In “holy shit, I can’t believe people are this dumb” news, a small group of bitter lawmakers, military vets, and pastors comprising the group “ReOpen Maryland” filed suit against governor Larry Hogan and state health officials that have enacted some of the most toughest stay-at-home orders in the country.
In a complaint filled to the brim with “what-the-fuckery”, the group states [emphasis mine] “A great object of our union has been to uniformly advance and protect both the personal rights of individuals and of commerce, while not hindering the states from advancing those same rights at equal or greater pace…The object has never been to permit a governor to make a ‘neighbor’s’ rights or interests in health superior to the people’s or even to another citizen’s natural and inalienable rights. The problem in Maryland is that Governor Hogan has done the reverse, even after being repeatedly petitioned to limit his power.”
So, if I’m reading that correctly, their argument in court is that protecting other people’s rights…doesn’t give the government the right to infringe on their rights? I’m not a lawyer or anything, but that argument being made here seems to be faulty.
This hits at a constant and never ending feature of Republican and conservative arguments against stay-at-home orders; that governors are infringing on a business’ right to make money, or a person’s right to go to church, or the right to protest, or the right to free speech, and that above all else, their right to *checks notes* do whatever the fuck they want whenever they want however they want with little to no regard for consequences matters more than everyone else’s rights to be healthy and not die from a pandemic that’s killed over 80,000 Americans and more than 1,400 Marylanders.
Can you imagine how badly these people would suffer if they had to deal with any sort of actual oppression? After two months of being asked politely by the governor to stay-at-home to prevent the spread of a disease that is highly contagious and does not appear to be going away anytime soon, they are organizing protests demanding that someone think of what their “inalienable rights” are.
For the record, none of these people’s rights are actually being infringed upon. Small protests have popped up all over Maryland, and few people, if anybody, have been arrested. People are still free to speak out against the government. People are still able to practice their religion, even if that means not going to church. And nowhere in the United States Constitution or the Maryland state constitution will you find something that looks like a “right to have commerce”.
These are unprecedented and dangerous times, times that call for something more than self-importance and self-interest. By claiming that their rights are greater than those of their neighbors, that are arguing for a form of oppression that they themselves are arguing against. That groups like ReOpen Maryland and the state legislators named in the lawsuit are all overwhelming white shouldn’t come as a surprise.
The irony, of course, is that the communities that have been hit hardest by COVID-19 and the shut down are people of color. Black people are disproportionately dying from the disease. Layoffs due to the shutdown orders are crushing blacks, Latinos and young folks that work in the industries that white folks long ago shunned. And yet we still sit here with overwhelming majorities of Americans still being perfectly willing to stay at home until things are better.
I don’t doubt that it’s been hard for certain sectors of public life to keep their doors closed. Churches (or at least your local neighborhood ones, anyway, not megachurches) don’t exactly run on high profit margins, and many will have to shut the doors. Speaking as someone whose Dad is a pastor (shocking, I know), it stings to know that some of those communities will not have a place to go. But smart pastors know that putting their congregations in grave danger, even to keep buildings up and running and church staff paid, isn’t worth the death it can cause. Only greedy pastors and opportunists would re-open the doors and risk lives. Likewise, only greedy politicians hoping to appease Trump voters in the redder parts of Maryland are trying to halt the orders.
What conservatives often get wrong about rights is that they are not blanket entitlements that allow someone who likes people with an R in front of their names to supercede the rights of everyone else. There is a constitutionally protected right to free speech, but “the right to free speech” doesn’t mean you are allowed to say whatever you want without consequence, because my right to free speech allows me to be critical and call your opinions into question. You have a constitutional right to bear arms, but having a right to bear arms doesn’t mean you can own as many high powered weapons as possible to put other lives in danger. You have a right to practice any religion you please, but not the right to force the government to re-open your doors so you can pick up tithes.
“Rights” aren’t surface-level instructions that are set in stone, protecting everything you care about while disregarding the shit you don’t. The rights conferred to these lawsuit happy jerkasses are the same rights the rest of us operate under. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are rights provided to us in the Declaration of Independence. I will gladly surrender a little bit of liberty to go to church or sit down at a restaurant if it means I can continue my life and to be relatively happy (because me and my family are alive and not sick) while doing so.
TL;DR version; crack open a fucking book, you dolts. Your lawsuit is frivolous and your ability to make money isn’t worth more people dying.
Did they miss the memo where Hogan is a Republican?
Or would they call him a RINO because he’s not completely crazy-pants? These are rural yahoos. People in the close in counties, as far as I can tell, are taking things more seriously.
In a fair and just world, Hogan would be closer to a center-left Democrat with a couple of standard Republican views. Like, as far as “good” Republicans go, he’s one of the better ones, if only because being a Republican governor in Maryland more or less keeps his hands tied. They would probably consider him a RINO just because he has had some tepid criticism of Trump, and there always has to be fealty to that dickhead from Republicans who’s chances of getting re-elected hinge on their support of Trump.
I always have to remind myself that the further west or east you go in Maryland, the redder the state gets. For what it’s worth, leaders in Montgomery County have basically said that even if Hogan moves forward with a Phase One re-opening for the rest of the state, MOCO will stay under stay-at-home orders for the forseeable future, and DC and Virginia both largest feel the same way.
“they call him a RINO because he’s not completely crazy-pants”
Bingo. The Overton Window for the Republican party has swung so far to the right that anything less than kissing the ring is seen as borderline treasonous.
The US is ill.
…not for nothing but your point about the disproportionate impact on particular communities (& demographics) is not getting enough attention to my mind
…I know I’ve thrown a number of links to articles that talk about it in the haul on various of the DOT posts but there tend to be a profusion of other links for them to lurk among on those & speaking for myself I could stand to hear that drum beat a little louder a lot more often because it undoubtedly both compounds this kind of thing & has its roots in all the same places
…either way, I hope your dad is praying for us agnostics, too…becuase if this shit gets biblical I may need someone to put in a good word for me?
My Dad is pretty liberal as far as pastors go, so yes, he’s the type of Christian who has actually read and studied the Bible and didn’t skip past the parts where God implores people to treat others with dignity and respect. My proudest moment was when he cut a fifteen minute promo on George W. Bush in the middle of a sermon.
And also he got drunk and danced like a fool at my wedding, so he owes me one. I’ll put in a word.
…thank you kindly…sounds like he might really be on the side of the angels
Somebody’s stunting. Dunno who, but somewhere in that gaggle of assholes is somebody seeking a) money b) political office or c) money and political office. I can’t put my finger on the culprit or culprits, but I can tell you with absolute certainty there is one or more con men in that group. Maybe all of them.
If you’ve ever been around kids, you’ll know the constant cry “that’s not fair.”
“Time for bed” “That’s not fair.”
“We’re going to talk to grandma on the phone instead of watching that video” “That’s not fair.”
“No ice cream tonight, we’re out” “That’s not fair.”
Far too many parents never get that kids don’t use that phrase because they are actually worried about fairness. The kids use it because it puts their overaccommodating parents on the defensive and gets them to cave.
There are two basic ways to respond. One is to give them “the look” and then hand them phone and tell them to talk to grandma. The other is to call their bluff and start a mind numbing negotiation about fairness, pull out the legal pad and start making lists, get the dictionary and work through definitions, until they start begging for mercy.
Kids have a right call out their parents on legitimate issues of fairness, and parents need to give in when they’re wrong. But it’s a huge mistake to care when they try to pull the “it’s not fair” card out of the deck.
Once, my mom got upset that me and my sister’s bedroom was a mess. She sat us down and wanted us to write letters explaining why the room was a mess and how we’d fix it. Instead, we wrote letters blaming the other for the room being a mess and how it wasn’t fair we weren’t getting punished. So my mom punished the both of us for failing to take responsibility for our individual actions that contributed to the room being a mess.
Life lessons aren’t hard to teach children and people who act like children.
My parents would always say “life isn’t fair” and I COULD NOT get over that callous dismissal of justice.
“B-B-B SHE DIDN’T PUT HER BARBIES AWAY!”
“Did you put your Power Rangers away?”
“No, but…SHE DIDN’T PUT HER BARBIES AWAY!”
“You’re both grounded.”
“THIS IS SO UNFAIR!”
Conversations like this are things I am simultaneously looking forward to and dreading when I become a parent.
“My right to swing my fist ends at the tip of your nose.”
“Fuck, you, cuck, I’m allowed to swing my fist wherever I want and if you don’t like it I’ll show up with guns!”
A lot of this bullshit is funded by the DeVos family, the owners of Amway.
Having been someone asked to join the, uh, pyramid, I got a little look into how a “multi-level-marketing network” works. It really depends on grabbing suckers (like I was) at the lowest level to keep the money flow going all the way to the top. To do that you need to hold meetings full of potential suckers (like I was) and you can’t do that with social distancing.
As anyone who has witnessed Madoff or any other MLM Network, if the money flow stops for a prolonged period of time then the whole rotten pyramid comes crashing down. The smarter DeVos know that and they want the whole fucking social distancing/restrictions to stop or else their cash pyramid goes away. So the crippling of the DeVos money train might actually be a good thing as they’ve funded a lot of RW shit including climate change denial, anti abortion groups, etc.
No different than Scott Boras who can’t get paid if the players he represents don’t get paid and who doesn’t care if fans get sick and die (considering that beseboll skews to a Corona friend demographic.)
It’s just another form of “whataboutism.” Never mind that people are getting sick and dying because of Republican indifference and the Administration’s incompetence, what about my right to do whatever I want? Anything to distract and deflect from economic inequality and death on a massive scale.
Ok I’m the neighbor needing the community to be healthier for me to be able to go in it, and I’m going to sue because you can’t protect my neighbor’s right to be an idiot over my own freedoms.
I mean can’t I just sue to have my own rights prioritized then?