Long ago and far away, Alexis de Tocqueville observed, "Americans are so enamored of equality they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom." Little did he know Americans' affair with equality would result in the evisceration of freedoms our forefathers fought a war to secure for us.

I had intended to follow up on the latest questions finally being asked about the imminent (albeit 30 years late) presidential visit to Vietnam. However, I suffered one of those ubiquitous computer hiccups that resulted in my column being damned to cyber Never Never Land. When I sat down to reconstruct it, I stumbled on a story that rivaled my contempt for our commander in grief.

Big Brother in the guise of New York State reportedly is starting to rip children from their families if or when parents refuse to have their children immunized with the questionable hepatitis B vaccine.

According to a report at Healthmall.com, "77 middle-schoolers will be yanked from home and taken into custody by New York state unless their parents agree to vaccinate them for a disease usually caught by drug abusers or the sexually promiscuous."

Some states still permit parents to "opt out" of certain vaccines. A growing compendium of scholarly writing suggests some vaccines are not necessary and still others are actually harmful. The recent military anthrax vaccination debacle is merely the latest and most publicized example of a significant public-health risk.

Nevertheless, perhaps as a prelude to Hillary-Care, "On October 10, students in Utica were sent home for failing to get hepatitis B vaccines by the state deadline. Parents were warned the children would be turned over to Child Protective Services for neglect if they were still without vaccination in 2 weeks." No options, no choice, no argument or apparent opportunity for redress. Parents in New York either comply with the questionable decision of a state bureaucrat, or the CPS Brown Shirts will come to take your children away from you -- presumably to vaccinate them against parental wishes.

This abuse of power under the color of authority is exactly the kind of Big Brother, you-do-it-because-we-tell-you-to-do-it hubris that inevitably is going to result in physical violence. This is not a public health issue; this is a control issue. New Yorkers are expected to surrender to the arrogance of the state "because we say so" and "we know better than you." What the hell is this? Did I miss the announcement that the Borg had assumed control and "you will be assimilated"?

Remember the disastrous Bill and Hill 1992 campaign pledge to create the Vaccines for Children Program? Before the implosion of Lady Macbeth's overreaching fascism, VFC was supposed to become the first domestic policy initiative of the most corrupt administration in American history. That moist excrement of a government program was designed as their first shot to pass the Health Security Act (and to governmentize a $900-billion industry).

Jane M. Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons said, "Their campaign to pass VFC was based on creating a false crisis by claiming that millions of children would be exposed to risk of disease without a government program." More to the point, Dr. Orient said, "This is Hillary-Care coming home to roost in N.Y. ..."

Why mandate the vaccine? Hey, because they can. You got a problem with that?

Damn straight I got a problem with that.

This vaccine like the anthrax vaccine and dozens of others may offer benefits, but it also carries unintended consequences that no government suit, or drug company pimp should be allowed to force on anyone.

This vaccine could be dangerous. This kind of health decision should be made by parents as an informed choice, not mandated as a government decree. Dr. Orient goes so far as to say, this particular vaccine "is a potential death sentence for some children."

Her fears are not arbitrary or capricious. "Government studies show that children under the age of 14 are three times more likely to die or suffer adverse reactions after receiving hepatitis B vaccines than to catch the disease itself."

The facts are that children are not especially at risk of exposure unless the mother is infected. Besides, hepatitis B is primarily an adult disease. And not just any or all adults. You have to earn the risk. The disease is usually spread by multiple sex partners, drug abuse or an occupation with exposure to blood. Who did the statistical analysis to determine the risk probability of young children? How many young children are sexually active and promiscuous or have an occupation -- let alone an occupation that exposes them to blood?

So why would a school district put children at risk of potentially serious medical consequences? Money, honey! They would lose big bucks in state funding if students do not comply with the vaccine mandate. The school district doctor, Mark Zongrone, who must have missed the part of his oath that says "do no harm" or else thinks it means his budget, actually said for God and everyone to hear, "We refuse to let that happen."

When faced with the challenge of deciding between his budget and the care of children, this dirtbag sycophant chose rectal defilade. The deepest, darkest corner of hell is reserved for Zongrone, and he'll deem damned for eternity to share it with his false god Hillary.

In his 1791 "Notes on Virginia," Thomas Jefferson wrote, "the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. For the conclusion of this war (for Independence) we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion."

Shall our rights revive or expire in a convulsion?

"It's obscene to seize a child and force him to the custody of strangers just because his parents refuse medical treatment they think is unnecessary or even dangerous," said Dr. Orient. "Parents, not Mrs. Clinton's village government bureaucrats, should make decisions about their children's medical care. We urge an immediate repeal of all vaccine mandates."

The sooner, the better.