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The liberties protected by the Constitution are not fair-weather freedoms -- in place when times are good but able to be cast aside in times of trouble. There

The liberties protected by the Constitution are not fair-weather freedoms -- in place when times are good but able to be cast aside in times of trouble. There is no question that this country has faced, and will face, emergencies of every sort, but the solution to a national crisis can never be permitted to supersede the commitment to individual liberty that stands as the foundation of the American experiment. The constitution cannot accept the concept of a 'new normal' where the basic liberties of the people can be subordinated to open-ended emergency mitigation measures - U.S. District Judge William Stickman declaring PA's lockdown orders unconstitutional

inthewoods 6y ago
Not exactly shocking that a judge appointed by Trump would make such a statement and ruling.
- hoka-one-one 6y ago
  Yeah, especially since Donald Trump has been accused of racism and fascism.
- DuskStar 6y ago
  Well, not surprising if you expect Trump to be a fairly standard if also incompetent and boorish Republican. VERY surprising if you think he's a Fascist, though - using emergencies to "temporarily" strip away freedoms is a key part of the playbook there.
  - inthewoods 6y ago
    I'd say he exerts fascist or "fundamental freedom" arguments to match his politics.
sjg007 6y ago
Except he is wrong. The Supreme Court has ruled that such lockdowns are indeed constitutional and the States have the right to enforce them unless Congress intervenes.
- DuskStar 6y ago
  When did the Supreme Court rule that? And why the hell would Congress be able to overrule states on something like this? What torturous reading of the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to forbid lockdowns?
  - inthewoods 6y ago
    https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2020/09/pa-coronavirus-orders-tom-wolf-unconstitutional-legal-analysis-john-roberts/ https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2020/09/pa-coronavirus-orde... "U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, in a similar case out of California related to pandemic restrictions on religious gatherings, wrote in May that elected officials should be allowed latitude when acting in areas “fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties” and should not be subject to second-guessing by an “unelected federal judiciary.”
    - DuskStar 6y ago
      And wasn't that addressed in Stickman's ruling? There's a difference between "something that we can allow in an emergency" and "something that has been going on for 6 months and legally continues forever", like the situation in PA. Further, if there are medical and scientific uncertainties... Erring on the side of constitutional rights seems a LOT less potentially exploitable to me. If you think that something is so critical that you need to permanently remove rights to combat it... You should be able to back that up with incontrovertible evidence.
- jtbayly 6y ago
  Indefinitely such that it’s a new normal? No. Such is not constitutional. Edit to respond to downvotes: Nor was it constitutional to institute sweeping metadata collection as a new normal in response to an emergency situation. Nor is it constitutional to make encryption illegal as the new normal because of an emergency. Etc.
- just-juan-post 6y ago
  Could you please provide more information on this? If this is true it may change my congress and senate votes from blue to red. I won't vote in a presidential candidate that supports lockdowns "if the science supports it" and will make me wear a mask. Can his party truly make my state do these things? If so that's terrifying to me and there's no way I'm giving blue, the people I voted for all my life until this year, this type of power.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ntsplnkv2 6y ago
This will easily lose on appeal.
conception 6y ago
“I have the right to spread infectious diseases if I want!” is the height of the grift by a president who didn’t want to have the stock market drop.
- DuskStar 6y ago
  Well, "I have the right to spread all the HIV I want" was recently added to California law... (More specifically, legal penalties for intentionally/knowingly spreading it were r̵e̵m̵o̵v̵e̵d̵ reduced. CA was also the only state to have such penalties as far as I'm aware)
  - liability 6y ago
    Evidently the government can force you to wear a mask but not a condom.
  - Clampower 6y ago
    This is such an ignorant comment that I've seen perpetuated around the internet recently, that I made an account just to respond to this. HIV positive people on medication, cannot spread HIV. It's factually safer to have sex with an HIV positive person on meds, than a person who doesn't get tested and doesn't know their status. This law exists so that HIV positive people who cannot spread the virus are not legally obligated to tell others they have the virus. Please learn more about what it means to be HIV positive, and the discrimination that comes with it before making these horrible disparaging comments. Undetectable = Uninfectable (u=u) maybe a good thing for you to Google.
    - DuskStar 6y ago
      It's debatable. On the one hand, yes the most common case that the law applied to was "has HIV but virus loads are undetectable and thus risk of infection is nonexistent". On the other, removing that law means that someone who's off their meds with the intention of infecting others is now only guilty of a misdemeanor. Personally, I'm still not sure how that doesn't count as rape by deception, but whatever. In any case, I brought it up to compare to pandemic mask mandates. A "gay sex condom mandate" 30 or 40 years ago would have been incredibly effective at containing HIV (assuming it was actually followed), and HIV was at the time FAR more deadly than COVID-19. The fact that people consider one acceptable and one unthinkable is IMO interesting.

inthewoods 6y ago

Not exactly shocking that a judge appointed by Trump would make such a statement and ruling.

hoka-one-one 6y ago
Yeah, especially since Donald Trump has been accused of racism and fascism.
DuskStar 6y ago
Well, not surprising if you expect Trump to be a fairly standard if also incompetent and boorish Republican. VERY surprising if you think he's a Fascist, though - using emergencies to "temporarily" strip away freedoms is a key part of the playbook there.
- inthewoods 6y ago
  I'd say he exerts fascist or "fundamental freedom" arguments to match his politics.

sjg007 6y ago

Except he is wrong. The Supreme Court has ruled that such lockdowns are indeed constitutional and the States have the right to enforce them unless Congress intervenes.

DuskStar 6y ago
When did the Supreme Court rule that? And why the hell would Congress be able to overrule states on something like this? What torturous reading of the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to forbid lockdowns?
- inthewoods 6y ago
  https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2020/09/pa-coronavirus-orders-tom-wolf-unconstitutional-legal-analysis-john-roberts/ https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2020/09/pa-coronavirus-orde... "U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, in a similar case out of California related to pandemic restrictions on religious gatherings, wrote in May that elected officials should be allowed latitude when acting in areas “fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties” and should not be subject to second-guessing by an “unelected federal judiciary.”
  - DuskStar 6y ago
    And wasn't that addressed in Stickman's ruling? There's a difference between "something that we can allow in an emergency" and "something that has been going on for 6 months and legally continues forever", like the situation in PA. Further, if there are medical and scientific uncertainties... Erring on the side of constitutional rights seems a LOT less potentially exploitable to me. If you think that something is so critical that you need to permanently remove rights to combat it... You should be able to back that up with incontrovertible evidence.
jtbayly 6y ago
Indefinitely such that it’s a new normal? No. Such is not constitutional. Edit to respond to downvotes: Nor was it constitutional to institute sweeping metadata collection as a new normal in response to an emergency situation. Nor is it constitutional to make encryption illegal as the new normal because of an emergency. Etc.
just-juan-post 6y ago
Could you please provide more information on this? If this is true it may change my congress and senate votes from blue to red. I won't vote in a presidential candidate that supports lockdowns "if the science supports it" and will make me wear a mask. Can his party truly make my state do these things? If so that's terrifying to me and there's no way I'm giving blue, the people I voted for all my life until this year, this type of power.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ntsplnkv2 6y ago

This will easily lose on appeal.

conception 6y ago

“I have the right to spread infectious diseases if I want!” is the height of the grift by a president who didn’t want to have the stock market drop.

DuskStar 6y ago
Well, "I have the right to spread all the HIV I want" was recently added to California law... (More specifically, legal penalties for intentionally/knowingly spreading it were r̵e̵m̵o̵v̵e̵d̵ reduced. CA was also the only state to have such penalties as far as I'm aware)
- liability 6y ago
  Evidently the government can force you to wear a mask but not a condom.
- Clampower 6y ago
  This is such an ignorant comment that I've seen perpetuated around the internet recently, that I made an account just to respond to this. HIV positive people on medication, cannot spread HIV. It's factually safer to have sex with an HIV positive person on meds, than a person who doesn't get tested and doesn't know their status. This law exists so that HIV positive people who cannot spread the virus are not legally obligated to tell others they have the virus. Please learn more about what it means to be HIV positive, and the discrimination that comes with it before making these horrible disparaging comments. Undetectable = Uninfectable (u=u) maybe a good thing for you to Google.
  - DuskStar 6y ago
    It's debatable. On the one hand, yes the most common case that the law applied to was "has HIV but virus loads are undetectable and thus risk of infection is nonexistent". On the other, removing that law means that someone who's off their meds with the intention of infecting others is now only guilty of a misdemeanor. Personally, I'm still not sure how that doesn't count as rape by deception, but whatever. In any case, I brought it up to compare to pandemic mask mandates. A "gay sex condom mandate" 30 or 40 years ago would have been incredibly effective at containing HIV (assuming it was actually followed), and HIV was at the time FAR more deadly than COVID-19. The fact that people consider one acceptable and one unthinkable is IMO interesting.