For example, a Feb. 23 Bloomberg Green report opened this way (emphasis added): “With President Joe Biden’s signature environmental legislation indefinitely stalled, progressive Democrats and activists are lobbying the White House to declare a ‘climate emergency’ to unlock executive powers. The tactic could allow Biden to shut down crude oil exports, suspend offshore drilling, and redirect funding for clean energy projects.” It is even regarded as a “tactic” to have their highly unpopular policy preferences forced on people.
If legislatures and courts fail to rein in this practice, the only limits to its use will soon be the extent of the unchecked executive’s imagination. A declared “gun violence emergency” could portend severe restrictions on Second Amendment rights. A “hate speech emergency” could unleash a rash of unimaginable censorship, not just against individuals but against publishers, advertisers, etc., and especially churches. Some leaders have no qualms about pressuring or colluding with banks, credit providers, social media, other businesses, even employers to compel people to act in compliance with their wishes. What about an “affordable housing emergency?” There’s nothing in the Bill of Rights that couldn’t be set aside.
So even as mandates fall and COVID recedes, we cannot slumber while government has broken out of its pen. Maybe now it’s tamely wandering about the yard, but that doesn’t mean the beast is harmless. Now is the time to return it back within its constitutional confines, check the enclosure for structural weaknesses, and fix the locks before it grows restless again.
Luke Johnson tweets: (HT Jay Bhattacharya)
Lockdowns were an egregious example of bureaucrat megalomania on the rampage. State functionaries get their thrills from such exercise of power. They gave no evidence for the effectiveness of lockdowns, no cost/benefit analysis. Now societies are paying the awful price.
Vinay Prasad decries the arrogance of Biden’s White House. Here’s Dr. Prasad’s conclusion:
In short, the White House is not your doctor, yet they have decided they will act as such. This is a dangerous precedent. The American people will soon be participating in an uncontrolled clinical trial of 4th and 5th doses, possibly with coercive mandates. Not having an advisory committee is a threat to public health. This decision does not bode well.
The straw man continues his destructive and tyrannical reign in China.
Bigotry on the part of American public health explains why it insisted on the devastating school closures. They disdain experts who do not share their narrow “leftist” (actually pro-laptop class) political views and accept ad hominem smears to dismiss valid points from critics.
Alex Washburne tweets (and, of course, means by “liberal,” “progressive”): (HT Jay Bhattacharya)
COVID has revealed to me, a lifetime liberal, the extent to which liberals occupy a moral & informational bubble of their own design.
They wonder why they can’t win on climate change or COVID, and they see the fault of partisanship as entirely the GOP’s fault.
Continuing the mandates will hobble businesses that are already struggling to fill vacant positions. The city-worker mandate has resulted in 1,430 employees, including essential workers such as police, firefighters and teachers, being laid off. Thousands more city workers await rulings on their exemption applications.
