3 ms·

I'm curious and Im not putting you on the spot here but I wonder from what law does the government derive the authority to force people to wear masks in order t

I'm curious and Im not putting you on the spot here but I wonder from what law does the government derive the authority to force people to wear masks in order to prevent a common virus which all of us have some immunity to? To me this seems to be another over reach emboldened into existence by COVID measures. Im not making the argument these measure were unnecessary at the time. I am making the argument that we do in fact live in an imperfect world filled with both natural and man made threats. Bad things are going to happen and thats a fact of life. > "they want to get rid of influenza, too, or they want public-health practices in place that could stop the next pandemic from ever starting at all." Until domestic and international travel is banned this is a pipe dream. In a matter of months anyone who wants a vaccination will have had one. Time to get on with the business of living in an unpredictable world filled with new threats.

tptacek 6y ago
The power to enforce quarantines goes all the way back to the founders.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Perpetual mask laws aren’t quarantines, though. Quarantines are limited-time emergency things. Consider how Poland's Supreme Court, for example, recently found that the government had no right to close businesses or require masks without declaring a state of emergency (which is necessarily a short-term thing). In the USA, with its even more litigious culture and judges favouring limited state intervention, I would expect long-term public-health laws to face even more legal opposition.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    Quarantines as considered by the founders were far harsher than the mask mandates we have now. This all seems like just-so logic to me.
    - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
      Again, it doesn’t matter how harsh the quarantine, what matters is that a quarantine is a limited-time restriction. (Etymologically, the word "quarantine" originally referred to a period of 40 days.) Meanwhile, this thread of the discussion is about the idea of states imposing mask laws forever, even after the COVID emergency has passed.
mrfusion 6y ago
I think you’re spot on. U.S. District Judge William Stickman said it best when declaring PA's lockdown orders unconstitutional: 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

tptacek 6y ago

The power to enforce quarantines goes all the way back to the founders.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Perpetual mask laws aren’t quarantines, though. Quarantines are limited-time emergency things. Consider how Poland's Supreme Court, for example, recently found that the government had no right to close businesses or require masks without declaring a state of emergency (which is necessarily a short-term thing). In the USA, with its even more litigious culture and judges favouring limited state intervention, I would expect long-term public-health laws to face even more legal opposition.
- tptacek 6y ago
  Quarantines as considered by the founders were far harsher than the mask mandates we have now. This all seems like just-so logic to me.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    Again, it doesn’t matter how harsh the quarantine, what matters is that a quarantine is a limited-time restriction. (Etymologically, the word "quarantine" originally referred to a period of 40 days.) Meanwhile, this thread of the discussion is about the idea of states imposing mask laws forever, even after the COVID emergency has passed.

mrfusion 6y ago

I think you’re spot on. U.S. District Judge William Stickman said it best when declaring PA's lockdown orders unconstitutional: 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