You know, Donald Trump, as I have said, has made it clear that much of the $3 trillion or so Leviathan which in theory reports to the American people via the President, Congress and the Supreme Court, really doesn’t. They do what they want, and if they break laws which might have been enforced, they do so secretly, and/or in places where they know they incur no real risk.
But COVID-19–rather, the response to this not very dangerous disease by our sundry governments–has made clear how STUPID and complacent and ignorant and lazy the American people are, as well as those of most other nations around the world. New Zealanders and Australians, to the extent they are putting up with their government’s bullshit, MAY be worse than us. But they have no guns, and no Bill of Rights.
But what good is a Bill of Rights if governments just need a GOOD EXCUSE? I can see the Constitutionality of tyrannical powers granted for SHORT PERIODS of time, but not a year. Not more than a year, which is where we are headed in many places.
Keep in mind that the excuse of emergency has ALWAYS been one of the best methods for tyranny. The mass beheadings in France? Mostly committed by the Committee for Public Safety. Hitler’s big power grab? Legislation enacted for public safety.
I really think the Supreme Court could and should rule on the entirety of the COVID lockdowns. Yes, there is a separation of Federal and State power, but the Constitution has often been used to compel States to offer rights to their citizens. This was the point of the 14th and 15th Amendments. We fought a war over States rights, and regardless of your personal feelings on the matter, it is pretty obvious which side won: the side that would allow the Supreme Court to tell the Governors of this country to knock this shit out, if they have not sought and received explicit Legislative approval, which is to say approval from folks much more directly responsive to popular opinion. If people WANT to be locked down, then by all means this is the right thing to do. It is their right. But if they DON’T–and this is the likelhihood for most–then these constrictions and restrictions violate, in absolute terms, the Constitution, and specifically the First Amendment, which guarantees the right to assemble. The right to assemble exists for historically solid reasons.
I lived overseas in Europe in high school for a year. When I got back I went around thinking that all Americans were stupid, and emotionally immature. I was, at that time, stupid and emotionally immature, and am not as much farther along now as I had hoped to be. But I was not wrong. There is something about hours of television from the earliest age, the food we eat, the way we structure our communities, and our work, that makes us stupid.
What is being done to us should not be possible. Our leaders should not have allowed it, and the People writ large should not have allowed it. This whole thing confuses and puzzles me daily.
But as I said in the last post, for some reason emotionally it is not hurting me the way it used to. I may just be finally growing into the man I have always hoped to be.