Who's Going to Pay the Bills?: Purpose-Driven Coronavirus Business Shutdowns Cause Economic Catastrophe

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I am grateful for living in a province with a ruling party that is here for the people and doesn’t impose draconian measures just because they can.
We agree on that much. Just because a governor legally has the discretion to restrict activities that in theory will help to prevent the spread of disease doesn’t mean that any way they can use that power is wise. Obviously, an action meant to prevent one kind of harm can cause another kind of harm without preventing the first.
It’s okay to buy marijuana or alcohol at dedicated outlets in Michigan, but considered dangerous to buy seeds to plant vegetables or to buy a garden hose.
I joked with a medical professional about whether liquor stores were essential and he responded that, yes, actually, it would be a big problem medically if all the people who habitually abuse alcohol were to be plunged into DTs at the same time. As for marijuana, Michigan recognizes marijuana as a medical treatment.
(The list of conditions is rather long: https://www.michigan.gov/lara/0,4601,7-154-89334_79571_83746-449306--,00.html)

Having said that, I’m glad that our state has allowed businesses that can operate with physical distancing to keep operating. They did unfortunately close down public recreational areas, but that was only after the people doing the patrols were having too much trouble preventing citizens from using them for gatherings that were over the limit needed to prevent transmission clusters. For the safety of people doing the patrols, the areas are closed and it is trespassing to use them.
 
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This is not a debate; debates have judges as to who has the winning logical argument; you do not provide logical argumentation but personal attack by calling the opposite “side” to be “taking sides” and call the opposite “side” to be “fully attached” and “pessimistic” while suggesting you are “detached and optimistic”. That is not an argument about the OP, but about suggesting readers should ignore your opponent because of personal defect and not listen (might they hear something you do not want heard?)
No, you do not debate nor know how.
And you need to read more carefully. There are sides in a debate and there are sides to an issue.

Whether or not individuals on either side of a debate or an issue are “fully attached” or not depends upon how willing they are to look at the facts and evidence in a detached manner. Someone can be wholly engaged and on side BECAUSE the evidence takes them there, but that does not imply they are NOT open to evidence. So they can be BOTH engaged and detached at the same time.

When someone misrepresents a point, quite often that is an indicator that they are not open to evidence BECAUSE they are seeing what has been said through a filter rather than a clean lens. Leaf did that with the Fauci comment.

The Victor Davis Hansen article I cited was purely a “logical argument” looking at what are recognizably pessimistic “sides” vs optimistic “sides” regarding a pending issue with real-life consequences.

There are such issues in real life. The COVID-19 pandemic and what to do about it is one such issue — I pointed out the additional one of climate change with a poke at @LeafByNiggle. I have responded to Leaf approximately 667 times in the past several years — I would roughly guess that about half of those have been with reference to climate change. a provocative poke here and there keeps the debate lively. Well, for most with a proper sense of intellectual detachment from the issue — which, by the way, is appropriate and healthy even when a pandemic is raging.

That you are going to insert yourself into this “debate” as if you have fully gauged what is going on should give you pause to rethink.

Oh, I know how to debate just fine thank you. To begin with I won’t accuse you of being unable to debate, I will take you on point by point. To simply dismiss the other party with “you do not debate nor know how” doesn’t begin to rise to the level of a “response” in any form. It is merely a personal attack.

I typically shrug those off since anyone who addresses a post by using that approach typically does so because they don’t have much of a point to make to begin with.
 
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HarryStotle:
Right, so NO WORRIES about government tyranny?
Not unless President Trump actually gets total authority.

Oh, sorry, where did I get it that he said that…because we can’t go around trusting “the media.”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...ers-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-25/
Q Mr. President, just to clarify your understanding of your authority vis-à-vis governors — just to be very specific: For instance, if a governor issued a stay-at-home order —
THE PRESIDENT: When you say “my authority” — the President’s authority. Not mine, because it’s not me.
I suppose you have looked at the ‘authority’ of the President of the United States, having to do with the subject we’re talking about…" and you have determined that according to the law the President’s powers (regarding the subject being spoken of) are not absolute?

Could you provide specific citations?

This Washington Times article agrees with the president and makes a strong case for that agreement.
Stated differently, the separation of powers is core to our freedoms and the courts have consistently ruled that core functions assigned by the U.S. Constitution to each branch cannot be ceded away to another branch.

The same is the case for the states, as each state’s constitution mimics the U.S. Constitution and mandates separation. The separation is not mandated to protect the prerogatives of each branch. It is mandated to protect individual liberty by preventing any branch from accumulating power assigned to the others.

This has been Madison’s genius. It has become Madison’s sorrow.

These “orders” — stay at home, close your business, don’t run in the park, don’t go to Mass, practice social distancing — are not laws that can carry a criminal penalty for violation. They are guidelines, without the force of law. A governor or mayor can no more craft a law and assign a punishment for its noncompliance than the courts could command the military or police.

Even if legislative bodies did order churches and businesses closed, and governors and mayors were just enforcing those laws, the laws would be profoundly unconstitutional. The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment firmly establishes freedom of religion as a fundamental liberty, and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment firmly establishes your right to purchase a lawful product in interstate commerce from a willing seller as fundamental.

Fundamental liberties are in the highest category of liberty, akin to freedom of conscience and speech and press and privacy and travel.
In short the President is bound to protect the Constitutional Rights of all citizens of the United States. Governors of individual states do not have the power to create new laws to undermine those Constitutional rights.

Continued…
 
The point is argued here


And here

Yet knowing all that, the system of government they created was one of deliberately limited and defined powers and premised on fundamental pre-existing individual liberties. Our Founders clearly understood that individual liberty protected by the limitations on government power incorporated in the Constitution, could not survive if temporal challenges were permitted to justify circumventing those very restrictions.
If governors of individual states are undermining rights guaranteed under the Constitution the president would be duty-bound and have the authority to overrule them. His authority with regard to defending the rights of every citizen afforded by the Constitution is absolute. He can rescind laws (or guidelines) imposed by governors of states if those laws undermine the Bill of Rights.
 
A surfer was arrested and fined for surfing by himself in California. Churches holding parking lot services in Kentucky where people stayed in their cars were fined and $500 tickets were issued to those who attended despite that they remained in their cars.

It’s okay to buy marijuana or alcohol at dedicated outlets in Michigan, but considered dangerous to buy seeds to plant vegetables or to buy a garden hose.

Don’t you think those are unreasonable infringements on liberty even when there is a supposed “crisis?”
Of course you are absolutely correct. There is no due process of law as mandated in the US Constitution. Dictatorial and totalitarian measures are being used by American politicians to deny citizens the right to conduct their business. These measures denying liberty and peaceful assembly are being enforced without due process of law as the 14th amendment to the US Constitution requires.
 
Thank you for the good info!

Here’s a video about germ theory (yes, even top mainstream scientists still acknowledge that it’s only a theory as to what causes illness)

Excellent article about wearing masks that corresponds more closely to the way our rulers view and manipulate us:
https://www.thinkinghousewife.com/2020/04/the-face-mask-as-ritual-humiliation/

There’s a lot of brilliant people stating publicly that this is mostly a hoax designed to further cow the population into accepting more controls. Even Fr. Robert Spitzer repeatedly says it isn’t that bad. He’s not going as far as me with my suspicions, but he’s clearly intelligent and has a lot to lose if he’s wrong.

Me? I work around trash 12 hours a day with no more protection than work gloves. If a virus is going around, I and my co-workers catch it. There’s simply no way to prevent catching something in that environment. You catch it, suffer, build immunity, and go on with life. I work with 200 people…not one case of “muh coronavirus.” Just saying.
 
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If governors of individual states are undermining rights guaranteed under the Constitution the president would be duty-bound and have the authority to overrule them. His authority with regard to defending the rights of every citizen afforded by the Constitution is absolute. He can rescind laws (or guidelines) imposed by governors of states if those laws undermine the Bill of Rights.
Um, no he can’t. That is what the courts are for.

The President can’t just say, that law/rule/guideline is unjust and make it go away.

The Executive Branch has the power to enforce federal laws, (or not) through the DOJ. But that is limited.

If governor X makes a rule that says whatever, the President can have the AG look into it. But the AG can’t go arrest the governor without a warrant issued by the court, which the President has no authority over.

The courts will ultimately decide if the surfer or the church goers will indeed have to pay the fines issued by the local authorities. Not the President.
 
I’d just like to mention the state of Kentucky dropped the charges against the church goers who gathered for Easter. A judge did so if I remember right.
 
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The CDC is not in the business of gauging true economic impacts or providing economic solutions. Nor should we expect them to.

And while people can survive unemployment, it may be that it is entirely unnecessary, and for you to say “most of these jobs are coming back” is by no means a certainty, nor even a likelihood, and is easy to say as someone who has not lost a job or has not suffered serious financial detriment.
 
Where does it say that in the US Constitution?
You don’t only read the Bible for your religious truths. You depend on tradition, Bible and the magisterium.

What makes you think national law works any different?
You have the courts, the Constitution and the government who in this case is determined in you’re best interest to stay home.
 
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The CDC is not in the business of gauging true economic impacts or providing economic solutions. Nor should we expect them to.
Nor am I expecting them to do that. But they are the experts in the medical consequences, and their advice should properly be respected by the political leaders, like the various governors, who do have the capability of assessing the economic impact of various solutions.
And while people can survive unemployment, it may be that it is entirely unnecessary, and for you to say “most of these jobs are coming back” is by no means a certainty, nor even a likelihood, and is easy to say as someone who has not lost a job or has not suffered serious financial detriment.
If there is no permanent fundamental change in the economy after fully opening it (and remember, it has only been about 20% closed) the need for those jobs will be there after this pause.
 
I suppose you have looked at the ‘authority’ of the President of the United States, having to do with the subject we’re talking about…" and you have determined that according to the law the President’s powers (regarding the subject being spoken of) are not absolute?

Could you provide specific citations?
The Washington Times? Sounds like “the media” to me. I think someone reads the news with confirmation bias! But hey! Who needs the media to make things up that have no basis, when we have the forum members at Catholic Answers? You can say anything you like, and you’re never going to be proven wrong because you reserve total power to reject any source of a counter-argument that you don’t like as “Fake News.” That’s a great gig, if you can get it!

The governors do not have to craft laws! Our state has public health laws on the books that allow our governor to do this.
Read: https://govsite-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/jkAULYKcSh6DoDF8wBM0_EO 20-12.pdf

The President does NOT have the authority to usurp powers not ceded by the States when the Constitution was ratified. If the Constitution does not give a power to the federal government, that power belongs to the States.

Amendment X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Your contention that the governors don’t have the authority to do what they’re doing does NOT imply that the President has anything like “total authority.” If someone with standing to sue for their rights has a beef, they go to the federal courts to have their rights recognized, not to the President.

Even the President has backpedaled on what he said. He made something up out of whole cloth to make himself sound more important than he is, as if being President isn’t good enough when what you want to be is a dictator. He was wrong. Give it up!!
 
You have the courts, the Constitution and the government who in this case is determined in you’re best interest to stay home.
Where is the due process of law as guaranteed by the US Constitution? What happened to the right to peaceful assembly as guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Can some politician or bureaucrat decide to abrogate these hallowed rights without due process of the law?
 
That’s pretty much all certain posters do. Don’t because you feel like more Catholics are supposed to trash him.
 
But they are the experts in the medical consequences
They are not the only experts and other experts in the medical profession say that the quarantine does not work and it is a bad idea. It is best to let this thing play out naturally and not prolong it by quarantine. Fewer lives will be lost if the virus is allowed to run its course and people take protective measures such as daily vitamin C and eat foods that strengthen the immune system. I read somewhere that enforcing a quarantine can cause the virus to slow down for a while, but then come back a second time with a whammy much worse than its first appearance.
 
Let me get this straight.

Quarantine doesn’t work because it prolongs the virus. We would be better off just letting everyone get infected, as quickly as possible so the hospitals are overrun with patients, medical staff, supplies and gear are put in a position where choices have to be made as to who gets treatment or safety gear.

The virus will be worse the second time. Really.

Don’t know who is putting this line of thinking out, but I would really love to see their credentials and work/education history.
 
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