An incoming Republican state lawmaker double- and tripled-down Monday on comments he made on Sunday where he equated slave ownership to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Walter Hudson, an Albertville City Council member and incoming representative from Minnesota House District 30-A, appeared as part of a panel discussion at an event in Bloomington Sunday put on by Mask Off MN.
In one part of the recorded presentation, Hudson said, “The plantation owner who said, ‘I need cotton, and you’re going to pick it’ is morally equivalent to the person today who says, ‘I don’t want to get sick, so you have to take the jab.’”
On Twitter on Monday, Hudson doubled-down, writing: “When you claim ownership over another person's life, which Tim Walz, Dr. Fauci, and the entire "public health" establishment did, you become a slaver. This is not my "claim." Forced vaccination is an annexation of human bodies, obviously.”
Later Monday afternoon, in an appearance with Chad Hartman on WCCO Radio, Hudson tripled-down.
“As a condition of being alive, you have to submit, you have to surrender your bodily autonomy to another person, another institution, another authority,” Hudson said about vaccine mandates. “That is an immoral claim.”
Hudson told Hartman he thinks the notion of mandates for certain jobs takes away each individual’s right to pursue what he or she feels is the best course for his or her life.
“I think the fundamental American idea is that we each, as individuals, own our own lives, and that means something,” Hudson said. “It means we get to direct the course of our lives and make decisions about what sorts of activities we are going to engage in, what sort of relationships we’re going to form.”