Posted on 03/23/2020 3:54:20 AM PDT by Kaslin
At various points in our 244 years of American history, the country has been occasionally faced with daunting calamities that caused widespread disruption to Americans’ daily lives including wars, economic depressions and pandemics.
Each crisis America has faced included their own unique challenges. Other than the Civil War, Americans have been able to circumvent the mass chaos and sometimes anarchy that evolves from various forms of legitimate and illegitimate panics that have arisen around the world from various causes. Many of these events changed world history, altered governments and set a new and drastically different course for many of their citizens – and too often these events caused dramatic shifts in power – and in some cases, mass genocide and anarchy.
The Spanish Flu was estimated to kill over 675,000 Americans in 1918 and 1919, yet the country avoided mass chaos. With the gigantic exception of the Civil War that cost over 600,000 American lives, we have been able to avoid cataclysmic government and societal changes for one reason: The United States Constitution and specifically The Bill of Rights.
Although the Founders never dreamed of the Covid-19 virus, they knew that governments of all kinds could seize upon national emergencies as an excuse to trample rights, seize power and alter government forever. King George III announced emergency acts and began to quarter soldiers in the colonists' own homes along with other draconian steps that ultimately led to revolt. Suddenly, the everyday freedoms that colonists believed were theirs as British subjects were instantly removed.
Although America has never officially been under martial law, (Lincoln came close to installing it in 1861), Lincoln committed other acts he felt necessary for the times via executive order, such as suspending habeas corpus (due process), arresting newspaper editors who were critical of him, even issuing an arrest warrant for a Supreme Court Justice. To this day there are still scholars who would argue those acts were justified for the times, despite their unconstitutionality. Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered Japanese Americans on the West Coast into internment camps via executive order after Pearl Harbor. Today, we repel in horror at that level of discrimination invoked by the government in time of war who at the time felt it was a prudent action under the circumstances.
As the Covid-19 virus begins to reach its zenith in the coming weeks, the pressure will be on President Trump, his administration and Congress, as well as state and local authorities, to balance public health concerns with individual rights as guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.
This is no easy task - especially if conditions deteriorate to the point hospitals are overloaded, the death toll escalates exponentially, consumer goods become scarce or the economy tanks even further.
Ben Franklin is attributed with saying, “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Undoubtedly, many Americans today would all too willingly give up some individual liberties for fear of the pandemic. It may even be a majority. Americans should rethink long and hard how much liberty they are willing to yield and balance that with a common-sense approach to defeating the virus.
Already, we are seeing disturbing encroachments into our Bill of Rights. Dane County, Wisconsin, opened a website for citizens to report other citizens not practicing social distancing. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott encouraged Texans to report any gathering of ten people or more, followed by the governors of other states. While public displays of larger crowds or those flauntingly ignoring the state and local requests for social distancing have justifiably received public rebukes, do Americans really want a snitch to report a 10-person family hunkering down in their own homes or a small bible study group looking to prayer to get them through the pandemic?
News reports began to surface this weekend that the Justice Department is asking for broad and sweeping emergency powers to deny due process (habeas corpus) and changes to trial procedures that could negatively affect a citizen’s defense at trial as well as a request to end the statute of limitations in certain cases. The president still retains many Executive Orders that were handed down by other presidents that have never been practically enforced or applied and therefore never challenged in the Supreme Court.
Lawmakers and government bureaucrats should tread diligently, but carefully on how they ask Americans to help them fight the virus, with always a mind to how their orders line up with our Bill of Rights.
At the heart of America’s DNA is a rugged individualism and an ability to persevere and rise to the occasion to defeat any enemy – even an invisible one.
We will pull together as a country and win this fight too – as long as our elected leaders and bureaucrats are transparent, thoughtful and don’t lose the public’s trust by invoking draconian measures that trample our Bill of Rights in the name of defeating the pandemic.
Yes, quite a balancing act: Trump and his supporters want to suppress the coronavirus, and the Democrats want to suppress the Bill of Rights.
And Pelosi and Schumer are suppressing a $1.6 trillion stimulus bill.
News reports began to surface this weekend that the Justice Department is asking for broad and sweeping emergency powers to deny due process...
Well that’s good to know :)
I went for a half hour drive before on Staten Island.
The shelter in place ruling went into effect last night at 8pm
There are no cops roaming the streets asking people why they are out.
Declaring something and then seeing the reaction after it’s enforced are two different things
someone posted this earlier:
26 Sept 2017: CNN: Flu season deaths top 80,000 last year, CDC says
by Susan Scutti
•The 2017-18 season ranks as the deadliest in more than four decades
•Record 900,000 flu hospitalizations last year
The season began with an increase of illness in November; high activity occurred during January and February, and then illness continued through the end of March...
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/26/health/flu-deaths-2017—2018-cdc-bn/index.html
how long can the Deep State/Dems/FakeNewsMSM keep up this scare, given -
Wikipedia: Flu season
In the United States, the flu season is considered October through May. It usually peaks in February.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flu_season#Timing
8 Jul 2019: WHO Europe: The 2018–2019 influenza season in Europe has finally drawn to a close, having begun in late November and peaked between late January and early February
http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/communicable-diseases/influenza/news/news/2019/7/the-influenza-season-is-over-for-now
following tells nothing about death rate, but nonetheless these are the latest figures:
23 Mar: Worldometers: Coronavirus Cases: 345,292
Deaths: World: 15,297
Deaths: US: 458
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
how will the alarmists get to the millions of deaths they are hoping for/predicting worldwide, in order to achieve their political ends and prove their theory about exponential growth?
it’s getting ridiculous.
Wait until Mandatory Quarantine meets up with Red Flag Law.
“Bubba left his trailer again. Clearly he’s an antisocial case, and can’t be trusted with guns.”
With this pandemic smothering the news we probably will never hear what actually happened to that Lemp kid in Maryland.
Every civic leader that has chosen to squash their constituents’ rights, vote them the truck out of office, show no mercy.
Trump is doing a splendid job of leading the nation through this crisis. Those who disparage him and his expert leadership look like the malevolent fools that they are.
(Malevolence is always foolish.)
It's obvious to everyone. The honest acknowledge it. This separates the honest from the malevolent for all to see.
Is the Constitution so fragile we must have this sky is falling pap every time something like this goes on? For every asshole who blows out this flatulence, there are 1000 men of good will who will defend this country and 10,000 beachgoers who say “No, way brah!”
I am a Trump supporter and I don't want suppress anything. Protect to elderly, self quarantine if you want to, isolate the infirmed and then let life go on for the the 95% of society. There is no reason to kill the stock market and economy to "suppress" what amounts to a bad cold.
‘vote them the truck out of office’
huh...?
...out of office, and straight to jail.
Problem is the political and media establishment consider the east and west coast big cities as “all of America”. Whatever happens in those big cities is all that matters.
The rest of the nation will have little pressure because of this virus, but you will not hear about it, and weak government officials will keep us in lockdown, even though any possible threat is low.
Preserving the economy is as important--perhaps more important--than conquering the coronavirus.
Large numbers of desperate, unemployed, suddenly impoverished people would be more dangerous than coronavirus infection.
I’ve been wondering the same thing.
What rights do we really have if they can be taken away with the snap of a finger by a panicky politician?
With the world connected like it is today, every clown with a keyboard can spread their mania worldwide in an instant, and the panic perpetuates.
Is that somehow better than the days when we had only the nightly network news, the morning newspaper, and conversations at the local diner to form public opinion? I’m not so sure.
Exactly. Quarantine efforts should be focused on those among us most at risk. Let everybody else go to work, keep the wheels turning, and use common sense to keep themselves healthy.
I’ve been shaking my head in disbelief since the uproar started and saying that when this is all over the powers that be will realize they took the panic way, way too far.
Re huh
Get their arses out!
Traitors #democratsareruiningamerica
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