[Fasces]

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch calls COVID-19 response "the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in peacetime history"

As COVID-19 spread across the United States in 2020, among the wide-ranging efforts to insulate the country from the pandemic was Title 42, a restrictive immigration policy allowing the rapid expulsion of asylum seekers and other migrants.

The measure — initially implemented by the Trump administration and expanded under President Joe Biden — expired this month. The US Supreme Court last week rejected a push by Republican-led states to keep it in place.

In an eight-page statement in response to the case, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch didn't mince words. He called the country's response to the COVID-19 emergency "the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country."

"Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale. Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private, " Gorsuch wrote in the statement, released Thursday.

Gorsuch has long been critical of restrictive COVID-19 measures, the Associated Press reported. In January 2022, he was the only Justice who refused to wear a mask, forcing Justice Sonia Sotomayor to participate in oral arguments virtually. Sotomayor has diabetes and is at a higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19.

In Thursday's statement, Gorsuch warned that the "concentration of power in the hands of so few" won't lead to "sound government."

"One lesson might be this: Fear and the desire for safety are powerful forces. They can lead to a clamor for action —almost any action — as long as someone does something to address a perceived threat. A leader or an expert who claims he can fix everything, if only we do exactly as he says, can prove an irresistible force," he wrote.

https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme ... ies-2023-5

Aside from Jim Crow and slavery, or including Jim Crow and slavery? Can never tell with these Trump types.

[Deutschmania]

Yo, do I , a mere lowly certificated paralegal , have more of a sense of legal history than this judicial character? Look, stringent measures to contain the spread of infectious disease is nothing new, and even go back to beyond the time of the founding of the United States. And has everyone but myself and a number of other history geeks forgotten about the so called Spanish Influenza of a century before? Pandemics in this country are nothing new. In spite of what you might have heard, from certain politicians even, we are not living in unprecedented times. As referred to in the musical Hamilton, Aaron Burr lost his parents in a pandemic. The only thing that is remarkable is that due in large part to such innovation as vaccines and medicines , widespread death from contagion had become so few and far between that we've grown complacent, and had taken our public health for granted. https://www.businessinsider.com/spanish-flu-pandemic-1918-precautions-us-cities-2020-4 , https://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/legal-precedents-for-epidemic-response , https://www.lawfareblog.com/long-history-coercive-health-responses-american-law

[JohnRawls]

Aside from Jim Crow and slavery, or including Jim Crow and slavery? Can never tell with these Trump types.

His not wrong but he is also full of shit because under precedent law this was done before by the founding fathers and others. So it is allowed unless he can weasel a way to say why it is not allowed. Simply saying that they are restrictions on liberty, well duh, no shit. Restrictions on liberty are allowed under certain circumstances.

[wat0n]

Forcible vaccination was deemed constitutional by the SCOTUS in 1905 (Jacobson v MA), sterilization of the mentally challenged was allowed by the SCOTUS in 1927 (Buck v Bell) and plenty of US jurisdictions mandated quarantines and mask use during the flu pandemic of 1918 (and plenty of others did not, like during COVID). What the hell is he talking about?

[Fasces]

His not wrong

He's not wrong that covid was the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in peacetime US history?







vs

[Fasces]

I see four ways one might try to square Gorsuch’s declaration on Thursday with this horrific history. First, the justice may have meant what he said, and truly believes that COVID policies were a greater burden on civil liberties than slavery or Jim Crow. He does, after all, really hate wearing masks. Second, Gorsuch may have simply forgotten about the centuries-long subjugation of Black Americans (which originalists prefer to ignore, anyway). Third, he may have not considered these constitutionally sanctified, Supreme Court–sanctioned crimes against humanity as “civil liberties” abuses in the tradition sense; per this view, they were just the constitutional system at work as the founding generation might have envisioned. Fourth, he may have been attempting to cordon off the experiences of Black people and other historically abused minority groups as not having been a “collective” civil liberties intrusion experienced by all Americans (read: white Americans); note his choice of words in writing that “we” suffered civil liberties violations. A charitable reading might suggest that Gorsuch is speaking for well-off, middle-aged white men, whose privilege insulated them from adversity until that dark day in March 2020 when their local Buffalo Wild Wings shut its doors indefinitely.

[QatzelOk]

Aside from Jim Crow and slavery, or including Jim Crow and slavery? Can never tell with these Trump types.

Under slavery, a master could inject his property with any substance that he saw fit.

He could lock up his slaves for reasons that he alone determined were "for their own good."

And he could constantly change the storyline, before disappearing into his master's house to discuss strategy with his elite, master family.

***

For me, the most *end of Western Civilization* memes from the Covid-19 psy ops... were all those mass media talking heads that sought to create a hated scapegoatTM of the unvaxxed.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/mainstrea ... cans-covid

https://macleans.ca/politics/trudeau-sa ... accinated/

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/foxs-howard ... accinated/

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/don-lemon-r ... ly-stupid/

[JohnRawls]

He's not wrong that covid was the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in peacetime US history?







vs

He means the lockdowns and all the restrictions put together.

[Fasces]

Were worse than slavery?

And you agree? @JohnRawls

[JohnRawls]

Were worse than slavery?

And you agree? @JohnRawls

No, i do not agree.

[QatzelOk]

Were worse than slavery?

And you agree? @JohnRawls

It depends on what type of slavery you are talking about, Fasces.

In many ways, suburbanites who need their vehicles, the gasoline for them, and who watch state propaganda every day... who are then locked in their homes and denied the right to see other people... are in fact, slaves. Or prisoners.

Injecting slaves or prisoners with possibly unsafe substances... is a crime. Even prisoners and slaves have a few rights.

[QatzelOk]

This is a remix of a popular "Oprah" type of show in Québec.

The host of the show - Julie Snyder - had two school-aged kids on the show to talk about their fresh vaccinations, and asked them what we should do to the unvaxxed.

The kids replied, robot-like:
BOY: "You should call the police."
GIRL: "You should take things away from them - like the government is doing right now - little by little, until they get vaccinated."

Their teacher nodded approvingly, but admitted to Julie, that she may have "drilled them too hard."

Here is the disco remix of that incredibly low-point in screen-based entertainment culture:

And here's the original with English subtitles:

[Americanroyalty]

Dont worry and dont think. that is the perfect liberalidm.0

[QatzelOk]

He's not wrong that covid was the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in peacetime US history?

What was amazing about the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in peacetime history... is how little resistance there was.

For younger generations, this means that by the time you are my age, you will have absolutely no rights whatsoever.

Today's adults are passive conformists who are addicted to loud machines including screens that tell them what to believe.

[Fasces]

You're defending slavery, Qatz.

[Godstud]

Ummm... wearing a mask sometimes and getting a vaccine is not an intrusion on civil liberties. Lots of things are required of people to drive cars(licenses), drink (drinking age/ID), seatbelt/helmet laws, etc. Society has a right to impose restrictions for the the health and benefit of all within it.

I live in a place where people think about each other and so some people still wear masks, but most are vaccinated(it's just a little needle, and it's free). No one considers it a violation of rights, because they aren't selfish twats.

Some businesses still ask people to wear masks, and so people wear masks. It's inconvenient. That's all it is. Inconveniences are not civil rights violations.

Comparing wearing a mask or getting a vaccine shot to slavery is as stupid as when PETA compared cattle slaughterhouses to the Holocaust. It's the worst kind of hyperbole, but radicals like that.

Oh no, have I hurt my new Right-wing status with this view, that I have always held? I hope not!!

[Rich]

Ummm... wearing a mask sometimes and getting a vaccine is not an intrusion on civil liberties. Lots of things are required of people to drive cars(licenses), drink (drinking age/ID), seatbelt/helmet laws, etc. Society has a right to impose restrictions for the the health and benefit of all within it.

Forcing vaccines on people is most definitely an intrusion on civil liberties, as are the other things you mention. I think "Rights" are a good idea, but (intellectually) we need to remember that they are a human created system. That they are not absolute, that they must always be in part fictional. The protection of rights, always involves the infringement of rights.

I opposed Lockdowns from the beginning. That doesn't mean I opposed all government enforced regulations on work places, all government support for people not working or voluntary changes in behavior. There were a lot of cretins on the forum too stupid to understand my position. With hindsight Im stunned, simply stunned, by how right I was, and how much mainstream opinion has moved towards my views. Funnily enough this vindication is at similar time, at which my critique of the Afghan intervention back in 2001, has also been utterly vindicated.

I live in a place where people think about each other and so some people still wear masks, but most are vaccinated(it's just a little needle, and it's free). No one considers it a violation of rights, because they aren't selfish twats.

Lockdowns were the epitome of selfishness. They expressed the narcissism of the Woodstock generation. The people who held a massive Festival in the middle of a Flu Pandemic back in 1969,who selfishly created a public health crisis, in 2021 had become old and fearful and yet again put there own short term wants over those of other generations.

Comparing wearing a mask or getting a vaccine shot to slavery is as stupid

The American Founders made similiar comparisons to slavery, as I believe did Republicans in Ancient Rome. It may be stupid, but its a time honored argument.

[QatzelOk]

Ummm... wearing a mask sometimes and getting a vaccine is not an intrusion on civil liberties. Lots of things are required of people to drive cars(licenses), drink (drinking age/ID), seatbelt/helmet laws, etc. Society has a right to impose restrictions for the the health and benefit of all within it...

Our corrupt Western bourgois governments are almost entirely controlled by private corporations and oligarchs now. So they will exploit - to the max - anything they can to take away our freedom so that they can make more money. The war on Russia is the latest example of our oligarchs putting our lives at risk in order to skim billions of dollars.

This is a deadly dialectic that will lead to the end of freedom entirely. For the oligarchs, "a farmer has the right to do whatever he must with his cattle."

Sad to see cattle defending farmer's rights. I blame three generations of commercial media brainwashing for this sad state of common sense. Suburbanites who grow up with no community... don't defend the community they never had.

Much like cattle have no community.

[Godstud]

@QatzelOk I do not live in a Western country. MORE people got vaccinated and took precautions because of that sense of community you think is lacking in the West. Have you considered that working on behalf of all society is part of that community spirit?

[QatzelOk]

...MORE people got vaccinated and took precautions because of that sense of community you think is lacking in the West. Have you considered that working on behalf of all society is part of that community spirit?

One of the reasons for the declining community spirit in the West is that commerce has abused this concept so many times in order to make money for the shareholder class.

What I saw was threats, lies, and scapegoating... in order to pressure people to 'do what money tells you to do.'

Being locked in your house and being told that other people are poison so you have to stay 2 meters away from them... is likely to damage our communities for one entire generation.