Today’s News is filled with lessons on law, rights, the constitution, and Comrade Governors’ overreach. Don’t let a crisis go to waste! Know your rights and learn to defend them against overreaching orders and abuse of authority to “stay home,” “wear a face mask,” and orders to destroy your business.
RIGHTS AND THE CORONAVIRUS
Fox News 5-7-2020
- Judge Napollitano on the Hair Sylist in Dallas:
“https://www.foxnews.com/media/judge-napolitano-dallas-hair-salon-owner-jailed
Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano spoke to ” Bill Hemmer Reports” Wednesday about the case of Texas salon owner Shelley Luther, who was sentenced to seven days in jail Tuesday after she refused to apologize for defying coronavirus-related restrictions by remaining open for business.
“She was not convicted of violating Governor [Greg] Abbott’s guidelines because the guidelines are just guidelines,” Napolitano said. “They don’t have the force of law. She was convicted of violating a [county] judicial order to shut her salon. The judge who issued that order has no more authority to shut the salon than does the governor, who didn’t exercise any authority to shut the salon.
Dallas County Judge Eric Moye offered Luther the chance to avoid jail time by apologizing for being “selfish,” paying a fine and keeping her salon shut until Friday, when all salons in the state can reopen with restrictions.
But, being selfish is not a crime . . . nor is trying to feed your family.
- Judge Andrew Napolitano: Coronavirus crisis — Does America still have a Constitution?
“I have been taking some heat from friends and colleagues for my steadfast defense of personal liberties and my arguments that the Constitution — when interpreted in accordance with the plain meaning of its words, and informed by history — does not permit the government to infringe upon personal freedoms, no matter the emergency or pandemic.
For those who agree with me, worry not. We will persevere. For those who trust the government, worry a lot. You are not in good hands.
The purpose of the Constitution is to establish the government and to limit it. Some of the limitations are written in the Constitution itself. Most of the limitations that pertain to personal freedoms are found in the Bill of Rights — the first 10 amendments.
These amendments were ratified to restrain the federal government from infringing upon personal liberties. Since the enactment of the 14th Amendment in 1868, and subsequent litigation, these amendments, for the most part, restrain the states as well. The courts have characterized these protected liberties as fundamental.
So, the rights to thought, speech, press, assembly, worship, self-defense, privacy, travel, property ownership, interstate commercial activities and fair treatment from government are plainly articulated or rationally inferred in the first eight amendments. The Ninth is a catchall, which declares that the enumeration of rights in the first eight shall not mean that there are no other rights that are fundamental, and the government shall not disparage those other rights. The Tenth reflects that the states have reserved powers to themselves.
The Ninth was especially important to its author, James Madison, because of his view that natural rights –- known today as fundamental rights –- are integral to each person, and they are too numerous to list. In the next century, the anti-slavery crusader Lysander Spooner would explain it thusly: “A man’s natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, … or by millions, calling themselves a government.”
Natural rights collectively constitute the moral ability and sovereign authority of every human being to make personal choices — free from government interference or government permission.
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that government derives all its powers from the consent of the governed. And Madison understood the Ninth Amendment to declare that our personal choices are insulated from government interference so long as their exercise does not impair another’s rights.
From this, it follows that if governments interfere with our personal choices — and we have not consented to their power to interfere — the interference is invalid, unlawful and, because our personal choices are essentially protected from governmental interference by the Bill of Rights, unconstitutional.
- Abbott on virus restrictions: ‘No one should forfeit their liberty and be sent to jail for not wearing a mask’
Quote Hair Stylist: “”I have to disagree with you, sir, when you say that I’m selfish, because feeding my kids is not selfish,” Luther told Moye in response. “I have hairstylists that are going hungry because they would rather feed their kids. So sir, if you think the law is more important than kids getting fed, then please go ahead with your decision. But I am not going to shut the salon.”
Abbott told Hannity that Luther’s case is not the only example of local government overreach in Texas.
The governor said he’s also made it clear that people can’t be sent to jail for not wearing a mask, an issue that recently came up in Harris County, where Houston is located
“They were issuing fines and potential jail time for anybody who refused to wear a mask,” Abbott said (which is disputable). “Now, as you pointed out, wearing a mask is the best practice. However, no one should forfeit their liberty and be sent to jail for not wearing a mask.”
- Sen. Rand Paul: Coronavirus reaction — Is your government embracing tyranny?
“Of all tyrannies,” C.S. Lewis once observed, “a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.”
We’re seeing the truth of these words play out right now all across the country, and if you don’t believe me, just look at the headlines.
While we try to help each other stay healthy and safe, state and local authorities are seizing unprecedented amounts of power in the supposed pursuit of that goal, setting dangerous precedents along the way.
“Economic czars in the form of governors, including in my own state of Kentucky, are taking it on themselves to decree which businesses will live” and which will die.
The czars decide who can and can’t get medical treatment and restrict fundamental liberties such as the right to gather to worship.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear went so far as to tell some churchgoers their license plates would be scanned, and they would be forced to quarantine for two weeks – never mind that, having an interest in their own health, these worshippers are more than capable of conducting their services safely.
Innocence is not allowed to be presumed. Comply or else.
In Michigan, a self-appointed monarch dictates away basic needs such as landscaping. Not willing to let a little thing like the state legislature get in her way, she simply charges ahead and ignores it when it refuses to support continuing a state of emergency. Gov. Gretchen Wittmer seems to have forgotten she serves the people of Michigan and is not living in Buckingham Palace a century ago when subjects would bow obediently to their sovereign.
Incredibly, in California, a paddleboarder was chased, not by one but two government boats – all while he was about as socially distanced alone in the ocean as one can get. I’ve heard of high-speed car chases in California, but this might be the first high-speed boat chase involving a paddleboarder.
Concerns are also being raised both at home and abroad over excessive use of force.
In West Odessa, Texas, the county sheriff showed up with a SWAT team in response to a local bar reopening and protesters peacefully assembling. Surreal news footage shows the owner being taken away by an officer, hands behind her back.
Let’s take an important second to get something straight: I actually support the concept of states taking the lead in responding to the pandemic, and I applaud President Donald Trump for following this approach as he focuses on broader federal efforts that no state could do on its own.
But it does not excuse abuse of authority. It does not require executives to ignore their legislatures or place unreasonable or unconstitutional burdens on Americans, and we should call those overreaches out when we see them.
In some cases, authority figures are turning Americans against each other, echoing stories we once thought we would only hear coming out of the Soviet Union or Communist China as neighbors are encouraged to turn one another in to the authorities if they see or even suspect anything less than perfect compliance with often arbitrary guidelines.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, saying, “[W]e still know there’s some people who need to get the [social distancing] message,” has encouraged New Yorkers to take a picture when they think social distancing guidelines aren’t being followed and text it to the city. “[A]ction will ensue,” promises the mayor.
Is it any wonder, when tensions are already ratcheted up due to the virus itself, that we are seeing false accusations and outright violence and threats?
A dad and mom taking their young kids into a bank to try to open a joint account are criticized for supposedly not socially distancing enough and are – anonymously – turned in to Child Protective Services on false accusations.
A woman identified as a teacher in New Jersey wishes “a long, painful death” from coronavirus on students playing football. We read stories of alleged choking over social distancing, and the antagonism plays out in attacks online.
C.S. Lewis also warned us that “[t]he robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
There is little government cannot – and has not tried – to justify with the words “for our own good” or “to keep us all safe.” And once that justification – even if genuinely offered – is allowed to automatically stifle debate, actions build “without end.
You don’t have to look far back into our own history to see where such roads can lead, as the federal government’s response to 9/11 morphed into surveilling innocent Americans. Yet I and others cannot even bring the issue up in Congress without being accused of not taking our national security and safety seriously.
Already, we hear talk of how much additional surveillance we will be expected to tolerate due to the pandemic – for our own good, of course.
As concerning as these issues are, I remain encouraged by the many positive stories that exist of Americans coming together to face this challenge, and I am confident we will beat it as we have so many others.
But it’s imperative we do so while protecting both life and our unique way of life – defined as one that gives the benefit of the doubt to freedom and responds from that philosophical grounding.
Recent events again prove the Founders’ wisdom in deliberately spreading power out and decentralizing our system to try to curb infringements on our liberties.
That is supposed to set us apart, and it is up to each of us to make sure it continues to do so.
- Newt Gringrich: Coronavirus modeling – how our hysterical culture led to this reaction to pandemic
Two generations of over-protecting our children, seeking safe places, announcing “trigger warnings,” hyperventilating on social media, and having radio and TV starving for things to fill continuous 24/7 cycles have all built up to a crescendo of noise.
“If it bleeds it leads” is an old rule of local news. You can add to that the need to create suspense and to hype each event as big, bigger, the biggest ever (just think of weather reports during hurricane season).
The bigger the threat the better.
The larger the number the better.
Know your rights. Know the limitations of govment. Recognize govment overreach, and resist, resist, resist! The opposite of courage is NOT cowardice, but compliance.
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