Almost as soon as they started to bubble up I’ve been trying to keep all the links portraying how roughshod various Governors have gotten and overstepping their bounds with ignoring Constitutional Values and precepts and, perhaps, what their reactions have been. Trust me, there are a TON of them so it’s going to take a while but, as I have alluded to earlier, I would put them up. So, a few now:
Religion:
- The Blaze – San Bernardino County, CA County’s Acting Health Officer: $1,000 fine and possible jail time (90 days) if violations of the following are found:
- prohibited physical attendance at public church and other faith-based services
- banned “driving parades
- mandated face coverings in public areas.
- American Theater: Examples abound of pastors of churches being threatened, fined, even jailed, for refusing to suspend religious worship during this period where “social distancing” is a matter of life and death. This leads to myriad questions that deserve much attention and discussion, not least of which is how state governments have any authority to obstruct the First Amendment right “to peaceably assemble” or to prohibit “the free exercise of religion.” How all of this of this is consistent with any modern understanding of an incorporated Bill of Rights, as the United States Supreme Court currently holds as the jurisprudential standard, is anyone’s guess.
- Conservative HQ: Indiana’s Republican Governor Eric Holcomb issued orders telling Christians how worship must be done and with stricter rules than for all other public gatherings describing who couldn’t attend (elderly), parking, no buildings, regs for “drive in worship”, etc.
Testing:
- Conservative Treehouse: LA makes face coverings mandatory
CNSNews – Fed Reserve St Louis CEO:
- people should be tested daily
- wear an armband to show they’ve been tested (hmmm, did he forget about the Jewish stars by the Nazis?)
Guns:
- Conservative Treehouse: LA Sheriff shut down gun stores (non-essential)
Services:
- Conservative Treehouse: LA Mayor shuts down water and electricity for those businesses defying stay at home orders
Police State (Stasi):
- Washington Examiner: NYC Mayor (and Socialist) de Blasio told his residents to snitch on people not doing social distancing and send a picture of them into the city officials.
- The Blaze: use 311-692
- Fox News: : Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said this week that ‘snitches’ in his city will get “rewards” if they tattle on neighbors who could be violating the stay-at-home order put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus,
- PJ Media: Crackdowns on Lone Surfers and Paddleboarders Threaten to Erode Respect for Law Enforcement Even Further
- Hot Air: Our Emerging, “Social Distancing” Police State Is Beyond Disturbing…The Mayor of a town near where I live was quoted as saying he was “fed up” with nonessential businesses that were still open, people not obeying the shelter in place orders and others failing to follow social distancing protocols…Mayor Gimenez’s executive order limiting gathering in public places to 10 people or fewer while maintaining a safe distance has gone into effect. County police officers are now out enforcing those new rules…In the greater Boston area, police have been recorded stopping people walking along on the sidewalks and asking them, “why are you out in public?” And if the job turns out to be too much for the cops to handle, plans are already in place to mobilize the National Guard in many states and dispatch them to enforce these rules…Is it just me, or are any of you starting to feel distinctly uneasy?
- Conservative Treehouse: Kansas City Directorate of Coronavirus Compliance Urges Citizens to Snitch on Their Neighbors…
- American Thinker: How a police state is born – When societies lose their freedom, it is not ordinarily because autocrats or tyrants have forcibly taken it away. It is usually the result of the population willingly surrendering their freedom in return for protection against an external threat. While the threat is oftentimes real, it is invariably exaggerated.
Non-essential retail:
- Washington Examiner: MI Governor Gretchen “Half” Whitmer: can’t buy “carpeting, flooring, furniture, garden centers, plant nurseries, or paint”
Travel:
- Washington Examiner: MI Governor Gretchen “Half” Whitmer: Can’t travel to second homes
- Washington Examiner: MI Governor Gretchen “Half” Whitmer: can’t use motorized boats
- Washington Examiner: MI Governor Gretchen “Half” Whitmer: Rights to garden, boat, or travel are weather dependent
- Constitution Center:
Failure by Government agencies:
A delay by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in quickly making coronavirus test kits available was the result of “a glaring scientific breakdown” at the CDC’s central lab, The Washington Post reported Saturday, citing scientists and federal regulators.
The Post reported that CDC facilities which assembled the testing kits “violated sound manufacturing practices, resulting in contamination of one of the three test components used in the highly sensitive detection process.”
Right to Private Property:
- Twitter: NY Governor Andrew Cuomo: “We do not have enough ventilators. Period. I am signing an Executive Order allowing the state to take ventilators and redistribute to hospitals in need. The National Guard will be mobilized to move ventilators to where they are urgently required to save lives.”
- RedState: CA Gov Newsome mandates that banks immediately halt evictions and foreclosures.
Freedom:
- MercatorNet: End the shutdown: Freedom is more important than (the illusion of) security
- American Thinker: When societies lose their freedom, it is not ordinarily because autocrats or tyrants have forcibly taken it away. It is usually the result of the population willingly surrendering their freedom in return for protection against an external threat. While the threat is oftentimes real, it is invariably exaggerated.
Just plain Authoritarianism:
- Conservative Treehouse: Michigan Democrat Governor Threatens Licenses of Doctors and Pharmacists Who Prescribe Hydroxychloroquine to Treat Coronavirus…
Remake the US / World into a Progressive society:
- Daily Wire: California governor Newsom said, “forgive me for being long-winded, but absolutely we see this as an opportunity to reshape the way we do business and how we govern. And that shouldn’t put shivers up the spines of you know one party or the other. I think it’s an opportunity a new for both parties to come together and meet this moment and really start to think more systemically, not situationally, not just about getting out of this moment, but more sustainably and systemically to consider where we can go together in this historic moment if we meet it at a national level, in a state, and sub-national level. So, the answer is yes.”
- RedState: Are we turning from being a Republic to a Technocracy? When the Founders signed their names to the Declaration of Independence, they were saying in effect: “These principles are so important to us that we will die on the gallows before we give them up.”…Moreover, if the government can do anything it pleases during a crisis, then what good are civil liberties? Any time the government powers want to enact an unprincipled change, all they must do is declare a ‘crisis’ of one sort or another. There’s always a crisis near at hand. Civil liberties are supposed to be a red line of principle the government may not cross, no matter the cost, so as to hold back mankind’s perennial tendency toward government tyranny and societal self-destruction.
- RedState: We Have Sacrificed Our Constitutional Freedoms to Fight a Virus; Will We Ever Get Them Back? Smarter people than me have noted over the years that totalitarianism always arrives wearing a smiley face…The extent to which the government, at all levels, driven on by the frenzied bleating of our national media has used this virus to lay siege to our civil liberties has been nothing short of astounding. The degree to which Americans have gone along with this slow-motion revolution has been shocking.
- The Truth About Guns: There Is No COVID-19 Exception In The United States Constitution
- RedState: Newsom takes the scenic route to get to the answer, but when he does get there he admits fully that, yes, this crisis is an opportunity to fundamentally change America.“There is opportunity for reimagining a progressive era as it pertains to capitalism,” Gov. Newsom said. “So yes, absolutely we see this as an opportunity to reshape the way we do business and how we govern.”