Posted on 12/30/2020 6:42:19 PM PST by CheshireTheCat
Thanks in large part to Covid lockdowns, this year has left vast wreckage in its wake, with ten million jobs lost, more than 100,000 businesses and dozens of national chains bankrupted or closed. Up to 40 million people could face eviction in the coming months for failing to pay rent, and Americans report that their mental health is at record low levels. But the casualty list for 2020 must also include many of the political myths that shape Americans’ lives.
Perhaps the biggest myth to die this year was that Americans’ constitutional rights are safeguarded by the Bill of Rights. After the Covid-19 pandemic began, governors in state after state effectively placed scores of millions of citizens under house arrest – dictates that former Attorney General Bill Barr aptly compared to “the greatest intrusion on civil liberties” since the end of slavery. Politicians and government officials merely had to issue decrees, which were endlessly amended, in order to destroy citizens’ freedom of movement, freedom of association, and freedom of choice in daily life. Los Angeles earlier this month banned almost all walking and bicycling in the city, ordering four million people to “to remain in their homes” in a futile effort to banish a virus.
The Rule of Law is another myth impaled by 2020’s dire developments. Courts have repeatedly struck down sweeping restrictions. Federal judge William Stickman IV invalidated some of Pennsylvania’s restrictions in a September ruling: “Broad population-wide lockdowns are such a dramatic inversion of the concept of liberty in a free society as to be nearly presumptively unconstitutional.” After the Michigan Supreme Court effectively labeled Governor Gretchen Whitmer a lawless dictator, she responded by issuing “new COVID-19 emergency orders that are nearly identical to her invalidated emergency orders,” as the Mackinac Center noted....
(Excerpt) Read more at aier.org ...
Good post.
“Perhaps the saddest casualty of 2020 is the myth that average Americans cherish their personal freedom.”
Yep.
Also the myth that our elections are fair and our vote counts
Even here on FR some seem to believe that insisting on our civil liberties is somehow selfish.
Well, we have our work cut out for us.
It really happened in January 2009, but now everybody gets that the Constitution is a dead letter.
Since the beginning of the scamdemic the ACLU has been quite conspicuous by their silence. Not even a generic press release reminding elected officials to be mindful of people’s CIVIL LIBERTIES when enacting mask mandates and shutting down “non essential” businesses. Tells me all I need to know
So true. The quislings pukes are insufferable.
Also gone: any remaining concern about the crippling national debt and Fed balance sheet.
Jan 20 will decide whether the republic ends in 2021 or whether its end can be delayed til after we’re all passed on.
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