1/This is a great question and one that clearly needs to be addressed now. I attempted to briefly answer AA by first pointing to the right to peaceful assembly and then pointed to the justifications (on a federal level) used to quarantine.
2/I specifically used the word "justify" to distance myself from any advocacy of this kind of power. As Frederick Douglass has pointed out; "power concedes nothing w/out demand," and in this context we the people *are* the power and it is imperative we scrutinize this demand...
3/Is this virus as serious as people are claiming? What is the difference between this virus and influenza? Due to it's novelty, there is no established protocol in how the burden of the Chinese Coronavirus effects the population, but it should be known that the CDC doesn't...
4/...know how many people actually get the flu in any given season and can only extrapolate from the number of hospitalizations and deaths. They were a tad more specific in the pandemic of 2009, but post pandemic they lacked the necessary data to even guess on non-hospitalized...
5/...illnesses from influenza. Here is a paper on how the CDC estimates those numbers:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
6/I use that paper to shed light not just on how the ratio of illnesses from influenza to death is an extrapolation from hospitalizations, but also to underscore that the U.S. suffered a pandemic in 2009 where none of these extraordinary measures were taken to combat the illness.
7/For better or for worse, these extraordinary measures of lock downs and quarantines are not exactly new. 1878 a severe outbreak of yellow fever reached a fever peak in Tennessee leading to 200 deaths a day and ultimately 20,000 dead of the reported 80,000 who had the illness.
8/This marked the first time the federal government assumed authority regarding quarantines. After a cholera outbreak a few years later, in 1892 the federal government assumed even more power in this matter. An estimated 150,000 or 2 to 6 deaths a day between 1832 - '36 for...
9/...the first two of three waves of cholera outbreaks. The Public Health Service Act has evolved to what it is today. It is important to pay attention to the language and what specifically is allowable by government. 42 U.S. Code §264 it "does not provide...
10/..for the apprehension, detention or conditional release of individuals *except* for the purpose of preventing the introduction, transmission or spread of such communicable diseases as may be specified from time 2 time in Executive Orders..."
law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42…
law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42…
11/All of this is regarding federal authority. What states are doing is a different matter and what needs to be looked at is those state constitutions weighing individual rights against the presumption of authority. I noted in AA's thread that the 2 state constitutions...
12/...I cited (TX and CA) both couched the acknowledgment of the right to assemble as one being an assembly for the common good. Legally, this distinction has meaning. I state this before arguing that lock downs are not the same as quarantines, and that these lock downs do not...
13/...necessarily demonstrate any pursuit of the common good and should be eyed suspiciously. Power grabs are power grabs and power concedes nothing w/out demand. Just because the authoritarian state of China did it or the formerly fascist state of Italy did it isn't enough...
14/...to *justify* any state w/in the United States to do it. One of those justifications is probably due to the lack of test kits to identify carriers. Make no mistakes about it, both the CDC and FDA are culpable in this lack. Should the President use his authority to sidestep..
15/...the regulations causing the delay? Certainly he should. Is the President worried that if he does he'll only get impeached again? Probably, wouldn't you if you were in his shoes? The gross negligence of government on both the state and federal level of its duties...
16/...expressly laid out by constitution in favor of dubious power grabs that correlate highly with the demise of the middle class, homelessness and bevy of other social ills that do not in anyway constitute the common good has led to this moment. Tragically, it's axiomatic...
17/...that people get the government they deserve. This gross incompetence is a pandemic in itself and it has quickly spread to the MSM who are not only incompetent, but too many of them (recklessly or willfully) inciting panic. No one has the right to incite panic.
18/Not the common individual, not the media, and not the government. The gross incompetence has gone too far and these lock downs should be not just eyed suspiciously but smartly challenged. To do so means understanding not just the Constitution but also understanding how...
19/...what the Supreme Court thinks that Constitution means on both state and federal levels. The problem with this kind of legal challenge and assuming one can find standing to sue, is that it would take years before an outcome will be reached.
20/The people must demand now that test kits be made available and those test kits continually tested for their efficacy in an effort to move government from the proclivity to lock down to the less odious circumstance of quarantine. That can be achieved in less time than suing...
21/...for deprivation of rights might achieve. The deprivation of rights, however are very serious matter and we the people have become far too tolerant of them. What this pandemic exposes is way past alarming. If the CDC doesn't exist to limit the threats of pandemics via...
22/...rapid testing of those that might be quarantined then just what is their purpose? If FDA or USDA regulations harm more people than they help then what is their purpose? Perhaps this:
23/It's as if these abuse of power grabbers can't disguise their own glee at the prospect of trampling upon the rights of individuals. How have we allowed it to get to this and just what are we going to do about it?
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