Lockdown

[Martin Hash]

The Corona virus scare has been a bit of an eye-opener: the virus lockdowns, if they did nothing else, certainly exposed the strong authoritarian impulses of politicians, particularly governors; most surprising, Democrat female governors. Never during my lifetime have fundamental Constitutional Rights been denied so quickly and so easily, but supposedly it happened in the past. Back then it was more difficult to expose abuses, like putting people in jail for going to work. But even reading history, something else is going on behind the scenes: I think what's different now is that the political atmosphere is so toxic, with a constant drumbeat of TDS propaganda, that many people, consciously or subconsciously, want the economy to falter and Americans to be angry, so that they'll vote Trump out of office.

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I'm also concerned about the hoarding (toilet paper of all things?), the special Snitch Lines to turn in your neighbors for taking their kids to the park, and the never-ending sanctimony of people who don't have to work for a living over those that do. And the whole lockdown response doesn't make medical sense: the justification given was to keep the hospitals from getting overcrowded (the opposite actually occurred) but that has since morphed into waiting for a vaccine, drug, or widespread testing (it's not clear what the testing would accomplish?) I learned about respiratory viruses in Medical school: there are no vaccines for the Common Cold, which is basically what this is, and no drugs that would prevent it or cure it. For colds, you're told to suffer through the week of symptoms before your immune system kicks in. If someone's immune symptom is compromised, they could get pneumonia and die, and about 50K people per year in the U.S. do. At first Corona virus was compared to the flu, then that became politically incorrect because supposedly it was going to kill 10x as many people, but after a couple month's, it actually is looking more like the flu, so the proper response would have been what some nations, like Sweden, did; voluntary compliance with practical safety measures while isolating those at risk. In the end, after all the numbers were in, their results were the same as nations that subjected their citizens to draconian lockdowns. Constant reminders on Social Media don't do a damn thing.

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Our society has drifted so far towards egalitarianism that the assumption is that if everyone can't leave their house then no one can; and, of course, rational discussion after shouting, “you're trying to kill my grandmother,” is impossible. What we're asked to do is ridiculous: masks don't stop viruses, especially masks made by your mother on your grandmother's sewing machine; and staying locked in your home actually suppresses your immune system. Nothing makes sense but to treat this outbreak like every other severe flu season: quarantine those who are at risk, and let everybody else get exposed until herd immunity stops transmission, hot weather comes, and the whole thing goes away. Nature will cure this though nature ain't going to cure sanctimonious egalitarianism. For my part, I've probably already had COVID19, as have you, so I'm going Corona Cruising, and maybe get arrested?

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[DBTrek]

Judges rate this one 10/10.

[Kage87z]

OK. Thoughts on this, councilor?

Regarding personal liberties VS state-issued stay-at-home and other pandemic orders, the US Supreme Court addressed this issue over 100 years ago, in Jacobson v. Massachusetts 197 U.S. 11(1905)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-constitu ... 1584659429

“The Constitution,” Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote for a 7-2 majority, “does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint.” Instead, “a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic.” Its members “may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand.”

States also have the power, beyond criminal law enforcement, to make quarantine and isolation effective. If presented with widespread noncompliance, governors may call National Guard units to put their orders into force, to safeguard state property and infrastructure, and to maintain the peace. In some states, individuals who violate emergency orders can be detained without charge and held in isolation."

The authority of the State to enact this statute is to be referred to what is commonly called the police power -- a power which the State did not surrender when becoming a member of the Union under the Constitution. Although this court has refrained from any attempt to define the limits of that power, yet it has distinctly recognized the authority of a State to enact quarantine laws and "health laws of every description;" indeed, all laws that relate to matters completely within its territory and which do not, by their necessary operation, affect the people of other States. According to settled principles, the police power of a State must be held to embrace, at least, such reasonable regulations established directly by legislative enactment as will protect the public health and the public safety. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 22 U. S. 203; Railroad Company v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465, 95 U. S. 470; Beer Company v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S. 25; New Orleans Gas Co. v. Louisiana Light Co., 115 U. S. 650, 115 U. S. 661; Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133.

It is equally true that the State may invest local bodies called into existence for purposes of local administration with authority in some appropriate way to safeguard the public health and the public safety. The mode or manner in which those results are to be accomplished is within the discretion of the State, subject, of course, so far as Federal power is concerned, only to the condition that no rule prescribed by a State, nor any regulation adopted by a local governmental agency acting under the sanction of state legislation, shall contravene the Constitution of the United States or infringe any right granted or secured by that instrument. A local enactment or regulation, even if based on the acknowledged police powers of a State, must always yield in case of conflict with the exercise by the General Government of any power it possesses under the Constitution, or with any right which that instrument gives or secures. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 22 U. S. 210; Sinnot v. Davenport 22 How. 227, 63 U. S. 243; Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co. v. Haber, 169 U. S. 613, 169 U. S. 626.

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Is it right, fair or just? Maybe. Maybe not.

Is it Constitutional?

Sure looks like it to me.

[Martin Hash]

Only under "strict scrutiny." Prospectively, especially with wildly overexaggerated claims, State authorities were granted lots of leeway. That's over now, the data is in; it was mostly lies with ulterior motives we can only guess at? Like power-mongering, Climate Alarmists taking the opportunity to shutdown progress, negative Chinese intentions, or simply plain incompetence because the people who tend to get authority are the ones who shouldn't have it.

[C-Mag]

Well said Martin Hash the Polymath.


I think we will look back on the era of Trump as how it has revealed peoples true nature. Those you've mentioned who so easily adopt tyrannical authority and submission.

But it has also shown the country to have a core of liberty minded folks pushing back.

[DBTrek]

[C-Mag]

I've been amazed at some of the people I know so readily go along with some of these policies when a logical look at available information does not support the radical moves.

[DBTrek]

I know.
Whatever happened to just talking shit about people behind their backs?
Now folks want to get the police involved all the time.
Used to just be "Those assholes are having a house party, what a bunch of dipshits"
Now it's "HELLO, 911?!? THERE IS A HOUSE FULL OF PEOPLE VIOLATING STAY AT HOME ORDERS...."

[C-Mag]

Now they are talking about a health passport.

We are a few degrees away from digital currency and govt approval to buy food

[TheReal_ND]

Kill all grandmas