This will be my last post on the subject but it seems you are missing the point, perhaps because it is incongruent with specious claims of moral superiority and empathy. Nobody, including me, is in favor of death, delays, inconveniences, cold feet or stale bagels.
What we are less in favor of is government constantly asserting its importance and primacy regardless of the circumstance. We are even less in favor of government issuing threats. This site exists specificially to oppose these ideas and tactics.
The dramatic ‘if it saves one life’ canard has been used to justify soft tyranny in this so-called free nation for decades. It has resulted in appalling government overreach that has been accepted by far too many people.
Individuals may show concern and justifiably so but they seem to believe that government’s version of concern is of the same flavor and purity as theirs, merely collected and concentrated when quite the opposite is true.
Officialdom is worried about officialdom. It is focused on its own importance. Its actions and reactions are rarely, if ever, proportional to the stated problem, even a widespread one.
In all candor, it puzzles and alarms me when any user of this site who is presumably conservative, libertarian, etc. suddenly condones government hegemony due to a newsworthy local event, however dangerous. It seems to say that such principles and being responsble for one’s own actions should be disposed of the moment public employees make draconian pronouncements.
There are many instances on FR where freepers from other parts of the country do not understand New York.
In this case, it is not a matter of “if one life can be saved,” because as I already explained we have an emergency every 15 minutes. The area that I live in has a population density of 110,000 people per square mile.
I do not think this particular edict was overreach. Last evening there were people all over the streets, walking their dogs, letting their children out after a day of being cooped up, even cross-country skiing I was told (although some out-of-towner on Facebook suggested that Trump shoot them with a tranquilizer dart). I’m guessing that the rule will be lifted as soon as the streets are sufficiently plowed.
We have to care about one another here, because with so many people living here situations can soon devolve into tragedy. The one thing de Blasio has done right is to take drastic measure when lives are in danger. I wish he had more concern for the Constitution as well, but in this case he was right.