Are We In A Police State?

[TomMcC]

Public health in a time of a pandemic gives government pretty broad powers. That is as old as society itself. Granted that it should be a local thing not a national thing. That’s where we are lucky at least that we have somewhat of a Republican in control. I have no doubt that Hillary would’ve been dictating this thing from the top on down.

These broad powers...are they written down and codified somewhere? In state constitutions or penal codes or other codes? I haven't heard one governor, Dem or Rep, appeal to a relevant law to justify their actions. I know the President refused mandates on constitutional grounds. That no constitutional and I assume federal law allows for such mandates.

[manbearpig]

I was reading some time ago that if patient who had died had, for example, 4 comorbidities, and corona was of them, it was mandatory that corona had to be listed as a major cause of death. The ER docs in the video that Youtube just took down said that they were pressured to add corona to death reports. If these statements are true then it's as clear as day that there's an agenda being pushed.

[LMT Shooter]

All the reporting on how bad this was going to be was fake news and it was no accident.
Watch this to the very end...keep watching after its appears to be over.

The link is disabled. Is that the 2 doctors from Bakersfield video?

[TomMcC]

I guess we in the Democratic control states are about to see just how free or not we really are. The Republican governors seem much more interested in easing the mandates as soon as possible, maybe their consciences are bothering them...Democrats not so much.

I don't think we are in a police state....yet....and compared to other times of deprivation in our history, things could be a whole lot worse, we as a whole don't have it really bad, yet. But are we being soften up and corralled for bigger things to come...we'll see.

[LMT Shooter]

https://youtu.be/6Jg7eUi3NoU

Link to the doctors from Bakersfield, go to 1:02 for comments they make after the press conference

[HardToHandle]

These broad powers...are they written down and codified somewhere? In state constitutions or penal codes or other codes? I haven't heard one governor, Dem or Rep, appeal to a relevant law to justify their actions. I know the President refused mandates on constitutional grounds. That no constitutional and I assume federal law allows for such mandates.

Respectfully, I gather you are not an attorney by trade.
I have had a few occasions to be in the sensitive discussions with federal government policy makers and their supporting legal counsels. Oft cited is the Insurrection Act, dating to a certain Geo. Washington, as well as the broad deference given FDR by the US Supreme Court in the Japanese-American Internment during the Second World War. The operative US federal public health law dates to steam ships, circa 1949 IIRC. Harry Truman was President then and interracial marriage was still a crime in plenty of states. The Defense Production Act, invoked by Trump today, is a relic of 1950.

On the state side, the role of sanitary commissions or public health boards is well established. Most of that law has laid fallow since the end of the polio epidemics in the 1950’s, but nearly every state has extensive statutory and case law. Hawaii and Alaska might be a bit light due to their late accession to the Union, but it e it’s in dusty books. As someone who worked with these issues, it would only see rare uses for certain extreme cases of IV drug-based TB or obscure diseases such as monkey pox.

Not here to pick any fights, but the law is unusually black and white on most public health issues. That clarity cuts both ways.

[OH58D]

Not a police state nationwide, but certainly you can point to some governors who behave like tin-plated, overbearing, swaggering dictators with delusions of Godhood. And I have no doubt these democrat politicians would tank the economy to get rid of Trump and recreate the US in the image of Marx, Stalin and Mao.

That being said, the COVID-19 is actually a problem here in New Mexico, especially in the northwestern part of the State. My Trauma RN wife is there now working with the Navajo population, and it's rampant on their reservation. Tribal members are being flown in to the border towns like Farmington because the Indian Health Service hospitals and clinics can't keep up. Each night, this Reservation, the size of West Virginia, goes into curfew from 8pm to 5am, then the weekend from 8pm Friday to 5am Monday. No moving around, no grocery shopping --- nothing. If this is what a Police State looks like, then it's the case there, but we're talking something resembling a plague taking place.

We have the town of Grants, New Mexico (along I-40 west of Albuquerque) and the mayor there is opening the town up, in defiance of the governor. It's going to get ugly there because the State Police will issue citations to any businesses who aren't supposed to be open doing business as usual. This will be fun to watch what happens. It's a case where State Police move into a municipality and bypass local city cops, but most towns in New Mexico have legal arrangements which allow joint jurisdictional activity. Our State Police are not just Highway Patrol.

[TomMcC]

Respectfully, I gather you are not an attorney by trade.
I have had a few occasions to be in the sensitive discussions with federal government policy makers and their supporting legal counsels. Oft cited is the Insurrection Act, dating to a certain Geo. Washington, as well as the broad deference given FDR by the US Supreme Court in the Japanese-American Internment during the Second World War. The operative US federal public health law dates to steam ships, circa 1949 IIRC. Harry Truman was President then and interracial marriage was still a crime in plenty of states. The Defense Production Act, invoked by Trump today, is a relic of 1950.

On the state side, the role of sanitary commissions or public health boards is well established. Most of that law has laid fallow since the end of the polio epidemics in the 1950’s, but nearly every state has extensive statutory and case law. Hawaii and Alaska might be a bit light due to their late accession to the Union, but it e it’s in dusty books. As someone who worked with these issues, it would only see rare uses for certain extreme cases of IV drug-based TB or obscure diseases such as monkey pox.

Not here to pick any fights, but the law is unusually black and white on most public health issues. That clarity cuts both ways.

And does that law allow carte blanch to the various entities? Is there any limit at all? Could they lock down the states indefinitely? Jackasses like DeBlasio thinks he can permanently shut down churches. Are these various laws above our inalienable rights? If these laws do, in the minds of men, supercede my inalienable rights, them screw them, I'll continue to resist at every point I am able.

[Todd.K]

You lose control of itAnd it goes higher than that. You lose control and even if it only goes to two or 3%, all the sudden you were talking 10 million peopleOr basically dropping a nuclearBomb on Chicago.

Have you not seen the antibody testing numbers from NYC?
Any idea that we have or can control this is flat out nuts at this point, as is the "millions will die" talk.

[TomMcC]

Not a police state nationwide, but certainly you can point to some governors who behave like tin-plated, overbearing, swaggering dictators with delusions of Godhood. And I have no doubt these democrat politicians would tank the economy to get rid of Trump and recreate the US in the image of Marx, Stalin and Mao.

That being said, the COVID-19 is actually a problem here in New Mexico, especially in the northwestern part of the State. My Trauma RN wife is there now working with the Navajo population, and it's rampant on their reservation. Tribal members are being flown in to the border towns like Farmington because the Indian Health Service hospitals and clinics can't keep up. Each night, this Reservation, the size of West Virginia, goes into curfew from 8pm to 5am, then the weekend from 8pm Friday to 5am Monday. No moving around, no grocery shopping --- nothing. If this is what a Police State looks like, then it's the case there, but we're talking something resembling a plague taking place.

We have the town of Grants, New Mexico (along I-40 west of Albuquerque) and the mayor there is opening the town up, in defiance of the governor. It's going to get ugly there because the State Police will issue citations to any businesses who aren't supposed to be open doing business as usual. This will be fun to watch what happens. It's a case where State Police move into a municipality and bypass local city cops, but most towns in New Mexico have legal arrangements which allow joint jurisdictional activity. Our State Police are not just Highway Patrol.

And if in reality this whole thing was a power grab by stupid and evil men and women, ultimately to do a hatchet job on Trump, what are we to take away from this? I'm thanking God every day He told us not to put our trust in princes...it keeps me grounded.