech and so forth, and they're trying to do that balancing, well, what's a compelling interest? You know, what was that intended, When can we infringe on that? When can the government impinge on that? Well, why don't we start by asking what life was like in 1791

when the First Amendment was ratified? When the First Amendment was ratified, disease and pestilence were rampant. And remember, those rights of religious liberty and free speech and so forth were intended to protect us from the government overreach in times that were even harder than those. Makes us, and if you really think about that, think about what it's like to live in 1791, how hard life was.

I think that you really can appreciate the line that was intended that should never be passed when it comes to our right to religious freedom and speech and so forth under the Constitution. And I hope we can get back to that, because that line, The line is the line that we've held for a long time, and it's beginning to slip. And I sure hope it doesn't slip further. And I think the Amish case truly is one of those, you know, make or break. It's that crossroad moment, which we're going to decide which way are we going as a society. Are we going to respect that light and continue on the path of greatness that has, of one of the shining principles made this country great of respecting those rights?

or are we going to go down and devolve into the path where we slowly seat all our rights to some central authority, as well meaning as the government could be, as smart as elected officials might be, but do we really want them making all the decisions for us in terms of how we live of life? I think that when we look around the world and we see other countries that are very limited civil individual rights,

we see those outcomes, maybe not initially, maybe even they're benevolent dictators. but they always end in the same way at the end. Well, Aaron Siri, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. I appreciate spending this time with you. Thank you. Thank you all for joining Aaron Siri and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Janja Kellick.