Patterico's Pontifications

4/15/2020

Fined For Defying Ban on Drive-In Services, Justice Dept. Gets Involved, Supports Church

Filed under: General — Dana @ 2:33 pm



[guest post by Dana]

More on the conflict between church assemblies and coronavirus restrictions:

The Justice Department jumped into a federal lawsuit in Mississippi on Tuesday to support parishioners who had been fined $500 for attending a drive-in church service, demonstrating the Trump administration’s willingness to challenge what it sees as onerous local lockdown rules during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Baptist Temple Church in Greenville, Mississippi, had alleged in a complaint last week that local police overstepped their bounds by enforcing a ban on drive-in church services and trying to “bust up” the parking lot congregation. Worshippers were inside vehicles with their windows rolled up while listening to a broadcast of the sermon inside when eight police officers began issuing tickets, including to the pastor.

The Trump administration filed what’s called a statement of interest in the case, showing the government’s views about the general legal principles at play, contending parishioners retain certain constitutional rights to assemble and exercise free speech despite the pandemic.

The administration contends the ban on drive-in church gatherings does not appear to be applied neutrally to secular and religious activities alike, and thus, the filing said, “The facts alleged in the complaint strongly suggest that the city’s actions target religious conduct.”

“The city has the burden to demonstrate that prohibiting the small church here from holding the drive-in services at issue here — services where attendees are required to remain in their cars in the church parking lot at all times with their windows rolled up and spaced consistent with CDC guidelines — is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling interest,” the government continued.

“As of now, it seems unlikely that the city will be able to carry that burden,” the statement said.

The governor of Mississippi had “specifically exempted religious gatherings” from his stay-at-home orders because they were considered “essential services”.

But on April 7, Greenville Mayor Errick D. Simmons opted to impose a ban that specifically prohibited “drive in” church gatherings: “[A]ll church buildings will be closed for in person and drive in church services.” Church assemblies were identified as nonessential services.

–Dana

158 Responses to “Fined For Defying Ban on Drive-In Services, Justice Dept. Gets Involved, Supports Church”

  1. Welp.

    Dana (0feb77)

  2. At what point is this all too much?

    Gryph (08c844)

  3. demonstrating the Trump administration’s willingness to challenge what it sees as onerous local lockdown rules during the coronavirus pandemic

    Should be

    demonstrating the Trump admimistration’s need to keep evangelical voters happy

    Kishnevi (bb4469)

  4. Very good question, Gryph. The most important question we’re currently facing as a society.

    Difficult question, though. I don’t know the answer.

    Leviticus (cdf0fe)

  5. Trump administration’s need to keep evangelical voters happy

    No doubt a zealous evangelical like Bishop Gerald O. Glenn is very happy of late.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  6. At what point is this all too much?

    In the spirit of the experts’ sh*tstain modeling, somewhere between 45 days ago and 18 months from now.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  7. 2. At what point is this all too much?

    Ask the dead.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  8. I’ll be damned if Sonny Perdue doesn’t sound like Pat Buttram…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  9. At what point is this all too much?

    And what is “all”?

    For any thinking, responsible American, there isn’t a single answer.

    This incident is an example of “too far”, since there is no rational basis for it.

    The American people will decide, regardless of what the irresponsible in the WH or on a blog thread say, and regardless of an form of compulsion.

    As an attorney, I’m on the side of the church here. But only here.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  10. At what point is this all too much?

    Gryph (08c844) — 4/15/2020 @ 2:40 pm

    Based on what’s happening in the affluent parts of metro Detroit I don’t think we’re there yet.

    Oakland County has set up two mobile morgues as hospitals begin to run out of space to store bodies.

    At least one hospital is already storing bodies in one of two refrigerated units behind the Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office in Pontiac.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  11. At what point is this all too much?

    In the spirit of the experts’ sh*tstain modeling, somewhere between 45 days ago and 18 months from now.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/15/2020 @ 3:09 pm

    How familiar are you with the details of how modeling works? It’s an honest question and not a round about way to insult you. These type of models aren’t all that commonly used.

    Time123 (d1bf33)

  12. 7. Approximately 7,800 individuals die every day of all causes. So far, all documented deaths attributed to CoViD-19 less than 10 days worth of deaths that nobody blinks an eye at. Panic makes for bad policy.

    Gryph (08c844)

  13. 9. As an attorney, I’m on the side of the church here. But only here.

    Okay. So this is the point at which it is too much. So noted.

    Gryph (08c844)

  14. 11. A lot of folks who seem to be rather skeptical about global warming climate change modeling sure seem eager to accept CoViD-19 modeling as gospel.

    Gryph (08c844)

  15. 12. Let me hedge that just a bit: All documented deaths in the United States of America attributed to CoViD-19 amount to less than 10 days worth of deaths that nobody blinks an eye at.

    Gryph (08c844)

  16. “100% of people die, but only thousands of people are dying from this! What’s the big deal??”

    If these deaths were preventable, then they are tragic. We all have to die. We don’t have to die suffocating because someone missed the social scene.

    Leviticus (f1c829)

  17. You first question is a very good one, but you shouldn’t undermine it by being flippant about the stakes.

    Leviticus (f1c829)

  18. Panic makes for bad policy.

    So does stupid and selfish.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  19. A lot of folks who seem to be rather skeptical about global warming climate change modeling sure seem eager to accept CoViD-19 modeling as gospel.

    Partly because there is no rational comparison, and nobody accepts any model as “gospel”. Just the best science we have to save Americans using what data we have in a pan-freaking-demic.

    No matter how it gripes a Gryph.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  20. At what point is this all too much?

    You may think you have a constitutional right to pass a potentially fatal infectious disease on to other people, but but don’t be surprised if other people disagree with you.

    Kishnevi (a962c4)

  21. 20. So where have you been in years past when hundreds of thousands of people were dying every year of Seasonal flu? You may think that your irrational fear means it’s okay to pretend the Constitution doesn’t exist but don’t be surprised if other people disagree with you.

    Gryph (08c844)

  22. 19. No rational comparison, huh? The more you yammer about what an emergency CoViD-19 supposedly is, the more you sound like a glow-bull worming fanatic.

    Gryph (08c844)

  23. 17. “Flippant” is an attitude. The fact that ~7,800 die every day in America is a mathematically provable fact which your discomfort with the way I am pointing it out, does not change.

    16. And that is all assuming that social distancing is actually doing any good at all. There is a case to be made that it’s not.

    Gryph (08c844)

  24. I don’t care who does it, let’s get on with it, the sooner the better

    Do these relatively low-impacted states really need to close shop and ruin businesses and lives?

    The numbers below reflect total deaths in each state (includes non-state DC) from Wuhan coronavirus:

    SC 87
    Minnesota 79
    Rhode Island 73
    Wash DC 67
    Kansas 62
    Oregon 53
    Puerto Rico 45
    Iowa 43
    Delaware 41
    Idaho 33
    New Mexico 31
    Arkansas 30
    Vermont 28
    NH 23
    Maine 20
    Utah 18
    West Virginia 9
    North Dakota 9
    Hawaii 9
    Alaska 8
    Montana 7
    South Dakota 6
    Wyoming 1

    That comes to 782 deaths in states or territories with populations totaling approximately 100M people.

    Let the healthy people get back to work, while having them use the social recommendations in the workplace

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  25. Let me hedge that just a bit: All documented deaths in the United States of America attributed to CoViD-19 amount to less than 10 days worth of deaths that nobody blinks an eye at.

    In NYC, per the city, a total of 18,551 people died of all causes between March 11 and April 13. If you average that with reports from 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, the daily mean death totals that emerge for New York City are 153 per day for March, and 149.4 per day for April.

    So, multiplying those averages by the days in 2020 for which New York City released its pandemic data establishes a rough prediction of how many deaths would have been expected in a non-pandemic year: 3213 deaths from March 11 to March 31, and 1942.2 deaths from April 1 to April 13.

    That comes out to a projected total of 5155.2 deaths expected for New York City from March 11-April 13, 2020. The reality was 18,551 deaths.

    That, boys and girls, is more than tripling the morbidity in NYC since the CV-19 outbreak happened. Sure, it may have been a secret invasion of little green men…but probably not. But it’s fine, it’s only NYC.

    It’s not like South Dakota or Nebraska have had large scale outbreaks, I’m sure it’s all fine, heck, let’s open the mall.

    But that’s all “other” people, so why plan for contingencies, why examine actions that are having positive impacts?

    Nah, it’s just another overblown hoax, no biggie. Should probably pull out seatbelts and airbags from cars too, it’s not the #1 killer any more.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  26. No rational comparison, huh? The more you yammer about what an emergency CoViD-19 supposedly is, the more you sound like a glow-bull worming fanatic.

    Yeah, no rational comparison between models of a hugely complex system predicting possible effects years or decades into the future with a simple, known cause of contagion and BOTH debilitating illness (which you just ignore) and death.

    And YOU yammer. It’s all about you and your virtue signaling self.

    Tiresome…

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  27. Thank you for posting about this Dana. It’s a critical issue in these dark times.

    NJRob (41b884)

  28. And that is all assuming that social distancing is actually doing any good at all. There is a case to be made that it’s not.

    Oh? Just step right up, Mr. Science. That’ll be a laugh riot!

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  29. Let the healthy people get back to work, while having them use the social recommendations in the workplace

    Then the governors and state officials can decide. It’s their call, not Trump’s or Fauci’s.

    And of course it will differ among states. Washington County, where Greeneville is, has 57 cases and 2 deaths. Wyoming has 287 cases for the whole state, and 2 deaths (a second one was reported today). So things are different in the two places.

    And it’s not necessarily simple to just go back to work. New Hampshire may seem to have a low death toll, but a lot of people live there and work in Massachusetts, so they need to wait for Massachusetts to re-open…and watch for the virus spreading from Massachusetts to New Hampshire.

    Kishnevi (a962c4)

  30. And it’s not necessarily simple to just go back to work.

    Very true. For a LOT of businesses there will be no return to normal in the near future, regardless of any imposition of orders…one way or the other. From a legal and insurance POV, many businesses will be very defensive about attempting to just be “normal” again. The same with churches and even public spaces.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  31. 30 Well, look at the mall Col Klink linked,

    As part of the initiative to reopen in the midst of a pandemic, the Nebraska complex will add 200 shields for workers, thermometers for every store to take employees’ temperatures and wipe and hand sanitizer stations, according to the statement.

    Kishnevi (a962c4)

  32. And it’s not necessarily simple to just go back to work. New Hampshire may seem to have a low death toll, but a lot of people live there and work in Massachusetts, so they need to wait for Massachusetts to re-open…and watch for the virus spreading from Massachusetts to New Hampshire.

    No one said it was simple or easy, but it must be done. When one hears talk about LA not being in a position to re-open for business for another 6 to 10 months, this is sounding more and more like a government mandated suicide pact.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  33. @18. So does stupid and selfish.

    Reaganomics.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  34. 30 Well, look at the mall Col Klink linked,

    All things that aren’t effected by asymptomatic carriers, are they going to hose down the door handles? Are they going to filter the air the people are coughing into? The merch sitting on the shelves? All of those actions are safety theater, theater is nice, but it’s not a replacement for actual safety.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  35. All of those actions are safety theater, theater is nice, but it’s not a replacement for actual safety.

    In this case, perfect is the enemy of a vibrant, productive society and a life worth living.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  36. Mr nevi wrote:

    You may think you have a constitutional right to pass a potentially fatal infectious disease on to other people, but but don’t be surprised if other people disagree with you.

    Not being an attorney, I can’t quite recall where I saw that the words about there being no law which abridged “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Perhaps you could point me in the right direction on that?

    Some citizens in the Tarheel State chose to assemble peaceably and petition the government for a redress of grievances, but the Governor had the state police break up that assembly of people. After breaking up the event, the Raleigh Police released a tweet saying “Protesting is a non-essential activity.”

    In the Bluegrass State, Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) ordered the State Police to canvass church parking lots on Easter Sunday, taking down license plate numbers to enable the state to order them all into fourteen days of house arrest. There was that “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion thingy I seem to recall, but for the life of me, I just can’t remember where.

    Mr Beshear said nothing about offering tests to those people; they were just going to be ordered into quarantine, without any trial, without any due process of law.

    In the Plantation State, Governor Gina Riamondo (D-RI) ordered the state police to stop anyone with New York license plates and question them about their travel, and sent the National Guard, the National Guard! door-to-door in coastal communities, to knock on doors and interrogate the people therein concerning to where they had traveled. Nothing was said about anything radical like a warrant.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  37. As we simply allow the state Governors to suspend our constitutional rights for this emergency, it doesn’t take much imagination to picture other things which could be used to justify states of emergency. Given their shooting epidemics, couldn’t the mayors of Chicago and foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia simply send the police to knock on every door in town, enter without a warrant, and seize any firearms found within? Sure, there are problems with those old-fashioned Second, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, but hey, it’s an emergency, and this would save lives!

    When you justify suspending our constitutional rights ’cause it’s an emergency, you leave open the door to the obvious problem: just what else is an emergency, and who gets to decide that?

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  38. The mask is coming off the archaic anachronism invented 2,500 years ago by a bunch of slave-owning pederasts in Athens, eh, Dana in Kentucky?

    Or is it simply that the Constitution is not a suicide pact?

    nk (1d9030)

  39. The retired commandant of Stalag 13 wrote:

    All of those actions are safety theater, theater is nice, but it’s not a replacement for actual safety.

    There are many countries in which citizens are much safer than they are here: China and North Korea come to mind.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  40. I saw in the New York Post a picture of the Whitmer protesters in Michigan. Some, carrying assault rifles, of course. At another news site, the “Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine” were waving their excessive Confederate flags. Is this the new normal in Republican circles?

    noel (4d3313)

  41. There are many countries in which citizens are much safer than they are here: China and North Korea come to mind.

    Well, that just proves you are not very well informed; very, very, very misinformed, willfully ignorant, or just the plain version. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  42. There are many countries in which citizens are much safer than they are here: China and North Korea come to mind.

    That, of course, is a silly lie. Like so much of what you published above.

    We all got mighty exercised when BLM and AntiFA chose to “peaceably assemble” on bridges or in downtown intersections, shutting down EMERGENCY traffic, along with all other.

    We know an emergency, and we react. SOMEtimes we overreact. Like when you assert that any LEO needs a warrant to speak to you.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  43. Our Windy City barrister wrote:

    The mask is coming off the archaic anachronism invented 2,500 years ago by a bunch of slave-owning pederasts in Athens, eh, Dana in Kentucky?

    Or is it simply that the Constitution is not a suicide pact?

    I wouldn’t think I would have to remind someone of Greek descent what Plato said in his Republic, that the guardian class, the philosophers, would be ready around fifty years of age, fully aware of the form of good, and should lead the city-state, their edicts enforced by the soldiers. Their rule would be benevolent, of course, for everyone’s own good.

    The Constitution is not a suicide pact? I have heard that argument before, from liberals trying to ban firearms and conservatives concerning not letting due process and Miranda warnings and the like allowing the obviously guilty — even if we couldn’t quite prove it — get away with their crimes. Why, it’s almost as though individual men decide what dangers can be tolerated and which are suicidal.

    It wouldn’t take much to define allowing Islam to be legal in the United States as suicidal folly, and there are plenty of people like Pamela Geller who make that argument.

    James Madison initially believed that a bill of rights was unnecessary, because the federal government had no power to act in those areas anyway. However, there was significant opposition to ratifying the Constitution, and several states demanded a bill of rights. It was, in the end, Mr Madison’s brilliance when, looking at various state bills of rights he took the formulations “should not” and “ought not” and rewrote them as “shall not.”

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  44. The retired Commandant of Stalag 13 wrote:

    There are many countries in which citizens are much safer than they are here: China and North Korea come to mind.

    Well, that just proves you are not very well informed; very, very, very misinformed, willfully ignorant, or just the plain version. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

    Of course you are safe there . . . as long as you toe the line and do as you are told. There is very little crime in those countries.

    Tony Perman, an associate professor of music at Grinnell College, wrote that, with Coronavirus, he felt much safer in China. In Benjamin Franklin’s formulation, he deserved neither liberty nor safety.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  45. I wouldn’t think I would have to remind someone of Greek descent what Plato said in his Republic…

    So knowledge of the classics is passed genetically? Wow.

    Why, it’s almost as though individual men decide what dangers can be tolerated and which are suicidal.

    Well, you’d BETTER do just that every day of your life!

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  46. There are many countries in which citizens are much safer than they are here: China and North Korea come to mind.

    Given their daily rending of garments and gnashing of teeth, I’m surprised that people who think this way don’t move to these greener pastures.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  47. Ragspierre wrote:

    Like when you assert that any LEO needs a warrant to speak to you.

    A law enforcement officer must tell you that anything you say can be used against you in a court of law, though I have to wonder if those National Guard troops Governess Raimondo sent door-to-door were trained in that.

    The proper response to any law enforcement officer these days is to tell him to leave, and say nothing else at all to him.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  48. There is very little crime in those countries.

    MORE nonsense! The crime is a state monopoly. There’s plenty, too.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  49. A law enforcement officer must tell you that anything you say can be used against you in a court of law…

    More loopy BS. A LEO can take you down to the station and question you for hours. You are not “arrested”. You can leave any time you want.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  50. Ragspierre wrote:

    Why, it’s almost as though individual men decide what dangers can be tolerated and which are suicidal.

    Well, you’d BETTER do just that every day of your life!

    In my daily life, yes, I do take such decisions, for myself. For instance, I do not put my hands against a spinning table saw blade. But I do not hold that I somehow have or should have the authority to tell other people that the must not put their hands against a spinning saw blade.

    I can tell them that they should not, but no one should be able to send in the gendarmarie in to ban them from using a table saw.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  51. Ragspierre wrote:

    A law enforcement officer must tell you that anything you say can be used against you in a court of law…

    More loopy BS. A LEO can take you down to the station and question you for hours. You are not “arrested”. You can leave any time you want.

    Then you should not accompany him if you are not under arrest. You should say nothing to him if he questions you.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  52. But I do not hold that I somehow have or should have the authority to tell other people that the must not put their hands against a spinning saw blade.

    Lucky you. So, childless and without any incompetent kin. Jeepers.

    You are also someone who’s never been in a position of command or where people depend on your calling for measures that protect your community.

    Must be easy…

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  53. Ragspierre wrote:

    There is very little crime in those countries.

    MORE nonsense! The crime is a state monopoly. There’s plenty, too.

    Apparently I overestimated your ability to understand; I shall endeavour not to make that error again.

    The state monopoly on crime is not the same thing as risking being mugged, murdered, raped or molested by street gangs or individual thugs, something I though obvious, but apparently it was not so.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  54. Then you should not accompany him if you are not under arrest. You should say nothing to him if he questions you.

    Now you’re moving goalposts. I can see why.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  55. I’m beginning to suspect that Ragspierre doesn’t like me!

    Lucky you. So, childless and without any incompetent kin. Jeepers.

    My children are grown, and professionals, professionals who are still working through this mess.

    You are also someone who’s never been in a position of command or where people depend on your calling for measures that protect your community.

    Must be easy…

    Even those who are in positions of authority to protect the community have to live within the rule of law. You write as though the law and the Constitution can simply be set aside, for the ‘good’ of the community.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  56. There are many countries in which citizens are much safer than they are here: China and North Korea come to mind.

    That’s what you said. It’s ALL you said.

    I don’t read minds. Call it a flaw…

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  57. I can tell them that they should not, but no one should be able to send in the gendarmarie in to ban them from using a table saw.

    But no one is endangered thereby except yourself. Those people in Greeneville were endangering everyone around them, especially whomever was sitting in the car with them. Someone mentioned human sacrifice yesterday as something not covered by the First Amendment….

    It may horrify you, but these sort of actions are the sort of thing state and local authorities are empowered to do, and have done. It’s actually very Constitutional of them.

    Kishnevi (c91988)

  58. Ragspierre wrote:

    Now you’re moving goalposts. I can see why.

    I directly responded to your direct statement. That isn’t moving the goalposts.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  59. Tony Perman, an associate professor of music at Grinnell College, wrote that, with Coronavirus, he felt much safer in China. In Benjamin Franklin’s formulation, he deserved neither liberty nor safety.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1) — 4/15/2020 @ 6:17 pm

    and you’d have neither in China. They will bury hundreds of thousands in mass graves if they need to hide it, but the death toll there is probably catastrophic.

    Unfortunately China has a lot of citizens who interpret criticism of their leader as morally wrong. I hope my country rejects this notion, but it’s cropping up a lot more here than it used to (and on both sides of the aisle).

    Dustin (c56600)

  60. Even those who are in positions of authority to protect the community have to live within the rule of law. You write as though the law and the Constitution can simply be set aside, for the ‘good’ of the community.

    More BS. The rule of law is not being trammeled in the vast majority of cases around the US. And where it IS, it’ll be people like me who defend it.

    It won’t be people who don’t know one end of it from another, but comment on blogs like they’re authorities.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  61. My children are grown, and professionals, professionals who are still working through this mess.

    Bald-faced deflection, to go with your portable goalposts!

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  62. Mr nevi wrote:

    Those people in Greeneville were endangering everyone around them, especially whomever was sitting in the car with them.

    One would expect that those sitting in the cars with them were their families, who quite probably resided in the same house with them. If being in separate vehicles ‘endanger(s) everyone around them,’ then no one can ever go to the grocery store. Yet we kind of have to allow that, don’t we?

    The Reichsstatthalter of Kentucky has deemed liquor stores and abortion ‘clinics’ essential services, which must stay open, but churches, supposedly protected by the First Amendment, why they have to close!

    My daughters live in Lexington; you probably think it a horrible crime that they come down here every weekend.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  63. Are church services truly essential. I seem remember someone who implied they weren’t.

    But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

    Kishnevi (c91988)

  64. Ragspierre wrote:

    Even those who are in positions of authority to protect the community have to live within the rule of law. You write as though the law and the Constitution can simply be set aside, for the ‘good’ of the community.

    More BS. The rule of law is not being trammeled in the vast majority of cases around the US. And where it IS, it’ll be people like me who defend it.

    Then f(ornicating) defend it! Is it the ‘rule of law’ that state troopers can be sent to take down license plates in church parking lots, to order the people therein to house arrest, without any trial, without any due process of law, and without any evidence that they might actually be sick? Is it the ‘rule of law’ to order everyone coming into a state into fourteen days of house arrest just because they have crossed a state border?

    What you are defending is not the rule of law; it is the authoritarian dictates of tinpot dictators who believe that the Constitution is a piece of toilet paper.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1)

  65. The Reichsstatthalter of Kentucky has deemed liquor stores and abortion ‘clinics’ essential services, which must stay open, but churches, supposedly protected by the First Amendment, why they have to close!

    MAYYYYYYBE that’s true. Given what I’ve seen of your intellectual integrity, I’ll need some cites, please.

    The issue of liquor stores has been dealt with by other posters, who point out that withdrawal from alcohol can be life-threatening.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  66. @37. Golly. If only the citizens of Pompeii had the Constitution in hand to wave at Vesuvius to halt that super-heated pyroclastic flow cold in its tracks.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  67. What you are defending is not the rule of law; it is the authoritarian dictates of tinpot dictators who believe that the Constitution is a piece of toilet paper.

    According to your telling, which is getting increasingly shrill and unhinged.

    To the extent there’s any truth to what you say, people like me are on the job already.

    Don’t panic.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  68. The death toll is going to end up being massively higher today than is being reported. The federal government is doing as close to nothing as possible, but Trump’s all powerful, in his mind, he’s just choosing not to do anything.

    The call for body bags came late Saturday.

    By Monday, the police in a small New Jersey town had gotten an anonymous tip about a body being stored in a shed outside one of the state’s largest nursing homes.

    When the police arrived, the corpse had been removed from the shed, but they discovered 17 bodies piled inside the nursing home in a small morgue intended to hold no more than four people.

    “They were just overwhelmed by the amount of people who were expiring,” said Eric C. Danielson, the police chief in Andover, a small township in Sussex County, the state’s northernmost county.

    The 17 were among 68 recent deaths linked to the long-term care facility, Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center I and II, including two nurses, officials said. Of those who died, 26 people had tested positive for the virus.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  69. Then you should not accompany him if you are not under arrest. You should say nothing to him if he questions you.

    I get where you’re coming from, and don’t mean to play internet detail debate, but the truth is that cops often can just have a conversation with someone, even transport someone, without generating constructive custody, and without asking interrogation questions.

    Personally I don’t like playing those games and think ethically people should know their rights. I think if a cop earnestly explains Miranda rights just because he thinks anyone he is having a serious conversation with should know their rights, it doesn’t come across as ‘step Cop takes before tricking bad guy into confession’. It comes across as Sheriff Andy Taylor loves the Constitution.

    In other words, if the cop’s heart is in the right place, the Miranda warning probably won’t stifle the flow of information. But if a cop tries to trick people into not knowing their rights, that will bite them eventually, and it’s wrong anyway.

    That takes cops with emotional intelligence and empathy, which I’ve always thought was a hallmark of a good detective or patrol officer.

    But to be clear, I’ve used information in affidavits from people who just blurted out confessions. Awkward silence just after separating parties in domestic violence often leads to spontaneous declarations about what happened. I do not interrupt to Mirandize. Judges and juries do not mind. Thank God for body cameras. Maybe the internet would tell these folks not to talk around cops, but that wouldn’t have helped them, really. Getting away with beating your girlfriend up, just to go back into that situation until it’s even worse… that’s no prize. I can’t think of a single really horrible thing I’ve seen where the suspect didn’t get many second chances that a defense attorney would have called a victory, but in reality doomed someone to ruining themselves later.

    Dustin (c56600)

  70. The Reichsstatthalter of Kentucky has deemed liquor stores and abortion ‘clinics’ essential services, which must stay open, but churches, supposedly protected by the First Amendment, why they have to close!

    OMG Andy Beshear is doing the thing that 42 other governors are doing, half Republicans. But Andy’s bad.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  71. Dustin, any good interrogator (i.e., questioner) in a criminal or civil context learns to let silence work it’s terrible wonders. People are taught it is rude to fail to fill a gap in conversation, so they blab against interest. You can try it at home…!!!

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  72. #68 – Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 4/15/2020 @ 7:00 pm

    You cite the article about the Andover subacute deaths as representative of the “federal government doing as close to nothing as possible”. I live in the town next door, Sparta. The sh!thole is run by the healthcare industry’s equivalent of a slumlord and is filled with patients by NY and NJ Department of Health bureaucrats who park those who cannot afford better, or really any, long-term care. Most are indigent or have families that just don’t care or can’t do better for their moms and dads. The slumlord’s price is right, in other words.

    Medicare gives it one star – that should tell you all you need to know, but I’ll fill you in with a little more. One of my sons practices in the St. Clare’s hospital system that frequently sends paramedics to Andover subacute. There have been constant outbreaks of infection there over the years, along with a standard of care that would horrify you.

    But hey, Trump is responsible for ALL our country’s problems, in particular a healthcare system that allows Andover subacute and others like it to exist.

    I certainly don’t have the answers, but I would be interested in knowing what you would do in the short term, during this pandemic, to fix this chronic, long-term, and abhorrent situation.

    Mo Hawk (6c01b3)

  73. You cite the article about the Andover subacute deaths as representative of the “federal government doing as close to nothing as possible”. I live in the town next door, Sparta. The sh!thole is run by the healthcare industry’s equivalent of a slumlord and is filled with patients by NY and NJ Department of Health bureaucrats who park those who cannot afford better, or really any, long-term care. Most are indigent or have families that just don’t care or can’t do better for their moms and dads. The slumlord’s price is right, in other words.

    Is this the only care facility this is happening? I’ll make it easier, is there one that this is not happening in? That’s why the admin is a total failure, because this has become the standard, not an exception.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  74. He is responsible for nothing, but has complete and total power. That’s not my take, it’s his.

    If he’s not responsible for any of the activities of administration, then what’s his job?

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  75. 73 – Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 4/15/2020 @ 9:11 pm

    Is this the only care facility this is happening? I’ll make it easier, is there one that this is not happening in? That’s why the admin is a total failure, because this has become the standard, not an exception.

    You’re saying that if we had someone else as POTUS, there wouldn’t be an issue in nursing homes. Who is this magical POTUS who can stop the transmission of Coronavirus? I’d also guess you think states are not responsible for any preparedness. Blame it on the federal government, better yet, Trump. I’m sure Trump forgot to put Andover subacute gowns, masks, and gloves on his checklist on his clipboard. And the owner? Fine man, bears absolutely no responsibility whatsoever.

    There are thousands of nursing homes that haven’t experienced what happened at that sh!thole in Andover. Everyone who has ever had the misfortune of residing there has had a short lease on life.

    Mo Hawk (6c01b3)

  76. OK, Trump did the best of all presidents who were president in 2020. If there was another person that was president,who was receiving briefings about CV in January, or letters from Tom Cotton inquiring about congressional briefings in early January, I’d love to hear about them. He was the man on the spot ignoring the warning signs, minimizing the risk, for week after week. He’s either responsible for the governmental response, or he’s not, and if he has no responsibility for the events and their follow on, then why does he have that job?

    He says he was being a cheerleader and didn’t want to sound negative, he failed at the cheering, and did none of the warning,in fact did the opposite. Of course, you know this though.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  77. Then f(ornicating) defend it! Is it the ‘rule of law’ that state troopers can be sent to take down license plates in church parking lots, to order the people therein to house arrest, without any trial, without any due process of law, and without any evidence that they might actually be sick? Is it the ‘rule of law’ to order everyone coming into a state into fourteen days of house arrest just because they have crossed a state border?

    What you are defending is not the rule of law; it is the authoritarian dictates of tinpot dictators who believe that the Constitution is a piece of toilet paper.

    The Dana in Kentucky (a2adc1) — 4/15/2020 @ 6:53 pm

    I give you all the credit in the world for trying to express things honestly and reasonably. Thank you.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  78. “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

    Exactly, Kishnevi. Exactly.

    Endangering others so one can appear more pious? I don’t think so.

    noel (4d3313)

  79. Just like Christ did on the Mount, eh?

    nk (1d9030)

  80. Churches are not closets or airport restroom stalls. And not designated freedom of religion areas, neither. They are Congregations where the Word of God is witnessed, taught, promulgated, and celebrated, and that’s just to start with.

    nk (1d9030)

  81. A well-sourced and believable account of what happened in China in early-mid January:

    China didn’t warn public of likely pandemic for 6 key days

    The “6 key days” being January 13 – 19.

    In the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people; millions began traveling through for Lunar New Year celebrations.

    President Xi Jinping warned the public on the seventh day, Jan. 20. But by that time, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and expert estimates based on retrospective infection data.

    The article notes that they began to take urgent action on the 13th, but continued to publicly downplay the risk until the 20th.

    Well worth reading the whole thing.

    Dave (1bb933)

  82. As of Wednesday night, there are now 638,111 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States (a 4.7 percent increase from yesterday) and 30,844 deaths (an 18.5 percent increase from yesterday), according to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Dashboard, leading to a mortality rate among confirmed cases of 4.8 percent (the true mortality rate is difficult to calculate due to incomplete testing regimens). Of 3,242,755 coronavirus tests conducted in the United States, 19.7 percent have come back positive. Also, 103,839 Americans are hospitalized with COVID-19 complications, while 52,640 have recovered from the virus.

    People aren’t coming back in the face of those numbers. Nobody can make them.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  83. CoViD-19 Facts and Figures:

    1. Basically, you can’t leave the house for any reason, but if you have to, then you can.

    2. Masks are useless, but maybe it will become mandatory for everyone to wear one.

    3. Stores are closed, except those that are open.

    4. Gloves won’t help, but they can still help.

    5. Everyone needs to stay HOME, but it’s important to GO OUT for self-care and exercise.

    6. There is no shortage of necessities in the supermarket unless you get there in the evening. In the morning you can get everything you need …. sometimes.

    7. The virus has no effect on children, except those children who have been affected.

    8. Animals are not affected, but there is a cat that tested positive in Belgium in February, plus a few tigers here and there.

    9. You will have many symptoms if you are sick, but you can also be sick or contagious without symptoms. Additionally, you can have symptoms and not be sick with the virus.

    10. You can’t go to retirement homes, but you must bring things there.

    11. You can get restaurant food delivered to the house, which may have been prepared by people who didn’t wear masks or gloves. But you have to decontaminate your groceries or leave them outside for 3 days.

    12. You are safe if you maintain the appropriate social distance. But you can’t meet with family or friends at the safe social distance unless you live under the same roof.

    13. The virus remains active on different surfaces for different lengths of time: two hours, no four, no six, no, not hours, it’s days. But it takes a damp environment… but not necessarily.

    14. The virus stays in the air. So the safe social distance can change based on variables,such as wind velocity, which can cause it to travel further, or not.

    15. We have no treatment, except maybe one, but it isn’t widely used because it is not dangerous.

    16. We should continue to quarantine until the virus disappears, but it will only disappear if we achieve collective immunity by being exposed through contact with others.

    17. The news tells us not to panic. But the news also spends 95% of every broadcast showing us the busy count.

    Gryph (08c844)

  84. Welp, that had all the utility and verity of a typical Gryph post.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  85. 84. I love it when you can’t tell me I’m actually wrong.

    Gryph (08c844)

  86. You are wrong. A lot. Kind of constantly. And you’re boring. Mostly always.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  87. Gryph, you’re wrong and many of your points. Several others were just incomplete. Others are correct but you seem angry that this is more complicated than you’d like.

    I know you think this isn’t a big deal, but both NYC and Metro Detroit have put in emergency corpse storage provisions. That’s not because of a model. It’s because they’ve run out of room to stack dead bodies.

    CoViD-19 Facts and Figures:

    1. Basically, you shouldn’t can’t leave the house for any reason, but if you have to, then you can.

    2. Masks are useless, but maybe it will become mandatory for everyone to wear one useful to keep people from spreading it but won’t keep you safe unless they’re N95.

    3. Stores are closed, except those deemed essential to be that are open.

    4. Gloves won’t help, if you use them properly, which is hard.

    5. Everyone needs to stay HOME and away from other people to avoid spreading CV19, but it’s important to GO OUT for self-care and exercise if you stay away from other people. Municipalities are enforcing this in different ways across the country.

    6. There is no shortage of necessities in the supermarket unless you get there in the evening. In the morning you can get everything you need …. sometimes. This is correct in many areas. But in general you can get what you need.

    7. The virus has much less no effect on children.

    8. Animals are not often affected, but there is a cat that tested positive in Belgium in February, plus a few tigers here and there.

    9. You will have many symptoms if you are sick, but you can also be sick or contagious without symptoms. Additionally, you can have symptoms and not be sick with the virus. (Hey! You got this one right. Good for you)

    10. You can’t go to retirement homes, but you must bring things there and leave them set to for any CV19 virus to die off or to be cleaned.

    11. You can get restaurant food delivered to the house, which may have been prepared by people who didn’t wear masks or gloves (Virus isn’t known to be transmitted through food and there’s a process to follow to clean the packaging). But you have to decontaminate your groceries or leave them outside for 3 days.

    12. You are safer if you maintain the appropriate social distance. But you can’t meet with family or friends at the safe social distance unless you live under the same roof as a general precaution to keep this from spreading

    13. The virus remains active on different surfaces for different lengths of time: two hours, no four, no six, no, not hours, it’s days. But it takes a damp environment… but not necessarily. Yes, there are a number of variables that affect how long the virus can survive on a surface.

    14. The virus stays in the air. So the safe social distance can change based on variables,such as wind velocity, which can cause it to travel further, or not. Yes, this is correct.

    15. We have no treatment that has been proven to work in clinical trials.

    16. We should continue to quarantine until the virus disappears, but it will only disappear if we achieve collective immunity by being exposed through contact with others. No one serious is proposing this. It’s a straw man argument.

    17. The news tells us not to panic. But the news also spends 95% of every broadcast showing us the busy count. 95% is a lie. Your point that being honest about the impact causes panic is very debatable. Uncertainty and bad information are more likely to cause panic imo.

    Gryph (08c844) — 4/16/2020 @ 5:29 am

    Time123 (66d88c)

  88. Kishnevi (c91988) — 4/15/2020 @ 6:49 pm

    Are church services truly essential. I seem remember someone who implied they weren’t.

    But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

    I usually give people the benefit of the doubt when they are using a verse out of context. But using this verse to argue that Jesus is saying that people shouldn’t worship collectively is antithetical to multiple other verses, the doctrine of every Christian denomination I’m aware of, two thousand years of tradition, and the historical (and current) reality of Christians being persecuted for doing exactly this. It’s so obviously a wrong interpretation that it’s hard to credit you with a mistake.

    If this interpretation were correct you’d think people in underground churches in repressive countries would have wised up and not made themselves such easy targets, e.g. the Coptics who keep having their churches bombed, sometimes while they’re in them.

    frosty (f27e97)

  89. Gryph (08c844) — 4/15/2020 @ 2:40 pm

    At what point is this all too much?

    You are overusing the word all. I live in a state that has jumped in and out of the top10. A lot of the overreacting nonsense I see in other states isn’t happening here at either the state or local levels generally. We have a shelter-in-place order but as far as I can tell it’s implemented as a recommendation. And it’s generally being followed. I’d like to see more masks on people but I’m not willing to advocate for the type of actions I think would be required to force everyone to wear one.

    The states and municipalities that are overreacting should serve as an example that elections matter. Even state and local elections. It should highlight the complete shell that the ACLU has become. It might also give people a reason to look up the actual context of the quote and maybe not kill all the lawyers.

    The states that are able to keep this under control and thread the needle will have stronger economies over the mid and long term. People who live where politicians are overreacting need to remember this in the next election or when it comes time to find a new job. Maybe we see some libertarians get together and advocate for something besides drugs and hookers.

    frosty (f27e97)

  90. @89 Maybe we see some libertarians get together and advocate for something besides drugs and hookers.

    Libertarians are like Feminists in that as soon as you get more than 2 they start fighting over who is / isn’t a libertarian.

    Dems like sex and booze
    GOP likes Guns and Tobacco
    Libertarians like all of the above plus pot.

    Time123 (457a1d)

  91. “ That Michigan is one of the first places seeing substantial pushback against state stay-at-home orders is no random occurrence. Whitmer has instituted one of the nation’s most severe stay-at-home policies, banning everything from the sale of paint to the use of motor-powered boats (but not canoes) while the state-run lottery remains “essential.” The whole mess highlights the sadly symbiotic relationship between authorities taking things too far and people (some reasonably and strategically, some carelessly and imprudently) reacting in ways that provoke more draconian policies.

    Americans have proven quite willing to play along with social-distancing directives when these directives are narrowly tailored to stopping the spread of COVID-19. If there’s a lesson from Michigan for other states, it’s that imposing overly-strict rules or trying to sneak pet policy transformations into precautionary measures will provoke backlash that makes public health goals even more difficult to reach. If state and local leaders want their people to consent to COVID-19 emergency measures and be partners in public health, rather than antagonists, they should look to Whitmer’s examples as what not to do.

    https://reason.com/2020/04/16/it-figures-that-michigan-is-among-the-first-states-to-see-protests-against-social-distancing/
    _

    harkin (358ef6)

  92. @89

    We’ve had over 28,000 deaths in a month with these measures.
    Flu season is 6 months, Oct-March
    CV-19 is already worse than the 2011-2012 flu season and the 2015-2016 flu season in 1/6 of the time and with social distancing.

    60K flu deaths is the worst flue season in a decade.

    Prior to social distancing CV-19 doubled every 4-7 days. With social distancing it’s doubling every 7-21 days.
    NYC and Metro-Detroit are still running out of places to put corpses.

    This isn’t the flu.

    Time123 (f5cf77)

  93. @91, Ohio also saw protests recently.

    Time123 (457a1d)

  94. Is there any place in Michigan which sells lottery tickets only? Or are the machines in grocery stores, convenience stores, and gas stations, like in Illinois? Just how scared of Whitmer is Trump?

    nk (1d9030)

  95. . But using this verse to argue that Jesus is saying that people shouldn’t worship collectively is antithetical to multiple other verses, the doctrine of every Christian denomination I’m aware of, two thousand years of tradition, and the historical (and current) reality of Christians being persecuted for doing exactly this. It’s so obviously a wrong interpretation that it’s hard to credit you with a mistake.

    You don’t need to, because that’s not what my point is, which is that congregational services are not necessary or essential. You can pray and worship God just as well by yourself in your own house as anywhere else, and you din’t need anyone to help you, because prayer is between you and God. God is everywhere and everytime, no need to make an appointment to speak to him.

    Kishnevi (c91988)

  96. In which religion, Kishnevi?

    nk (1d9030)

  97. Turnabout is fair play. Intelligence skipped him.

    nk (1d9030)

  98. All of them, nk.

    Kishnevi (c91988)

  99. No! That was the Obama “freedom to worship” Party Line, and you know which Party he got it from. I won’t repeat my earlier comment and frosty’s, just scroll up a little.

    nk (1d9030)

  100. Then you are making the same mistake Frosty did. You are trying to make totally suppressing Christianity (such as what is being done to the Coptics) the same as telling Christians they get to impose their religion on others (which the activist judges on SCOTUS allowed them to do in Hobby Lobby) and telling them they aren’t allowed to endanger the lives of others (as in what’s happening now). Public worship may be desireable and helpful, but the heart of the matter is the individual soul and God, and for that church buildings are irrelevant.

    Kishnevi (c91988)

  101. Is there any place in Michigan which sells lottery tickets only? Or are the machines in grocery stores, convenience stores, and gas stations, like in Illinois? Just how scared of Whitmer is Trump?

    nk (1d9030) — 4/16/2020 @ 7:51 am

    Gas Stations, Grocery Stores, Convenience Stores. All places that are already essential. They’re sold at the register so unless there are people going out just to get lottery tix there’s no real advantage in not selling them. Unlike say, a bag of mulch at Target, you don’t even reduce time in the store.

    Time123 (f5cf77)

  102. But I want to talk about Gretchen Whitmer having the Trump campaign pooping its orange undies, as seen from the concerted broad-spectrum propaganda campaign they have organized against her, including Trump flag flying “protests” in front of the capital. (Trump has a flag?) They even got to Reason, although that might be because the cartels are finding it hart to get their drugs to the street dealers.

    nk (1d9030)

  103. We cross-posted, Time123.

    nk (1d9030)

  104. Then you are making the same mistake Frosty did. You are trying to make totally suppressing Christianity (such as what is being done to the Coptics) the same as telling Christians they get to impose their religion on others (which the activist judges on SCOTUS allowed them to do in Hobby Lobby) and telling them they aren’t allowed to endanger the lives of others (as in what’s happening now). Public worship may be desireable and helpful, but the heart of the matter is the individual soul and God, and for that church buildings are irrelevant.

    Kishnevi (c91988) — 4/16/2020 @ 8:36 am

    You don’t sound very respectful of Christians and how they practice their faith. You seem to want to force them to worship as you deem appropriate.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  105. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG7SglDjeOM

    The NJ Governor shares the view that many on here seem to think: the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply when they decide.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  106. …Christians they get to impose their religion on others (which the activist judges on SCOTUS allowed them to do in Hobby Lobby)…

    What in the wide, wonderful world of sports are you going on about here…???

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  107. Gas Stations, Grocery Stores, Convenience Stores. All places that are already essential. They’re sold at the register so unless there are people going out just to get lottery tix there’s no real advantage in not selling them. Unlike say, a bag of mulch at Target, you don’t even reduce time in the store.

    Time123 (f5cf77) — 4/16/2020 @ 8:43 am

    You wait on line for them and most of the time a separate line (at least here in NJ). She has arbitrarily banned the sale of certain items already in those stores, seeds anyone, yet wants to make sure people keep wasting their money on gambling. Why is that?

    NJRob (4d595c)

  108. Well, Rob wants to drag us all back to that nonsense. We AALLLLL read what the NJ Gov. said, Rob. Not even news.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  109. @107 it’s 1 check out line.

    Time123 (457a1d)

  110. Time123, at 87:

    > 8. Animals are not often affected, but there is a cat that tested positive in Belgium in February, plus a few tigers here and there.

    It’s also almost certain that *apes* are effected and likely other *primates*.

    We’re pretty sure this is a zoonotic agent — it looks like a recombination of a bat coronavirus with a pangolin coronavirus that jumped into humans — so there’s precedent for the theory that it could be transmitted via animals, but it’s unlikely that it’s going to (a) jump to an animal (b) infect another animal, and (c) jump back into an otherwise uninfected human via that animal, due to the way human/animal interaction works in the united states.

    aphrael (7962af)

  111. She has arbitrarily banned the sale of certain items already in those stores, seeds anyone, yet wants to make sure people keep wasting their money on gambling. Why is that?

    Why is it you can’t be honest here? What information do you have that she’s arbitrarily banned something.

    I KNOW you are just blowing bovine feces about her “making sure” citizens are gambling.

    Cricky…be honest at least.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  112. and to add, there was specific problem where people were going to Home Depot and wandering around to kill time.

    Time123 (457a1d)

  113. Dana, at 62:

    > My daughters live in Lexington; you probably think it a horrible crime that they come down here every weekend.

    I wouldn’t call it a horrible crime, no. But I would say it’s unwise.

    If every person in a household has close interactions with one person outside the household, then 90% of the population is going to be graph-connected via close interactions and social distancing will fail. This is pretty basic graph theory, and it’s explained well at http://statnet.org/COVID-JustOneFriend/

    So if your household and your daughters’ households are entirely self contained and none of them have outside world interactions, it’s one thing. If *one* of your households has outside world interactions, then you’re all posing a risk to each other but no real additional risk to anyone else. But if *two* of your households have outside world interactions then you are risking be a conduit between the outside world interactions, and that’s potentially dangerous.

    aphrael (7962af)

  114. Dana, at 36:

    > In the Bluegrass State, Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) ordered the State Police to canvass church parking lots on Easter Sunday, taking down license plate numbers to enable the state to order them all into fourteen days of house arrest

    Assuming we are talking about church services where people went into the church building in large groups, this is the absolutely correct thing to have done.

    We *know* people infected with this virus are infectious *for days before they show symptoms*.

    We *know* that it can be transmitted between strangers assembled at high density inside confined spaces, we saw it with the conference in Boston that became an outbreak, we saw it with the church in Korea that became an outbreak, we’ve seen it at churches elsewhere, including here in California.

    Unless every person attending an indoor physical gathering of the size of a church service is tested and demonstrated to be uninfectious *prior to the gathering*, every person who attended the gathering is at risk of being infected and therefore is a clear and present risk to any person they interact with in a store or anywhere else.

    The state of Kentucky is completely within its rights to say to those people: you are at sufficiently high risk of introducing a fatal infection into people you interact with that we are going to quarantine you until long enough to demonstrate that you are at no such risk.

    It would be different if symptoms manifested first and people could be excluded on the basis that they are symptomatic and therefore a risk. But they don’t.

    It would be different if we had a robust system in place where every American could get tested every day or two, combined with a robust system that allowed us to identify everyone an infectious person had been in close contact with since the last time they tested negative. But we don’t.

    Until we do have such a system, our choices are: prevent people from gathering in large groups *for any purpose whatsoever*, on the one hand, or let the infection run rampant through the community and accept that it will kill 2-3% of the population of the country by midsummer.

    The people at that church service decided that going to a physical service, instead of going to a drive in service or a virtual online service, was sufficiently important to their personal spiritual health that they would accept the risk to their physical health (and life) and that they would accept the risk to the family members they live with. The first is clearly their right, the second is more complicated but i’ll sidestep it by assuming that everyone in the family unit agreed.

    But their neighbors have the right to protect themselves from having the risk imposed on them against their will by forcibly quarantining them until the risk is passed.

    This is absolutely the rule of law.

    aphrael (7962af)

  115. and to add, there was specific problem where people were going to Home Depot and wandering around to kill time.

    Time123 (457a1d) — 4/16/2020 @ 9:12 am

    There’s still that problem. Now it’s at grocery stores and dollar stores.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  116. In the first place, how long will the order be in effect? And in the second place, how long will the order be in effect? And in the third place, “Hey, you there, sir, what do you have? A Hershey bar? Sorry, that’s not essential. You can only stand in line for beans, water, and toilet paper. What’s that, maam? Soap and toothpaste? Oh, ok, those too, I suppose. But no mouthwash, you can brush more often.”

    nk (1d9030)

  117. Why is it you can’t be honest here? What information do you have that she’s arbitrarily banned something.

    I KNOW you are just blowing bovine feces about her “making sure” citizens are gambling.

    Cricky…be honest at least.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 4/16/2020 @ 9:12 am

    You’re the one being dishonest. I cited my example. You just made stuff up and accused me of lying but not saying what I’m lying about. Trying to gaslight the crowd as usual.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  118. Until we do have such a system, our choices are: prevent people from gathering in large groups *for any purpose whatsoever*, on the one hand, or let the infection run rampant through the community and accept that it will kill 2-3% of the population of the country by midsummer.

    The people at that church service decided that going to a physical service, instead of going to a drive in service or a virtual online service, was sufficiently important to their personal spiritual health that they would accept the risk to their physical health (and life) and that they would accept the risk to the family members they live with. The first is clearly their right, the second is more complicated but i’ll sidestep it by assuming that everyone in the family unit agreed.

    But their neighbors have the right to protect themselves from having the risk imposed on them against their will by forcibly quarantining them until the risk is passed.

    This is absolutely the rule of law.

    aphrael (7962af) — 4/16/2020 @ 9:12 am

    Except grocery stores and every other place deemed essential.

    So you believe the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply when there’s something deemed a crisis. Who decides the crisis?

    NJRob (4d595c)

  119. The knives are out for Gretchen Whitmer because she’s a threat to Trump, that’s all and nothing more.

    nk (1d9030)

  120. What you just wrote was a lie.

    Let’s try again…

    1. show support for your claim that she did anything arbitrarily,

    2. the claim that she’s making sure people gamble is patent bullspit

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  121. So you believe the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply when there’s something deemed a crisis. Who decides the crisis?

    THAT is another lie. NOBODY said that.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  122. >Except grocery stores and every other place deemed essential.

    First, are grocery stores allowing 100 people into the building at the same time?

    Second, can the primary function of grocery stores be performed remotely?

    If the answer to the first one is yes they should stop it. *Here*, it’s not allowed, and many stores are actually marking the six foot distance out in tape for people standing in line, which is why you get hour long lines to get into, eg, costco.

    >So you believe the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply when there’s something deemed a crisis.

    I believe the power to control epidemics has been vested in state governments since before there were states, and that it has regularly been used. There were extended shelter in place / lockdown / business closure orders during the spanish flu pandemic. There were similar orders in big cities repeatedly during measles and polio epidemics.

    We have a right to protect ourselves from infectious disease.

    Ideally the crisis would be determined by public health authorities, as is the case in California. (No, really, this is explicitly authorized in California code).

    aphrael (7962af)

  123. So you believe the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply when there’s something deemed a crisis. Who decides the crisis?

    NJRob (4d595c) — 4/16/2020 @ 9:18 am

    You’re being silly.
    We’ve been modifying rights in the BOR for years.
    If you want to complain about scope and scale that’s fine, but this isn’t a new category.

    Free speech but you can’t libel.
    Free association but business open to the public can’t ban based on race.
    Free to worship but churches still have obey the fire code.
    Free eat and drink what you like, but not drugs.
    Right to bare arms, but not surface to air missiles.
    Free to worship, but your practicing your faith can’t break other laws (such a child marriage or drug use)

    Time123 (457a1d)

  124. What you just wrote was a lie.

    Let’s try again…

    1. show support for your claim that she did anything arbitrarily,

    2. the claim that she’s making sure people gamble is patent bullspit

    Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 4/16/2020 @ 9:20 am

    What you just wrote is a lie and shows you cannot read. Picking items that are sold in common areas and told you cannot sell them, but can sell others is the definition of arbitrary and

    I never said she’s MAKING sure people gamble. There’s no force and I never mentioned force. But she clearly wants people to do so otherwise that would’ve been added to her ban.

    Game. Set. Match.

    You lose gaslighter.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  125. >Except grocery stores and every other place deemed essential.

    First, are grocery stores allowing 100 people into the building at the same time?

    Second, can the primary function of grocery stores be performed remotely?

    If the answer to the first one is yes they should stop it. *Here*, it’s not allowed, and many stores are actually marking the six foot distance out in tape for people standing in line, which is why you get hour long lines to get into, eg, costco.

    >So you believe the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply when there’s something deemed a crisis.

    I believe the power to control epidemics has been vested in state governments since before there were states, and that it has regularly been used. There were extended shelter in place / lockdown / business closure orders during the spanish flu pandemic. There were similar orders in big cities repeatedly during measles and polio epidemics.

    We have a right to protect ourselves from infectious disease.

    Ideally the crisis would be determined by public health authorities, as is the case in California. (No, really, this is explicitly authorized in California code).

    aphrael (7962af) — 4/16/2020 @ 9:25 am

    1st: Yes grocery stores are. In NJ they are limited to half their capacity. In an 80,000 sq ft location that means they are reduced to a 500 person capacity.

    2nd: can the primary function of any store be performed remotely? What does that even mean? Ask Amazon.

    As for the “red tape” people ignore it like they ignore everything because you cannot force behavior no matter how much you desire it so.

    How safe are those hour long lines to get into Costco? Are they safer than sitting for an hour “safely spaced” at church?

    So you believe The Bill of Rights which are innate, God-given rights, doesn’t apply in crisis. Thank you for saying so.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  126. Nope, Rob. The REASON for her picking items may not be arbitrary at all, and you apparently can’t support what you said.

    I faithfully quoted your nonsense about “making sure” blah, blah, blah.

    You’re just dishonest.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  127. So, in the last 24 hours, governors and mayors have announced extended “close downs” through May 15th. Is Donnie going to very powerfully close down their close downs.

    Still want to know what power he’s talking about.

    Donald Trump: (41:36)
    Well, I think the companies will determine that and the governors will determine that and the federal government will. If we’re not happy, we’ll take very strong action against a state or a governor. If we’re not happy with the job a governor’s doing, we’ll let them know about it. As you know, we have very strong action we can take, including a close down, but we don’t want to do that. We’re working with the governors, and we’re working closely with the governors. The relationship has been very good. The vice presidents had a lot of conversations over the last two weeks with either 50 or almost 50 governors on every conversation, and they’ve been really positive conversations.

    Caitlin: (42:13)
    What do you mean a close down?

    Donald Trump: (42:14)
    We have the right to do whatever we want, but we wouldn’t do that. But, no, we would have the right to close down what they’re doing if we want to do that, but we don’t want to do that, and I don’t think there’ll be any reason to do that, but we have the right to do that. Steve, go ahead.

    Yeah, he has no idea, pure word salad.

    Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827)

  128. Amazing how the goalposts have moved from “flatten the curve” to “we must give up our rights till there’s a cure.”

    NJRob (4d595c)

  129. Rags, you lied. I called you out. You doubled down.

    I’ve proved you lied. Bye bye. Now you get blocked.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  130. Amazing how the goalposts have moved from “flatten the curve” to “we must give up our rights till there’s a cure.”

    NJRob (4d595c) — 4/16/2020 @ 9:50 am

    Who is proposing we give up our rights?

    Time123 (f5cf77)

  131. Rob’s gone tapioca. Lost his marbles. Dropped his bundle. Etc.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  132. Who is proposing we give up our rights?

    Time123 (f5cf77) — 4/16/2020 @ 9:53 am

    Did you read my discussion with aphrael?

    NJRob (4d595c)

  133. >Amazing how the goalposts have moved from “flatten the curve” to “we must give up our rights till there’s a cure.”

    we can end the lock downs when there’s a system in place for testing people regularly and reliably and when there’s a system in place for anonymously tracking people.

    i don’t usually believe inflammatory language is helpful, but clearly you do:

    > So you believe The Bill of Rights which are innate, God-given rights, doesn’t apply in crisis. Thank you for saying so.

    So you believe your right to kill people is more important than the right of people to prevent you from killing people. Thank you for saying so.

    aphrael (7962af)

  134. Aphrael,

    as did our Founding Fathers. Fought a war over it. Essential liberty vs temporary safety. I’d rather not destroy the country to save it.

    And I apologize for the inflammatory language, but that is truly how it feels to me when you say that the government can suspend our God-given rights because of a crisis.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  135. but that is truly how it feels to me when you say that the government can suspend our God-given rights because of a crisis.

    NJRob (4d595c) — 4/16/2020 @ 10:05 am

    NONE of your god given rights are absolute and I doubt you’d want them to be. List any one you like and I’ll bet i can find a government limitation that you think makes sense.

    Time123 (457a1d)

  136. So you believe your right to kill people is more important than the right of people to prevent you from killing people. Thank you for saying so.

    This is the argument that was used to push back against the activists that fought to keep the bath houses open in San Francisco in the 80s.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  137. NONE of your god given rights are absolute and I doubt you’d want them to be. List any one you like and I’ll bet i can find a government limitation that you think makes sense.

    Time123 (457a1d) — 4/16/2020 @ 10:07 am

    I’m not going to get into this at this time. God-given rights cannot be taken away from man anymore than you can enslave me. Man may enslave man, but that doesn’t make it right.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  138. @137, I can’t argue that philosophy. But no one, definitely not the founders, has found a way to put that into practice with making some accommodation for specific cases.

    Ok, I’ll cut to the chase. I’m proposing that the temporary restrictions we see in MI, Ohio and other places are in general warranted by the circumstances and that legal mechanisms exist to work out disputes in areas where they are not warranted.

    For instance while i get why they did it, I think the ban on the sale of seeds is overkill.

    But for the most part I think our state and local elected officials are doing a moderately decent job at at tough task, and not attempting to remove all personal liberty.

    Time123 (f5cf77)

  139. Atheists to the left of me
    Anarchists to the right
    Here I am …
    What should I have for lunch?

    nk (1d9030)

  140. Covfefe-19

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  141. > This is the argument that was used to push back against the activists that fought to keep the bath houses open in San Francisco in the 80s.

    and the people fighting to keep the bath houses open were wrong.

    today, i think we could reopen them with adequate measures to protect their safety; we understand how the disease works better and we have mechanisms for containing and fighting it that we didn’t have then.

    at the time, though? closing was the right call.

    aphrael (7962af)

  142. NJRob: i understand that from your perspective you are standing up for fundamental freedom. I also understand that from my perspective you are standing up for your alleged right to murder people.

    aphrael (7962af)

  143. NJRob: i understand that from your perspective you are standing up for fundamental freedom. I also understand that from my perspective you are standing up for your alleged right to murder people.

    aphrael (7962af) — 4/16/2020 @ 11:28 am

    Same argument from the global warmists. Same argument from the anti-2nd Amendment believers. Those who believe they are right to take away others freedoms always believe they are doing it in the name of justice.

    I cannot remember the exact quote, but to paraphrase “I don’t want to be led by those who believe their righteousness allows them to dictate to others how to live because they will never rest and feel justified in their response to dictate to you every aspect of your life.”

    NJRob (4d595c)

  144. There are a few here who cannot be reasoned with. Nor can they tolerate any question or observation that challenges their essentially religious (i.e., faith-based) assertions.

    They are gone. We have to let them go.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  145. I also understand that from my perspective you are standing up for your alleged right to murder people.

    What’s your position on abortion, aphrael?

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  146. You don’t sound very respectful of Christians and how they practice their faith. You seem to want to force them to worship as you deem appropriate.

    How can you “respect” a group that defies common sense and puts the lives of others at risk? You can’t. It’s a pretty weak faith if it requires the need to gather in large groups like mindless Nazis at Nuremberg –amidst a contagious pandemic no less.

    Common sense rules. Leave prayer to the professionals: the Pope is a pro and he showed th sheep how it’s done.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  147. You don’t sound very respectful of Christians and how they practice their faith. You seem to want to force them to worship as you deem appropriate.

    I don’t think they have the right to endanger the lives of others. Do you think they do? If you do, there’s nothing more to say other than, please stay out of Florida so you don’t endanger my life at some point. If you don’t, then your argument seems to be that no one can decide if they are endangering lives except themselves, which is just a watered-down version of saying they have the right to endanger the lives of others.

    And if that’s not your argument, please say what it is.

    Kishnevi (a21714)

  148. @134. as did our Founding Fathers. Fought a war over it. Essential liberty vs temporary safety. I’d rather not destroy the country to save it.

    Pfft.

    Disease in the Revolutionary War

    It is difficult to track smallpox deaths during the Revolutionary War, but estimates indicate that Washington’s army lost more troops to disease in general than in combat. One study suggests that for every soldier who fell to the British, ten died from some sort of disease. – source, http://www.mountvernon.org

    “Fortunately our country always manages to survive patriots like you.” – Bob Munson [Walter Pidgeon] ‘Advise & Consent’ 1962

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  149. >Same argument from the global warmists. Same argument from the anti-2nd Amendment believers

    This is a different situation. We’re dealing with an infectious agent for which humans have no established immunity which appears to be capable of killing on the order of five percent of the people whom it infects.

    Long term, we need to develop better anonymous monitoring systems so that we can stop the next pandemic without this kind of intervention (because there’s going to be another one, and another one, and another one — that’s basically inevitable). There’s been some good theoretical work done already on how to implement this, and when we get the actual implementations in place we need to have serious audits to ensure that they are in fact anonymous and privacy-protecting.

    Short term, we all need to stay home as much as possible in order to prevent the spread of the infection, and the people refusing to do that need to be separated from everyone else in order to protect us from them.

    This is a temporary crisis. It will pass. I’m seriously concerned about setting up liberty preserving systems for future crises. But *right now*? Stay home.

    aphrael (7962af)

  150. 150. False. We’re dealing with an infectious agent for which humans are establishing immunity no matter what we do to try to stop it, and which appears to be capable of killing on the order of five percent of the people whom it makes sick, which in turn is only 1-1.5% of the people whom it actually infects. If you’re going to quote statistics, at least try to get them right.

    By the time we’re worried about “future crises,” there won’t be any liberty left to preserve and you’ll be looking over your shoulder wondering wtf happened.

    Gryph (08c844)

  151. Pretzel Logic

    I would love to tour the West Coast
    With a red cap on my head
    Yes I’d love to tour the West Coast
    With a red cap on my head
    Yes I’m dying to be a martyr and make them laugh
    Sport a bad infection and it ain’t staph
    Those days are gone forever
    Over a long time ago, oh yeah

    I have never met Pelosi
    But I plan to find the time
    I have never met Pelosi
    But I plan to find the time
    ‘Cause she looks so crazed upon that Hill
    The moves she makes are mental, a bitter pill
    Her days are gone forever
    Over a long time ago, oh yeah

    I stepped up on the platform
    It was a tiring task
    Man said, “You must be joking son… Where did you get that mask?”
    Where did you get that mask?
    Well, I’ve seen ’em on the TV, the Stelter Show
    They say his time is over cuz he really blows
    Good Times are gone forever
    Over a long time ago
    oh yeah

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  152. @149
    That’s true of every war through the 19th century and beyond. In the Civil War, about 2/3rds of all deaths in the military were from disease. In the Spanish American War, deaths from sickness dwarfed deaths in combat, almost 3000 from illness, about 330 in combat.

    Kishnevi (a21714)

  153. 150. False. We’re dealing with an infectious agent for which humans are establishing immunity no matter what we do to try to stop it, and which appears to be capable of killing on the order of five percent of the people whom it makes sick, which in turn is only 1-1.5% of the people whom it actually infects. If you’re going to quote statistics, at least try to get them right.

    By the time we’re worried about “future crises,” there won’t be any liberty left to preserve and you’ll be looking over your shoulder wondering wtf happened.

    Gryph (08c844) — 4/16/2020 @ 12:42 pm

    Given how badly wrong your fact list was I don’t think you should be so critical. ‘on the order of 5%’ means between 1 and 10 percent. So he wasn’t wrong just overly broad.

    Time123 (457a1d)

  154. Same argument from the global warmists. Same argument from the anti-2nd Amendment believers. Those who believe they are right to take away others freedoms always believe they are doing it in the name of justice.

    I cannot remember the exact quote, but to paraphrase “I don’t want to be led by those who believe their righteousness allows them to dictate to others how to live because they will never rest and feel justified in their response to dictate to you every aspect of your life.”

    NJRob (4d595c) — 4/16/2020 @ 11:37 am

    1. You don’t have an absolute right bear arms. It’s limited by location in many states (Bars, schools, government buildings, etc) It’s limited by your age. It’s limited by your past behavior (criminal convictions). It’s limited by the type of arms you can own with different rules for hand guns, automatic weapons and destructive devices.

    2. This isn’t a potential issue that may happen in the future like AGW. It’s happening now. Go read the reports on what’s going on in areas where there’s been an outbreak. If you don’t trust the MSM read about what’s happened in other countries with outbreaks that don’t really care if Trump is president.

    Time123 (457a1d)

  155. Gryph is going to be a broken record from now on, regardless.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  156. In his defense, If your neighbor loses his job, it’s a recession. If you lose your job, it’s a depression.

    Of course that doesn’t mean he is right. He’s not.

    Kishnevi (a21714)

  157. Kishnevi (c91988) — 4/16/2020 @ 7:55 am

    Which is that congregational services are not necessary or essential

    This is not exactly true. If you are looking for a verse closer to the mark on this its:

    For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them. Matthew 18:20

    It’s hard to exercise the principle expressed in this section without multiple people, i.e. a congregation.

    You can pray and worship God just as well by yourself in your own house as anywhere else, and you din’t need anyone to help you, because prayer is between you and God. God is everywhere and everytime, no need to make an appointment to speak to him.

    This is a partially true statement but you are confusing prayer with worship. It also seems like you are limiting all expressions of faith to prayer. I know you said “prayer and worship” but your argument for solo activity applies to prayer. Worship is traditionally a communal activity. Arguably, anything you would describe as worship when done alone and in private would simply be prayer. These are overlapping but not equal sets. It’s possible there is some form of worship that would only involve one person but I can’t think of an example that doesn’t require at least two.

    Kishnevi (c91988) — 4/16/2020 @ 8:36 am

    You are generally misrepresenting my position here. Either in bad faith, ignorance, or a mixture.

    Public worship may be desireable and helpful, but the heart of the matter is the individual soul and God, and for that church buildings are irrelevant.

    This is another misinterpretation, presumably of the Solas. The heart of the matter is the individual relationship a person has with God. But gathering together as a community and church buildings aren’t irrelevant. And this problem extends beyond public worship as you’re describing. These restrictions would seem to apply to a few people from different families meeting in one home. In this example that actually applied to people in the same family being in their car and having no other physical interaction with anyone else. There is a spectrum of choices between required and irrelevant and while not required gathering together as a community and buildings are far from irrelevant.

    frosty (f27e97)


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