Word came today that the hypocrite governor of California — fresh from getting caught attending a closely packed indoor meal while wearing no mask — is once again putting his constituents on house arrest. Anyone who does not follow the governor\’s orders will be arrested. In the name of preventing COVID-19 from spreading, the penalty for violating any of these arbitrary dictates (which the governor will not follow himself) is to be thrown in jail, at close quarters with other prisoners. There, you will almost certainly contract COVID-19, which means this whole process is a farcical exercise of dictatorial power.
No governor has the authority to forbid his or her citizens from making a living. No politician in any position of power in the United States has the authority to place all citizens on house arrest, forbidding them to leave their homes under penalty of arrest. These are unconstitutional orders at every level. of government — local, state, federal. But we as Americans might tolerate these arbitrary exercises of power if they actually stopped the spread of COVID-19.
They don\’t.
No amount of \”locking down\” or \”quarantining\” stopped the virus from spreading before. No amount of doing so now will make a difference, either. The simple fact is that our measures aren\’t significantly slowing the spread of COVID-19… but they ARE ruining Americans.
Across the nation, Americans aren\’t just being destroyed financially by ruinous lockdowns. They\’re also be arrested for the \”crime\” of running a business or even for choosing not to wear masks. When the lockdowns first started, people were arrested for things like playing outside in the park or surfing alone in the ocean. Not only are such arrests onerous infringements on our civil rights, but they\’re utterly arbitrary. How does arresting someone who is outside, alone, for \”violating lockdown\” — and then putting that same person in a jail environment where they are almost guaranteed to contract COVID-19 — possibly do anything to slow the spread of the virus?
Viral video from California shows a woman whose business is being destroyed by lockdowns… who is now watching a movie production company set up what is essentially the same \”business\” across the street. This is because the entertainment industry has been exempted from California\’s lockdowns. These exceptions are the key to why none of these lockdowns, none of putting Americans on house arrest, are constitutionally, morally, or even logically acceptable. If a woman running outdoor dining at her cafe is an unacceptable risk of exposure, people eating outdoors as part of catering for a movie is unacceptable as well. How is one woman forced to shut down under threat of arrest, while the production company is not?
None of this begins to touch, of course, the monstrous hypocrisy and logical evasion that was the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots this past summer. Over and over again, both groups were given a free pass to violate quarantine and lockdown orders (to say nothing of the free pass they were given to do two billion dollars worth of damage to public and private property). Any hope we had of preventing the spread of COVID-19 through contact-tracing and isolation ended when these thousands of people were allowed to gather in public. There should never have been any attempt to return to unconstitutional lockdowns following those events.
The lockdowns have been a horrifying failure. Not only did they do nothing to slow the spread of COVID-19, but the cure has been worse than the disease. The damage done to people through delayed medical care for non-pandemic issues, isolation of the elderly, depression and mental illness, and the staggering economic impact of forcing the nation\’s businesses to shut down, will go down in history as the worst mistake of public policy ever committed. We are paying for our follies now, even as we see a surge in coronavirus cases despite all additional the hardship we\’ve inflicted on our population. The harm done by the pandemic does not even begin to justify the harm we\’ve done to our people intentionally.
Recently, a bar owner\’s establishment was raided for the \”crime\” of opening for business. The cops who arrested him for running his business swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. The politicians who ordered that bar owner to shut down swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. The patrons and protesters who gathered outside the establishment played Twisted Sister\’s We\’re Not Gonna Take It while shouting what everyone involved should already know: What is happening violates our Constitutionally protected civil rights. Every person in authority who knowingly arrests, harasses, or punishes Americans for the \”crime\” of making a living  is forsaking that oath to uphold our nation\’s ideals.
This has got to stop — and it\’s clear that, unless and until every American refuses to comply with unconstitutional mandates, this misery will never be over.
