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> US could have done this No, absent martial law being imposed by the feds, this was never an option. The US federal government is not legally able to do the s

by aksss 6y ago

> US could have done this No, absent martial law being imposed by the feds, this was never an option. The US federal government is not legally able to do the same things that unitary nations like South Korea and Australia can do on a whim. States delegated certain limited powers to the feds at inception, and reserve many, while affirmatively proscribing the federal government from doing specific things. States in the US are not simply local administrative bodies, they are essentially mini-nations that have out-sourced certain shared services. I’m speaking generally of course but that’s a better way to understand civics in the US vs some other (most?) countries. As a consequence of this system, states bear a lot of responsibility for their own policies. What do you think the tolerance would have been (or still is) for Joe Biden, much less Trump, declaring martial law? About zero, I’d suspect.

boatmansloth 6y ago
The federal government didn't close the state borders in Australia, the state governments did. Australia is a federation just like the USA.
- aksss 6y ago
  GTK, I didn’t appreciate the level of independence possessed by the Australian states. Unsure of how AUS states locked down - nonetheless, getting six states to agree on something is easier than 50. Point stands that the US could not lock down travel between the states, and it would be impossible to get the states to agree on mutual border closures.
  - boatmansloth 6y ago
    The states didn't agree on anything - when a state had an outbreak other states independently chose to close the border to them and administered border passes until the outbreak subsided.
- jandrewrogers 6y ago
  In the US, the States are explicitly prohibited from closing their borders as a matter of Constitutional law. For different reasons, neither the States nor the Federal government are allowed to prohibit free travel between the States. This has been to the Supreme Court many times, it is mostly settled law at this point. The right to travel within the US, like free speech, is near absolute. The due process hurdles to temporarily remove that right from an individual are very high; you can't do it with an edict nor de facto travel restrictions by abusing regulatory power (which has also been tested in the US Supreme Court). Australia has significantly weaker individual freedoms than the US. This is one of those cases where those differences become apparent. Everyone asserting that the US should restrict travel like everyone else is ignoring that it is expressly illegal for the government to mandate such at thing in the US. No one in the US government is interested in dealing with the backlash such an attempt would elicit.
  - boatmansloth 6y ago
    > In the US, the States are explicitly prohibited from closing their borders as a matter of Constitutional law This appears to be wrong: https://www.justsecurity.org/69770/can-governors-close-their-borders-to-pandemic-risks/ https://www.justsecurity.org/69770/can-governors-close-their...
    - jandrewrogers 6y ago
      No, that is selective quoting of case law in support of a narrative. There are significant due process hurdles and evidentiary standards of "threat to public safety" in this same case law that are ignored here because they are inconvenient to the argument but nonetheless part of that same judicial precedent. A thorough reading of that case law makes it plain that the proposals with respect to COVID would never pass judicial muster. In fact, there is considerable case law where attempts at such prohibitions were rejected outright but little curiosity in the above link as to the conditions and circumstances that caused the courts to throw them out. The government knows that the courts won't allow them to cherrypick and selectively quote case law. It isn't an accident that every State in the US, across the entire political spectrum, came to the same policy conclusion regarding freedom of travel.

by aksss 6y ago

boatmansloth 6y ago

The federal government didn't close the state borders in Australia, the state governments did. Australia is a federation just like the USA.

aksss 6y ago
GTK, I didn’t appreciate the level of independence possessed by the Australian states. Unsure of how AUS states locked down - nonetheless, getting six states to agree on something is easier than 50. Point stands that the US could not lock down travel between the states, and it would be impossible to get the states to agree on mutual border closures.
- boatmansloth 6y ago
  The states didn't agree on anything - when a state had an outbreak other states independently chose to close the border to them and administered border passes until the outbreak subsided.
jandrewrogers 6y ago
In the US, the States are explicitly prohibited from closing their borders as a matter of Constitutional law. For different reasons, neither the States nor the Federal government are allowed to prohibit free travel between the States. This has been to the Supreme Court many times, it is mostly settled law at this point. The right to travel within the US, like free speech, is near absolute. The due process hurdles to temporarily remove that right from an individual are very high; you can't do it with an edict nor de facto travel restrictions by abusing regulatory power (which has also been tested in the US Supreme Court). Australia has significantly weaker individual freedoms than the US. This is one of those cases where those differences become apparent. Everyone asserting that the US should restrict travel like everyone else is ignoring that it is expressly illegal for the government to mandate such at thing in the US. No one in the US government is interested in dealing with the backlash such an attempt would elicit.
- boatmansloth 6y ago
  > In the US, the States are explicitly prohibited from closing their borders as a matter of Constitutional law This appears to be wrong: https://www.justsecurity.org/69770/can-governors-close-their-borders-to-pandemic-risks/ https://www.justsecurity.org/69770/can-governors-close-their...
  - jandrewrogers 6y ago
    No, that is selective quoting of case law in support of a narrative. There are significant due process hurdles and evidentiary standards of "threat to public safety" in this same case law that are ignored here because they are inconvenient to the argument but nonetheless part of that same judicial precedent. A thorough reading of that case law makes it plain that the proposals with respect to COVID would never pass judicial muster. In fact, there is considerable case law where attempts at such prohibitions were rejected outright but little curiosity in the above link as to the conditions and circumstances that caused the courts to throw them out. The government knows that the courts won't allow them to cherrypick and selectively quote case law. It isn't an accident that every State in the US, across the entire political spectrum, came to the same policy conclusion regarding freedom of travel.