The problem here is that when you start passing laws and fines on people not for causing damage to other but "for their own good" that are essentially violating core principles of modern democracy(as in the right to assembly, or conduct commerce), the state are taking on the persona of an "benevolent dictatorship" which are bound to drive some people towards contrarianism.
The measures taken might be completely right from an medical science perspective but we have moved away from a system where an enlightened monarch or central committee makes decisions on behaf of the ignorant people because history have shown that such systems always devolve into conspiracies against the many by the powerful few, so we cannot respond to every minor crisis by having the government adopt the tactics and language of an benevolent dictatorship and must govern by consent, ie it's the scientists job to make the public understand the risks/benefits not dictate solutions.
From the enlightened central committee, who have yet to pass an law making it illegal to unknowingly walk the streets while being infected with an virus(and even the common cold is deadly to the vulnerable).
At what point will it ever be legal again to break isolation, and where were the constitutional process that allowed the government to restrict fundamental rights no simple parliamentary majority can interfere with?
This is the problem you have an government making decree's it never had the authority to do because of an "crisis" with no clear star/end condition, which basic sociology predicts will lead to people getting contrarian views and reactions especially if the response to criticism is an "call to authority" no matter how deserved that call is.
I'm gonna suggest that normal functioning of our normal system of government might be something we all just have to live with for now. If folks want to argue that we live in a monarchy, I think the place to start is to bring a little bit of civics to the table and explain why they think that idea is plausible.
These laws are not “for their own good”. That is the massive mistake that caused Mike Pence and health officials to urge everyone as late as March 2nd not to buy masks, while the virus was spreading.
The masks are not to protect you - it’s to protect others from you!
Let me put it this way: every infected person who wears a mask reduces R0. The outbreaks and pandemic can be stopped. The quarantines and economic damage won’t be needed.
We don’t know who’s infected, so everyone has to wear masks and washing hands when entering a building. People should be fined by private businesses and buildings for violating this.
And on a public level, this is like getting a DUI.
You’re absolutely right. It’s important to remember that we’re in a panic right now and we won’t necessarily make the best decisions. I just read a book about the Salem witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition (poor timing I guess) but I feel extra scared right now.
Democracy is wonderful and all but it's simply too slow to use it for absolutely everything. Plus, I would argue that, when it comes to highly-specialized fields like virology, the "ignorant public" does still exist - Boris Johnson just demonstrated that even the best-educated in the world can be incredibly ignorant in this or that area of science.
Do we have fundamental civil right doing this crisis?
Go read any constitution of a democratic state, they all contain protection of activities that is being restricted as a part of the corona containment measures, and in many cases without any legislative process let alone that needed to change an constitution.
Representative Democracy always contains an explicit contract on where the governments mandate to regulate ends, which is often as important to the freedom of it's public then the mere presence of an vote for representatives.
Your first paragraph is a real argument. Do you want to dip into the actual US constitution and try to itemize which rights you agree we still have and which rights you're arguing we've lost? That would make sense to me. (I claim the second, third and fourth amendments are doing fine right now. If you want, you can pick one or more and say the government is infringing on them.)
The second and third paragraphs in your comment, I'm sorry, appear to be just fluff. Which specific constitution? What do the words actually say? We can read the real words in an actual constitution ... or we can generalize and, I'm sorry, in my opinion that amounts to blowing smoke.
You no longer have the right of assembly(article 20), nor freedom if movement(article 13) there is good reasons why this is restricted doing an pandemic but it's still an restriction of an fundamental right.
The us constitution without post 1965 caselaw and amendments is not defining an modern democracy as and modern civics almost universally equate the term democracy with the UN Charter of Human Rights.
Of cause you could use the old definition where any system of voting(even one where only 10% of the public have the right to vote) is an democracy but that would be pointless in an modern context.
The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights is unfortunately riddled with qualifications and exceptions. Article 29 is especially problematic:
> (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
So after layout out various high-minded (if occasionally contradictory) ideals, they immediately follow up by saying that these "rights", which are apparently not universal and thus not really rights at all, are subject to broadly-defined "limitations" which amount to a laundry-list of excuses states have used throughout history to justify denying people their fundamental rights: "morality, public order and the general welfare". Has there ever been any infringement of the rights of speech, assembly, movement, or property which wasn't justified (publically, at least) on the basis of one of those categories?
If you strike out Article 29 as well as the "attacks upon his honour and reputation" part of Article 12 (which is directly contrary to freedom of speech), the "arbitrary" qualifiers in Articles 14, 15, and 17 which render the surrounding statements meaningless, the frankly irrelevant opinion statement "the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society" in Article 16, and Articles 22 through 27—in their entirety—then you would actually have a Universal Declaration of Human Rights worthy of the name. The authors started out reasonably well but failed to resist the impulse to throw in one contradictory article after another toward the end. You can see this reflected in the style of the text: the early articles are short and to the point, but as you read further down the document they get longer and more complicated, and start talking more about obligations and limitations than actual rights.
The US Constitution may not be perfect but at least it didn't fall into the trap of trying to carve out exceptions and limitations, pre-justifying the infringement of fundamental rights whenever the exercise of that right becomes inconvenient for the state, or enshrining an entitlement to a certain standard of living or to specific goods or services which can only be provided by infringing on the rights of others.
Jesus its an epidemic emergency. Get over yourself - every restriction for public health doesn't have to be campaigned against as a critical attack on your freedom.
You want to know who the snowflakes are now - its the angry crowds that can't spend time at home with their own thoughts, without working themselves into a froth.
The angry mobs is also 110% predictable and it's an clear indictment against the competency of the state that it so far have not been prepared to deal with what is an normal reaction to emergency powers being imposed with little warning/debate.
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My argument is not that the measures are wrong but that the messaging is indicative of an state that have lost it's willingness/ability to seek consensus, which can develop into a problem that can make the corona pandemic hitting the semi-affluent retiree communities look like an minor event in an interesting decade.
While the measures might be fully correct(mostly i agree with them) "the shut up and listen to your betters" mentality/rhetoric is only going to make the group of people fed up with the way they have been ignored for decades go even more rogue as they gather more and more "evidence" that their rights are being actively trampled on and become more willing to "fight the power!!" regardless of the "collateral damage" for doing so.
> state that have lost it's willingness/ability to seek consensus
They seek consensus. The consensus this time just happened to be different than your personal opinion. That's an indictment against egotism, not against government.
where are the transcript of adversarial hearings and the ratified constitutional amendment.
When you cant even get the head of state to fully endorse the consensus and face major dissent then what basis have we to claim it was an consensus to begin with.
The problem is of cause that the panic induced rush to do something let to an consensus without quorum. And while the rush might have been justified it needs validation by an actual quorate consensus on an near daily basis as emergency decisions to suspect rights have an lifetime of days not months.
Lockdown is after all also how authoritarian states typically respond to political unrest, so we need to keep being vigilant that they only exists for the purpose of spreading and actively expanding epidemic.
Just so you know, this is an old problem in American democracy, which has risen to the Supreme Court over a hundred years ago, and been settled in favor of public health.
It is not a slippery slope to authoritarianism, it is an extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures (i.e. wartime, smallpox). As a nation, we’ve long ago decided and upheld the idea that public health is more valuable than individual liberty, in times like these.
If you’re curious, the case is Jacobson v Massachusetts. Excerpted from Wikipedia:
> Harlan ruled that Massachusetts was justified in mandating vaccination: "there are manifold restraints to which each person is necessarily subject for the common good". While Harlan supported such restraints, he also warned that if the state targeted specific individuals or populations to unnecessary restrictions, the court might have to step in to protect them.
> That was a few years after Wong Wai v. Williamson in which a federal circuit court injunction in San Francisco was overturned. It required all Chinese residents of San Francisco to get a dangerous bubonic plague inoculation if they wished to leave the city, which Judge William Morrow ruled was "boldly directed against the Asiatic or Mongolian race as a class".
The us constitution is also a fairly week document that don't even protect things as basic as "free speech" if you read rulings like the infamous Brandenburg ruling, that contract to it's rhetoric did not involve anyone "yelling fire in an crowded theater" but someone advocating people being drafted the army dong WWI to challenge the legality of the draft, and refuse to report as instructed to the muster stations.
This might be the one time the crisis is real and not invented but how do we make sure that all of the emergency measures including all new surveillance tech deployed is mothballed under seal. the second it's no longer an emergency and that an correct review happens afterwards.
The us supreme court have an long tradition of reading the us constitution with an very open mind to the needs of the state itself, especially in rulings that predate the US signing the UN Charter of Human rights.
The measures taken might be completely right from an medical science perspective but we have moved away from a system where an enlightened monarch or central committee makes decisions on behaf of the ignorant people because history have shown that such systems always devolve into conspiracies against the many by the powerful few, so we cannot respond to every minor crisis by having the government adopt the tactics and language of an benevolent dictatorship and must govern by consent, ie it's the scientists job to make the public understand the risks/benefits not dictate solutions.