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Preventing the spread of a deadly disease (basically the job of the CDC) required people to stay home. Evictions stand in direct opposition to that goal; moreo

Preventing the spread of a deadly disease (basically the job of the CDC) required people to stay home. Evictions stand in direct opposition to that goal; moreover, the economic shock of social distancing requirements would have greatly increased the number of evictions, and thus the moratorium was instated. This is not rocket science. The question is not, "Did the CDC do the right thing?" or "Did the CDC have the right to do this thing?" but rather, "How long should the CDC be able to impose an emergency mandate like this before we insist on a more democratic approach?"

sneak 5y ago
I think their point was that the answer is a literal "zero seconds". The CDC should not have the authority to appropriate property, not for a month, not for a minute.
- betterunix2 5y ago
  In which case we would have had a wave of evictions and a spike in homelessness during the most difficult phase of the pandemic -- when we had no vaccines, limited testing capacity, and hospitals that were way over capacity with COVID patients. That would have left many more people dead and greatly reduced compliance with social distancing rules as desperate people (facing eviction or already evicted) skirted the rules in an attempt to make enough money to cover their rent. It would also have given people an easy excuse for dismissing the CDC's guidance in general, since the CDC would have been making a completely unreasonable demand ("stay home" is unreasonable if you need to leave your home to show up at work so you have enough money to make rent). The CDC does not have the ability to pay everyone's rent. If we could have relied on state governments or Congress to bail out rent for people who were unable to make rent otherwise, maybe the moratorium would not have been necessary. Unfortunately, that is not even remotely something we can rely on -- we have spent over a year arguing about whether the "relief" checks, which would not even cover rent in many cities, are too generous. Emergency powers are not a problem -- in an emergency there is no time for political parties to work out some kind of deal or for judges to review facts / legal arguments, and we allow certain government agencies to take emergency actions in such situations. Look at how long it took for the courts to overrule the CDC; if that is how long it took to react to emergencies we would be at the mercy of every fire, disease outbreak, hurricane, etc. The only relevant question to protecting democracy is, "How long should an emergency order remain in effect before the legislature or judiciary gets involved?"
  - sneak 5y ago
    Emergency powers have a tendency to not reliably get reined in. For every time there is a functioning court override, there are ten post-9/11 border zone 4a exclusions that never get restored. Anyone who lived through September 11th in the USA and isn't scared of emergency powers isn't paying attention. The CIA's torture prisons are still operating, for example. We have boundaries in law for a reason, even in emergencies.
    - betterunix2 5y ago
      Emergency powers have no such tendency. There is a risk of that happening, but in reality the tendency is that emergency powers exercised in the USA are routinely reined in, often voluntarily by the agency wielding those powers. That is because the use of emergency powers is almost always at the local level, during a short-term local emergency. We literally watched state and local government scale back their own application of emergency powers (in response to COVID) over the past few weeks. I lived through 9/11 -- in fact I was in Lower Manhattan that very morning. I know all about the abuses of power that followed, but the fact is that many of those abuses were voted on by Congress and some have been renewed with one vote after another. It is a complete red herring. The level of distrust in the government these days goes well beyond what the founders had in mind -- as evidenced by the fact that they created a government with an Executive, and gave the Executive powers that can clearly be executed without first consulting Congress or the Courts.
      - mikem170 5y ago
        Maybe you're not making enough a distinction between the federal government and state/local governments. I think a lot of people are aggravated with the federal government usurping state voters.
      - sneak 5y ago
        > The level of distrust in the government these days goes well beyond what the founders had in mind I am pretty sure that the maximum level of distrust of government the founders had in mind included powder and musket ball. We're nowhere there yet.
claytongulick 5y ago
Under that reasoning, it's difficult to imagine a power the CDC wouldn't be able to justify exerting under the guise of public health. See how the ICC has been stretched beyond all reason to grant federal powers. Keep in mind, the Bill of Rights was written during the tail end of the smallpox pandemic which had a 30% mortality rate. The clear separation and limits on government powers were considered to be a higher priority.
- betterunix2 5y ago
  Like I said, the question that needs to be answered is how long can an emergency power be exercised before Congress or the courts step in. In the early days of the country we had plenty of exercises of emergency powers. It was common for large numbers of buildings to be demolished in an attempt to prevent fires from spreading across cities, and nobody waited for a judge to rule on the acceptability and compensation requirements of such actions. There was never any doubt that if a foreign army was invading the President could immediately order the US army and state militias to respond, without waiting for Congress to vote on a declaration of war. It is also worth remembering that when the constitution was drafted the prevailing theory of disease was the "miasma theory," and only a rudimentary understanding of disease containment that included some vague concepts of quarantine. Disease outbreaks would routinely create ghost towns all over the country. I have no doubt that the framers of constitution, had they understood disease as we understand it today, would have had no problem whatsoever with the CDC's emergency powers and would have focused on how Congress could regulate those emergency actions (as they did with the military).
twelve40 5y ago
Stay home underscore underscore resonated with the crowds in 2020. Now it's halfway through 2021, and the point many people here seem to be making is that having CDC in any part of the $60 billion dollar 1.5+ year long economic problem that was arbitrarily and forcefully shoved up the ass of one of the free market participants is kind of obscene.

sneak 5y ago

I think their point was that the answer is a literal "zero seconds". The CDC should not have the authority to appropriate property, not for a month, not for a minute.

betterunix2 5y ago
In which case we would have had a wave of evictions and a spike in homelessness during the most difficult phase of the pandemic -- when we had no vaccines, limited testing capacity, and hospitals that were way over capacity with COVID patients. That would have left many more people dead and greatly reduced compliance with social distancing rules as desperate people (facing eviction or already evicted) skirted the rules in an attempt to make enough money to cover their rent. It would also have given people an easy excuse for dismissing the CDC's guidance in general, since the CDC would have been making a completely unreasonable demand ("stay home" is unreasonable if you need to leave your home to show up at work so you have enough money to make rent). The CDC does not have the ability to pay everyone's rent. If we could have relied on state governments or Congress to bail out rent for people who were unable to make rent otherwise, maybe the moratorium would not have been necessary. Unfortunately, that is not even remotely something we can rely on -- we have spent over a year arguing about whether the "relief" checks, which would not even cover rent in many cities, are too generous. Emergency powers are not a problem -- in an emergency there is no time for political parties to work out some kind of deal or for judges to review facts / legal arguments, and we allow certain government agencies to take emergency actions in such situations. Look at how long it took for the courts to overrule the CDC; if that is how long it took to react to emergencies we would be at the mercy of every fire, disease outbreak, hurricane, etc. The only relevant question to protecting democracy is, "How long should an emergency order remain in effect before the legislature or judiciary gets involved?"
- sneak 5y ago
  Emergency powers have a tendency to not reliably get reined in. For every time there is a functioning court override, there are ten post-9/11 border zone 4a exclusions that never get restored. Anyone who lived through September 11th in the USA and isn't scared of emergency powers isn't paying attention. The CIA's torture prisons are still operating, for example. We have boundaries in law for a reason, even in emergencies.
  - betterunix2 5y ago
    Emergency powers have no such tendency. There is a risk of that happening, but in reality the tendency is that emergency powers exercised in the USA are routinely reined in, often voluntarily by the agency wielding those powers. That is because the use of emergency powers is almost always at the local level, during a short-term local emergency. We literally watched state and local government scale back their own application of emergency powers (in response to COVID) over the past few weeks. I lived through 9/11 -- in fact I was in Lower Manhattan that very morning. I know all about the abuses of power that followed, but the fact is that many of those abuses were voted on by Congress and some have been renewed with one vote after another. It is a complete red herring. The level of distrust in the government these days goes well beyond what the founders had in mind -- as evidenced by the fact that they created a government with an Executive, and gave the Executive powers that can clearly be executed without first consulting Congress or the Courts.
    - mikem170 5y ago
      Maybe you're not making enough a distinction between the federal government and state/local governments. I think a lot of people are aggravated with the federal government usurping state voters.
    - sneak 5y ago
      > The level of distrust in the government these days goes well beyond what the founders had in mind I am pretty sure that the maximum level of distrust of government the founders had in mind included powder and musket ball. We're nowhere there yet.

claytongulick 5y ago

Under that reasoning, it's difficult to imagine a power the CDC wouldn't be able to justify exerting under the guise of public health. See how the ICC has been stretched beyond all reason to grant federal powers. Keep in mind, the Bill of Rights was written during the tail end of the smallpox pandemic which had a 30% mortality rate. The clear separation and limits on government powers were considered to be a higher priority.

betterunix2 5y ago
Like I said, the question that needs to be answered is how long can an emergency power be exercised before Congress or the courts step in. In the early days of the country we had plenty of exercises of emergency powers. It was common for large numbers of buildings to be demolished in an attempt to prevent fires from spreading across cities, and nobody waited for a judge to rule on the acceptability and compensation requirements of such actions. There was never any doubt that if a foreign army was invading the President could immediately order the US army and state militias to respond, without waiting for Congress to vote on a declaration of war. It is also worth remembering that when the constitution was drafted the prevailing theory of disease was the "miasma theory," and only a rudimentary understanding of disease containment that included some vague concepts of quarantine. Disease outbreaks would routinely create ghost towns all over the country. I have no doubt that the framers of constitution, had they understood disease as we understand it today, would have had no problem whatsoever with the CDC's emergency powers and would have focused on how Congress could regulate those emergency actions (as they did with the military).

twelve40 5y ago

Stay home underscore underscore resonated with the crowds in 2020. Now it's halfway through 2021, and the point many people here seem to be making is that having CDC in any part of the $60 billion dollar 1.5+ year long economic problem that was arbitrarily and forcefully shoved up the ass of one of the free market participants is kind of obscene.