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Freedom

Gorsuch Condemns 'Breathtaking' COVID Emergency Powers That Crushed Civil Liberties

"Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country," Gorsuch wrote. That might be an exaggeration, but it isn't far off.

Eric Boehm | 5.19.2023 2:30 PM

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( Eric Lee - Pool via CNP/CNP / Polaris/Newscom)

Justice Neil Gorsuch says all three branches of government share some of the blame for what he calls the "breathtaking scale" of emergency powers wielded by public officials during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"While executive officials issued new emergency decrees at a furious pace, state legislatures and Congress—the bodies normally responsible for adopting our laws—too often fell silent," Gorsuch wrote. "Courts bound to protect our liberties addressed a few—but hardly all—of the intrusions upon them."

Gorsuch's sweeping and powerful statement was attached to the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Arizona v. Mayorkas, one of several cases dealing with the Title 42 orders that allowed federal immigration authorities to expel migrants seeking asylum in the United States. Title 42 had been invoked by former President Donald Trump as the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020, and it was repeatedly extended by both Trump and President Joe Biden before finally being brought to an end last week.

But Title 42 was just one in a litany of COVID-related emergency powers that drew Gorsuch's ire.

"Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country. Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale," Gorsuch wrote before rattling off a list that included stay-at-home orders, school closures, attendance limits on churches, a federal ban on evictions, and the Biden administration's attempt (blocked by the Supreme Court) to impose a national vaccine mandate via a federal workplace safety regulator.

As some Gorsuch critics have been quick to point out on Twitter, it might be a bit of an exaggeration to call this the "greatest" attack on civil liberties in American history. There are unfortunately more than a few other contenders for that ignominious crown: slavery, Jim Crow, the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. All were, like COVID-19 emergency powers, the result of legal exercises of state power that violated basic civil rights.

But what the country experienced over the past few years does not have to top that list to be worthy of serious disdain. Gorsuch's statement shouldn't be regarded as a hot take about the worst civil liberties violations in American history, but a thoughtful review of how governments failed in this instance—so that they might do a better job in the future.

"Doubtless, many lessons can be learned from this chapter in our history, and hopefully serious efforts will be made to study it. 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," he wrote. "We do not need to confront a bayonet, we need only a nudge, before we willingly abandon the nicety of requiring laws to be adopted by our legislative representatives and accept rule by decree. Along the way, we will accede to the loss of many cherished civil liberties—the right to worship freely, to debate public policy without censorship, to gather with friends and family, or simply to leave our homes."

This is, as Gorsuch also notes, not a new lesson but one that has been part of the story of democracy since ancient times.

Even so, it's a lesson worth revisiting in the aftermath of the pandemic. If there is one thing that ought to change, it's probably the general understanding of what constitutes an emergency in the first place. By definition, it is an acute, immediate crisis. But during the pandemic, that definition was stretched to include adjacent policy issues that had nothing to do with the immediate public health situation. An eviction moratorium never made much sense as a response to a viral outbreak, at least not after stay-at-home orders were lifted. Neither did cross-border travel restrictions after the pandemic's earliest days when it was hoped (wrongly) that such barriers could keep the disease at bay.

"The point of an emergency is that it's a sudden, unforeseen, urgent kind of scenario," says Jonathan Bydlak, director of the Governance Program at the R Street Institute, a right-of-center think tank. Bydlak, my guest on this week's episode of American Radio Journal, compares it to a car accident: a situation where the normal rules might have to be suspended—an ambulance can run red lights, for example, to respond to the call. Months later, however, when an accident victim might be on his way to physical therapy, he doesn't get to bypass the red lights.

"Sometimes people conflate the initial crisis—the initial instigating event—with this broader question and say 'just because something important is going on, it must be an emergency' and that's not necessarily the case," says Bydlak.

That's exactly what happened over and over during the pandemic. Just look at the Title 42 saga, which Gorsuch said was an example of government officials prolonging "an emergency decree designed for one crisis in order to address an entirely different one."

"In some cases, like this one," he added, "courts even allowed themselves to be used to perpetuate emergency public-health decrees for collateral purposes, itself a form of emergency-lawmaking-by-litigation."

Emergencies may sometimes require that the lawmaking process be temporarily short-circuited, but it's imperative that state legislatures, Congress, and courts at all levels tighten up the circumstances in which emergency powers may be invoked. Gorsuch is right: When officials take shortcuts to make policy, civil liberties are often the cost.

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Eric Boehm is a reporter at Reason.

FreedomCoronavirusNeil GorsuchPandemicSupreme Courtemergency declarationBiden AdministrationCongressState GovernmentsEviction MoratoriumPublic Health
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  2. Mother's Lament   2 years ago

    "Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country."

    JFree knew Gorsuch was going to be bad news.

    1. Mike Parsons   2 years ago

      When it comes to JFree, easily observable reality and common sense are his mortal enemies. They offer him strong pushback, and are his most consistent stumbling block.

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      2. VULGAR MADMAN   2 years ago

        Or he’s just so unprincipled he can’t admit he was wrong.

        1. Sevo   2 years ago

          Stupidity is both necessary and sufficient.

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      3. Sevo   2 years ago

        "When it comes to JFree, easily observable reality and common sense are his mortal enemies. They offer him strong pushback, and are his most consistent stumbling block."

        More shortly, someone as stupid as JFree told JFree he was smart, and JFree has been operating on that assumption ever since, regardless of ample contradictory evidence.
        JFree is simply too stupid to understand reality.

    2. JFree   2 years ago (edited)

      The solution to government overreach is for regular folks to hold govt accountable in its daily operations long before any ’emergency’. And for govt to be required to mobilize regular folks IN and as a requirement of an emergency -see militia.

      Not for some lifetime appointee to opine about politicians and bureaucrats and a tyranny of standing government three years after the fact. While blowhards bobble their heads and hump the appointees leg.

      1. Overt   2 years ago

        JFear Translation: I've got no response to that.

        1. VULGAR MADMAN   2 years ago

          JFear doesn’t know why the Supreme Court exists.

      2. Sevo   2 years ago

        "The solution to government overreach is for regular folks to hold govt accountable in its daily operations long before any ’emergency’."

        And for whiny shits like you to jam your PANIC flags up your asses.

      3. BigT   2 years ago

        JFool:
        How dare someone whose job is to uphold the Constitution remark on how government has abused the Constitution.

        1. JFree   2 years ago

          Stop humping Gorsuch's leg. He's appointed by a Prez and confirmed by Congress. To 'uphold the Constitution' against its two main domestic enemies (Prez and Congress)?. Ya sure ya betcha.

          He was appointed to overturn Roe v Wade - like every R appointee for the last 50 years.

          1. Sevo   2 years ago

            Stop making a public ass of yourself.
            Fuck off and die.

    3. JesseAz   2 years ago

      The USSC admitting this after the damage was done is coward shit.

      1. VULGAR MADMAN   2 years ago

        The founders failed when they didn’t give them their own army.

      2. Sevo   2 years ago

        It's far better than Newsom and Cuomo have owned.

    4. charliehall   2 years ago

      Gorsuch needs to learn some more US history. The 1793 yellow fever epidemic shut down the entire federal government and most of the country enacted draconian quarantine and travel restrictions worse than what we had for COVID. And the sad thing is that those measures had no effect because nobody knew yet that yellow fever is transmitted via mosquitos. Earlier COVID lockdowns would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

      He is right about Title 42 though. The very people wanting to continue it eliminated all other COVID emergency provisions in their states a long time ago.

      1. MT-Man   2 years ago

        So what's your point? This was ok what happened since your nitpicking may be right?

  3. Mother's Lament   2 years ago

    ""Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country," Gorsuch wrote. That might be an exaggeration, but it isn't far off."

    I don't think that's an exaggeration at all. Even prohibition didn't lock people in their houses and bankrupt 30% of small business.

    1. Don't look at me!   2 years ago

      His comparisons failed .

    2. Zeb   2 years ago

      No, it isn't any kind of exaggeration. I can't think of anything, even during wartime, that even came close to the impositions on basic freedom and individual rights of the past 3 years.

      1. RickAbrams   2 years ago

        Then read the Declaration of Independence and the preamble to the Constitution about the government's duty to protect inalienable rights including Life. Dead people have no liberty. Tens of thousands of Fundamentalist Christians died because Trump acted too slowly and too many right wing lunatics persuaded their sheep to trust in the baby Jesus and not wear masks or get vaxed. Let's remember that Gorsuch is a power mongering perjurer who is out to do one thing -- advance himself,
        and if they means ruining the nation, that's A OK with him.

        1. Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)   2 years ago

          I hadn't really had a good laugh today. Thank you for that.

        2. BYODB   2 years ago

          You mean the masks that were proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to do nothing at all?

          Unclear if this is satire or sincere belief. Poe's Law seems to apply.

        3. Mother's Lament   2 years ago

          Is this satire?

          1. Zeb   2 years ago

            Hard to believe at this point that it isn't. But I wouldn't be surprised either.

            1. Sevo   2 years ago

              Dunno, we still have JFree lying though his teeth.

          2. Unicorn Abattoir   2 years ago

            No, it's full on prog idiocy. You can tell because he doesn't consider liberty an inalienable right.

        4. shortviking   2 years ago

          The declaration isn’t law. It’s a declaration. Shitlibs keep trying to use that as an excuse to give everyone everything for free.

        5. Zeb   2 years ago

          That's just stupid. A right to life doesn't mean that the government has the duty and power to do anything to anyone to keep people from getting sick. If that were the case, then any guarantee of rights would be meaningless since there are always many deadly viruses in circulation.

          1. JFree   2 years ago

            Well that's certainly a consistent principle. That has never existed as a basis for anything in the US. Or in any other country. So - perhaps interesting as a sterile debate topic but meaningless outside Libertopia.

            The US established marine hospitals at significant ports in 1798. The enabling legislation was "An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen" where the purpose was to inspect, quarantine and treat merchant seamen - funded by a tax on all entering ships for each seaman. It was done as one consequence of the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia (then the capital). There were also epidemics in NY (1791, 1795, 1798), Philadelphia (1793, 1797, 1798, 1799), Boston (1798), Baltimore (1794), annually in all ports DC and south. Each of those epidemics also resulted in beggar-thy-neighbor quarantines - as also happened in the US re covid.

            The marine hospital service was uniformed (Surgeon General is the head of the Public Health Service) meaning the federal government viewed this as a national security concern (where the militia is also constitutional). The successors include CDC, NIH, FDA, etc. Any ancestor of yours who came through Ellis Island was also medically inspected and given the ok to enter by the Marine Hospital Service which had a list of diseases verboten for entry and multiple hospitals to treat ALL entries even if they are later returned.

            1. VULGAR MADMAN   2 years ago

              When they quarantined all those seamen, did they quarantine everyone else in the goddamn country too?

              You should be ashamed of yourself.

              1. Sevo   2 years ago

                "You should be ashamed of yourself."

                Embarrassment requires certain levels of self-awareness and intelligence; never detected in that assholic chicken little.

              2. JFree   2 years ago

                Lockdowns were a form of cordon sanitaire which has a long history. And that terminology - along with quarantine - would inevitably invoke some sort of militia mustering.

                I assume the lockdown term comes from our wonderful long-term experience of locking down our schools. If its good enough for our kids safety - and adults have never pushed back on that - then hey let's not fucking pretend its the biggest threat to civil liberties ever in the history of the US.

                The pig trough shit - and the total readiness of employers to shitcan their employees in order to suck on the taxpayer teat - well that's ALL on you people who vote DeRp. This wasn't about 'fear' - unless it was fear of stock prices falling and a recession. It was about pigs snarfing at the 2.2 trillion trough for free money so that they could stay home in their pajamas and jack up their house prices with cash-out refis and HELO's. People at the bottom paid the price as they always do.

                CARES Act: $2.2 trillion
                House: 419 for, 6 against (3D, 2R, Amash).
                Senate: 96 for, 0 against

                1. Sevo   2 years ago

                  "CARES Act: $2.2 trillion
                  House: 419 for, 6 against (3D, 2R, Amash).
                  Senate: 96 for, 0 against"

                  Again, Embarrassment requires certain levels of self-awareness and intelligence; never detected in that assholic chicken little.
                  Want proof? Look directly above. JFree seems to find relevance here which is at least as amusing as Misek's inability to understand the concept.
                  Fuck off and die, JFree. Your family, your dog and the world will give thanks.

                2. BigT   2 years ago

                  School lockdowns are due to a clear and present and TEMPORARY danger, not months upon months for a mildly dangerous disease for most people.

                  “Not about fear”
                  That’s rich coming from one of the fear mongers..

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              3. charliehall   2 years ago

                The 1793 yellow fever epidemic resulted in a lockdown of just about every city and town in the US. Learn some history.

            2. Junkmailfolder   2 years ago

              Quarantine is not what the lockdowns were.

              Identifying potential disease carriers, especially in either members of the military or people trying to enter the country (people who have already surrendered certain rights or not yet accorded the rights of citizenship) and quarantining them is so different from what happened during COVID lockdowns as to render your judgement extremely whack.

              1. JFree   2 years ago

                Merchant sailors are not military. And the point is that the federal government imposed taxes and set up coercive operations from as early as 1798 in order to stop disease from spreading.

                You got a problem with lockdown in your town or state? Look in the mirror. You elected all your local bums. It's not my fucking problem. And a lockdown somewhere else ain't your fucking business. Bunch of whiny little shits you are. Take responsibility for your own governance

                1. Junkmailfolder   2 years ago

                  Leaving the country will also open yourself to re-entry requirements. Additionally, the quarantine was limited to a very specific group that was well defined and legitimately posed increased risk over the general population. Reasonable cause, if you will.

                  Your second paragraph appears to be saying that JFree is allowed to have an opinion about lockdowns, but no one else is.

                  I'll take that as a concession that you know you have no argument.

                2. Elmer Fudd the CHUD   2 years ago

                  I sure as fuck didn’t elect Jay Inslee. People like YOU did. People like YOU really are to blame for everything. Perhaps we should reduce the leftist population to a more manageable level.

        6. MWAocdoc   2 years ago

          I presume you slept through every history and civics class from kindergarten through twelfth grade (if you made it that far) if you think that the Declaration and the Preamble create a governmental duty to protect your life. Sometimes I think we should just let people like you bring the whole thing down upon your heads while those of us who realize how ignorant you are watch you get crushed under the weight of your own stupidity. The Constitution gives the government the responsibility for maintaining your right to protect your OWN life. If fundamentalist christians want to risk their own lives by refusing to get vaccinated and die from COVID because of it, the government has no responsibility to protect their lives from themselves. The government may have a limited authority to temporarily quarantine actively contagious persons to prevent them from infecting the unsuspecting public, but it does not and should not have the authority to quarantine everyone to protect everyone from a few possible unknown individuals who might be contagious. Please crawl back into your cave and leave the discussion of important issues to the adults.

          1. Sevo   2 years ago

            "...If fundamentalist christians want to risk their own lives by refusing to get vaccinated and die from COVID because of it, the government has no responsibility to protect their lives from themselves..."

            And it's quite possible that A1 would not allow the fed-gov to get involved.

        7. bobodoc   2 years ago

          RickAbrams, that's a joke...right?

        8. Sevo   2 years ago

          "...Tens of thousands of Fundamentalist Christians died because Trump acted too slowly and too many right wing lunatics persuaded their sheep to trust in the baby Jesus and not wear masks or get vaxed..."

          Do you prefer the taste of Kiwi of another brand, when licking them boots, shit pile?

        9. DesigNate   2 years ago (edited)

          Fuck off, slaver?

        10. BDavi52   2 years ago

          On the contrary, the Dead are completely free -- subject to no law, paying no tax, serving no master...heck, they don't even have to slow down at Stop Signs. The Dead can go where they wanna wanna go and do what they wanna wanna do (at least as far as any of us knows).

          Death, my friend, is a fact of life. We all do it; nor can the State protect us from it. Not in any real way. At best it can shift some risks here and there by making our airplane flights safer, our food non-poisonous, and our buildings and bridges generally non-collapsible (generally). But it is not the State's duty to protect us from all risk; nor would we want such a thing.

          The vast territory of our lives is ours to command, thank God, recognizing, of course, that our command is of a region which has shrunk remarkably over the years as Government Bureaucracy has expanded into areas once exclusively our own (Big Gulps anyone? Crib slats? Flush toilets? Spray paint?).

          You insist that tens of thousands of Fundamentalist Christians died because Trump acted too slowly??? Where on earth do you get such nuggets? The truth is that about 9200 people died, on average, every single day in 2020. About 10% of those were from Covid. The remaining 90% died for all the typical reasons, most of those from heart disease and cancer. I suspect that Death doesn't care at all whether one is Fundamentalist or a card-carrying member of the Angry Atheist Guild -- he takes us all with equal opportunity: masked, unmasked, plexiglass-shielded or not, Progressive, Christian, fat, thin; it doesn't matter.

    3. Minadin   2 years ago

      It's one of the more retarded things I've read all day to even suggest that it's possibly an exaggeration.

    4. mad.casual   2 years ago

      The fuckers just can't help themselves.

      In 2022, hate crimes in Germany rose to their highest point ever.

      Gunman shoots 60-some people, injures 800-some more in Las Vegas and it's the greatest mass-casualty event in American history... well, modern American history... in peacetime... this millennium... if you considered the US to be at war with the Taliban at 8:46:*39* EST 09/01/2001... with a gun.

    5. Gaear Grimsrud   2 years ago

      Yeah the Covid tyranny affected everyone in the country with the exception of the elite. The Japanese internment happened during a war. Slavery affected a small minority of the population who were not citizens. Jim Crowe also affected a tiny minority of the citizenry. I don't mean to diminish the the egregious nature of those things but I'm not sure why Bohem feels the need to minimize Gorsuch here. From a libertarian perspective Reason's response to the Covid scam was very disappointing. We never got the full throated condemnation that it deserved. Gorsuch isn't perfect but in this instance he is far more libertarian than Reason was or is. Looks like that's not going to change. By the way you can read Gorsuch's full statement on Volokh.

      1. Zeb   2 years ago

        Jim Crow imposed on everyone in the states where it was law. It was also illegal for white business owners to choose their own customers and for white people to go to blacks only designated places.

        1. RickAbrams   2 years ago

          Thanks. It is fools like Gaear who create the atmosphere for Wokers to thrive. We are all in danger from both extremes, which is silly since at least 85% of us Americans are centrists.

          1. Nardz   2 years ago

            LOL

          2. Sevo   2 years ago

            Eat shit and die, asshole boot-licker,

          3. DesigNate   2 years ago

            Never gonna give you up.

        2. Nardz   2 years ago

          So... it was just like the Civil Rights Act?

      2. RickAbrams   2 years ago

        If a military commander of an occupying force took your position on Covid, he could be prosecuted for war crimes against civilians for not protecting them against an obvious threat which needed immediate attention.

        1. Mother's Lament   2 years ago

          What protection? Masks that did nothing? Experimental mRNA injections that clearly didn't work? All for a virus with a 99.5% survival rate?

          Fascist nuttery.

          1. Unicorn Abattoir   2 years ago

            Experimental mRNA injections

            That would actually be a war crime.

            1. VULGAR MADMAN   2 years ago

              It’s literally a violation of the Nuremberg codes.

              1. Unicorn Abattoir   2 years ago

                It's like Hideki Tojo was a bad guy.

                1. VULGAR MADMAN   2 years ago

                  Apparently it’s different when “we” do it.

                2. Social Justice is neither   2 years ago

                  Which pharma company does he run?

          2. VULGAR MADMAN   2 years ago

            He’s a parody, right?

          3. ATCme   2 years ago

            99.5% survival rate is what actually put CoVid in the sweet spot for viruses. What made Covid particularly interesting wasn't so much its mortality as its virulence. A deadlier virus, like the Marburg virus, tends to kill the infected person before they can spread it very far. Hence a reproduction # of .95 (an unquarantined person infected with Marburg is likely to infect one other person every 9 days{the incubation period for Marburg}). CoVid has a reproduction # ~3 & an incubation period of about 3 days. So, in 9 days time, a Marburg patient may have infected one other person while a CoVid patient will probably have infected ~27 people.

            By now, virtually everyone has been infected at least once. Your nonchalance about a 99.5% survival rate translated into almost double the normal death rate in this country. An extra 1.75 million would be expected based on your data. I think the actual # was only about 500,000 above the normal death rate which suggests that the precautions taken by many might have helped. Of course, with a global population of ~8 billion, the mortality rate that you cite would produce about 40 million extra deaths but probably no-one that you care about.

            1. VULGAR MADMAN   2 years ago

              Go fuck yourself.

            2. A Thinking Mind   2 years ago

              A significant number of people who died from COVID died because they were put on ventilators, and as a result suffered a secondary bacterial infection or pneumonia. The overreactions of doctors in hospitals when facing a novel virus actually escalated the deathrate.

              Moreover, unlike a case of a really bad flu season, this virus largely killed the extremely vulnerable in the population but not the healthy. A really bad flu season can kill healthy children, but COVID was basically 100% survivable under age 18, and extremely survivable under age 25.

              The government doesn't have a responsibility to keep you living forever.

              1. Kim   2 years ago

                Lots of them died from being given remdesivir too, a drug that causes major kidney damage, because they wouldn’t allow doctors to give ivermectin. There were some whistleblowers who explicitly said they were killing people by putting them on ventilators and giving remdesivir.

              2. DesigNate   2 years ago

                The government doesn’t have a responsibility to keep you alive at all. It’s only responsibility is to NOT actively try to kill you.

            3. Sevo   2 years ago

              "...By now, virtually everyone has been infected at least once. Your nonchalance about a 99.5% survival rate translated into almost double the normal death rate in this country. An extra 1.75 million would be expected based on your data..."

              We have a strong competitor in the "Pull Numbers from Ass" event!

            4. Set Us Up The Chipper   2 years ago (edited)

              “At a global level, pre-vaccination IFR may have been as low as 0.03% and 0.07% for 0–59 and 0–69 year old people, respectively.”

              In terms of IFR, 99.97 - 99.93 survival odds given infection.

              https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393512201982X

            5. Nardz   2 years ago

              You faggots killed people to juice the numbers for covid (as well as counting all flus as covid).
              Hope justice finds you soon.

            6. mad.casual   2 years ago (edited)

              99.5% survival rate is what actually put CoVid in the sweet spot for viruses. What made Covid particularly interesting wasn’t so much its mortality as its virulence.

              Dude, The Andromeda Strain was published in 1969, The Hot Zone was published in 1994, Outbreak came out in 1995, Contagion in 2011. Whom do you think you’re informing with the *failing* HS Biology-level “Well, akshewally” bullshit? It wouldn’t have fooled me in 9th grade, it wouldn’t fool my kid who’s in 9th grade, so are you trying to impress us with the fact that you *think* you can do algebra while demonstrating your inability to think critically.

              First, your Marburg patient may pass through the latency period in as little as two days or remain latent for up to 21. The patient may or may not die within 8 days but is still generally transmissible beyond that. Survivors have been known to carry the virus up to 200 days after infection. So your arbitrary definition of “9 days” is meaningless bullshit when it comes to a Marburg Virus epidemic.

              Second, your R-value of 3 is, again meaningless bullshit. If the value were fixed at 3 for any particular strain (more points inbound), there would be no such thing as super-spreader events. The same number of people would get infected no matter how they congregated. Every person would pass it on to exactly 3 other people. Moreover, the 3 you actually quote was a bullshit number from the earliest days of the pandemic when virtually everyone was on a cruise ship effectively participating in a superspreader event or dying in an Italian hospital on a ventilator that couldn’t possibly save them. Putting them in hospitals and locking them in their retirement homes effectively drove the R-value up and created more superspreader events. To say nothing of dickbag pseudoscientists like yourself breaking up outdoor Church and other social services on the false science of superspreader events while *simultaneously* blowing kisses and wishing best of luck to violent social demonstrations about which the virus gave precisely zero shits. On average, the R-value was between 0.88 and 1.2. Both clinically and anecdotally, people were frequently noted as being the one person in their family who contracted it. To the point that, again, pseudoscientific dickbags like yourself manufactured, whole cloth, "asymptomatic transmission" and utterly fucking the conceptual models to which you are now clinging. Meaning the R-value for that group of people was effectively zero but, since you can't know who has it asymptomatically, let alone how many people they gave it to, you, by your own making, can't even hazard an intelligent guess as to what the actual number was.

              Third, both the 99.5% and the R-value of 3 are cherry-picked not only for a given strain but across strains. Delta was more lethal but far less infectious. Omicron was more infectious but far less deadly. And, again, if you contracted Omicron first then the relatively higher R-value of Delta means precisely dick.

              Ultimately, The Grand Wizards of your Kovid Klan, Fauci and Birx, when the R-value was still believe to be closer to 3 were forecasting 100,000-200,000 deaths before the pandemic was over using the same bullshit incantations you used above. Once the “facts evolved” they said 1 million was the worst case scenario if we did nothing. And ultimately…

              I think the actual # was only about 500,000 above the normal death rate which suggests that the precautions taken by many might have helped.

              The CDC reported over 500,000 dead in June of 2021. You’re discounting lives to support your shitty sixth-grade “math”. Total confirmed deaths, not just your abjectly retarded, unscientific “I think some excess deaths may’ve occurred” bullshit, is/was over 1.1 million. As indicated above, this is worse than your Grand Wizard’s own worst-case scenario incantations.

              You shame ML for not caring about excess deaths of people he doesn't know while you yourself rape the corpses so that your shitty math and pseudo-science doesn’t look bad.

              Catch the coof and die.

        2. Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)   2 years ago

          Damn, now I regret mocking you up above when I could have done so here. I have been accused of picking on people, so I try not to... oh, fuck it. You are Joe Friday levels of fucking ridiculous. Are you the new FBI agent assigned to monitor these comments?

          1. MT-Man   2 years ago

            Forgot about the worlds best contractor wonder what happened to him?

        3. Nardz   2 years ago

          What's your address, Rick?
          We can make certain you never get a mild illness again.

        4. Unicorn Abattoir   2 years ago

          Please point to the portion of the Geneva Convention that says this.

          Here. I'll even give you a link to it.

        5. DesigNate   2 years ago

          This is a hilarious parody. Who are you?

      3. charliehall   2 years ago

        More Americans died from COVID thsn from WW2. Because of the unwillingness to accept restrictions on "freedom". There is no freedom when you are six feet under.

    6. MurMiles   2 years ago

      Agreed. The COVID restrictions affected a far greater percentage of the population than did the other infringements mentioned by Eric, however inarguably grotesque they were. Besides, Gorsuch wrote "may have."

    7. BigT   2 years ago

      Those other abominations only impacted a small fraction of the population, the Covid usurpations impacted all 335 million of us.

  4. Mickey Rat   2 years ago

    Gorsuch talks about "greatest peacetime intrusion on civil liberties". Boehm goes not so fast and counters with what about something that happened during WWII.

    1. Overt   2 years ago

      This is why I insist that the problem with Reason is its editors. I don't know wtf KMW is doing over there, but it isn't editing this content. Basic shit like this should be caught during the editorial process. It is flat out embarrassing.

      1. P. Henry   2 years ago

        Yes, editors should catch it. But the primary responsibility is with the author.

        1. Overt   2 years ago

          Right- but an editor's job is to make the authors better. If they are just rubber-stamping whatever blue-bubble, cloistered nonsense the authors put out as a first draft, nobody is growing and you have a magazine that is perpetually putting out cloistered first drafts.

      2. mad.casual   2 years ago (edited)

        I don’t know wtf KMW is doing over there, but it isn’t editing this content. Basic shit like this should be caught during the editorial process. It is flat out embarrassing.

        Not as embarrassing as if something like 75% of the staff is editors and they themselves churn out bullshit like this just as often. It almost gives the impression of a poorly-run propaganda outlet staffed entirely by unqualified, but duly appointed Commissars.

  5. TrickyVic (old school)   2 years ago

    ""the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War.""

    He did specifically mention peacetime. Just sayin.

  6. Naime Bond   2 years ago

    His decision in Bostock v. Clayton Country should be added to the list.

    1. charliehall   2 years ago

      Only if you are a bigot.

  7. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)   2 years ago

    "While executive officials issued new emergency decrees at a furious pace, state legislatures and Congress—the bodies normally responsible for adopting our laws—too often fell silent," Gorsuch wrote. "Courts bound to protect our liberties addressed a few—but hardly all—of the intrusions upon them."

    Ok, Der TrumpenFuror... whatever you say, bruh.

    1. RickAbrams   2 years ago

      The only liberty Gorsuch recognizes is his ability to abuse others. I did not care for Ginsburg's positions, and she was successful primarily in her personal ambition to climb high in the judiciary, but she was not a perjurer. Gorsuch does not promote Liberty, he promotes absolute control by a tiny cadre of the elite -- primarily himself. Along with Alito, he wants to destroy the federal government so that it is so impotent it can be drowned in a bath tube. Then, all our inalienable rights will be dead because there is not government to protect them.

      1. Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)   2 years ago

        So that is a yes to being the new FBI guy. You know, you are not required to incite threats to murder you.

        1. Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)   2 years ago

          We can make certain you never get a mild illness again.

          Thanks for the assist, Nardz!

          1. Nardz   2 years ago

            I'm solutions oriented.

      2. Unicorn Abattoir   2 years ago

        Gorsuch does not promote Liberty, he promotes absolute control by a tiny cadre of the elite

        I can't believe the Dems didn't want this guy!

      3. Fats of Fury   2 years ago

        Then, all our inalienable rights will be dead because there is not government to protect them.

        Holy shit! Government is first in line to assault our rights. It's our duty to protect us from government.

      4. Sevo   2 years ago

        "The only liberty Gorsuch recognizes is his ability to abuse others..."

        Fuck off and dies, steaming pile of shit.

  8. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)   2 years ago

    As some Gorsuch critics have been quick to point out on Twitter, it might be a bit of an exaggeration to call this the "greatest" attack on civil liberties in American history. There are unfortunately more than a few other contenders for that ignominious crown: slavery, Jim Crow, the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. All were, like COVID-19 emergency powers, the result of legal exercises of state power that violated basic civil rights.

    Ignoring the 'peacetime parenthetical' Gorsuch made in relation to the "japanese internment", if a civil rights violation occurs and it doesn't "top" slavery or Jim Crow, then can we please never publish another article on abortion?

  9. Zeb   2 years ago

    I find it interesting that people seem to find an infringement on the rights of a specific segment of the population to be a worse crime than and infringement of everyone's rights. I can understand the impulse, but if you stop and think for a moment, isn't a violation of everyone's rights objectively worse?
    Pretty much everyone rightly thinks that Jim Crow laws were a very bad thing. But a majority just quietly went along when in many states even harsher restrictions on everyone's activities and interactions were imposed. Weird.

    1. Its_Not_Inevitable   2 years ago

      Perhaps people feel that it a-ok if everyone suffers the same? Misery loves company. Or "I gotta do it, you should, too." Except for the Elites, of course, who need not follow their own rules, .

      1. Overt   2 years ago

        Alternatively, the people complaining are doing so disingenuously. Like RickAbrams above, they genuinely don't think that the COVID state was that bad. And even if they now agree it was a mistake, they supported it, and so the last thing they want to do is admit that they (mistakenly) supported the subjugation of billions of people in a form generally not seen outside of Communist China. It is much easier for them to pretend it was not as bad as it clearly was.

        1. P. Henry   2 years ago

          This is exactly it. “We thought COVID was going to kill all of mankind so it’s not a big deal that we trampled on civil rights.” Of course, the same could be said about the then-perceived risks of Japanese-Americans during the war. Except no one does, or should, make that argument.

    2. A Cynical Asshole   2 years ago (edited)

      I can understand the impulse, but if you stop and think for a moment, isn’t a violation of everyone’s rights objectively worse?

      Yes and no, an individual who’s forced into an internment camp or enslaved would probably argue that’s worse than what was done to any single individual during the pandemic. Although the society wide impacts of the pandemic policies (people losing their jobs, small businesses going under, kids losing out on education from school closures, etc.) you could argue was worse for society as a whole than something like the Japanese internment that only affected a small minority of the population.

      As for everyone’s willingness to go along with the pandemic bullshit, that just goes to show how powerful a motivator fear really is. Almost everyone was willing to allow basic freedoms to be stripped away in the name of avoiding catching a nasty cold. Pretty pathetic.

      1. mad.casual   2 years ago (edited)

        An individual who’s forced into an internment camp or enslaved would probably argue that’s worse than what was done to any single individual during the pandemic

        And it would be kind of hard to hear them over the silence of the 15,000 people who died in nursing homes in NYC alone (alone):

        The WRA recorded 1,862 deaths across the ten camps, with cancer, heart disease, tuberculosis, and vascular disease accounting for the majority.

      2. RickAbrams   2 years ago

        It was not fear. Those who ignored the precautions often died -- needlessly died -- and mislead millions of others to death or long lasting illnesses. The fact that some survived who did not follow protocols is not proof the restrictions were wrong. Even societies which do nothing right during plagues survive. 25 Million Europeans died from the Black Plague between 1347 and 1361. There were recurrences of the plague in 1361–63, 1369–71, 1374–75, 1390, and 1400.

        Some people thought that murdering Jews would end the Black Plague. Because Jews had less illness, people figured they must be causing the plague. Jews were a lot cleaner than Non-Jews and had fewer rats and hence fewer fleas. Had the Christians kings ordered all Christians to rid their homes of rats, the Black Plague would been insignificant. Instead, the Christians had the freedom to live in filth with rats.

        Gorsuch like Thomas was a predator and liar at an early age and nominating either to the Supreme Court was a gross betrayal of the American people. The Constitutional Convention tried to protect the Court from the passions of the ignorant mob, but they underestimated the lack of integrity which pervades the American people.

        1. Zeb   2 years ago

          I hate to break it to you, but people who followed all the restrictions often died too. And the vast majority who either did or did not follow the restrictions did fine.

          1. mad.casual   2 years ago (edited)

            “It cannot be true that the Jews, by such a heinous crime, are the cause or occasion of the plague, because through many parts of the world the same plague, by the hidden judgment of God, has afflicted and afflicts the Jews themselves and many other races who have never lived alongside them.” – Pope Clementine VI, 26 Sept. 1348

            It’s a Kirkland-style effort where he plainly demonstrates himself to be less enlightened and more bigoted than Christians, whom he despises, 650ish years ago, both religiously, historically, and biologically.

        2. mad.casual   2 years ago

          Some people thought that murdering Jews would end the Black Plague. Because Jews had less illness, people figured they must be causing the plague. Jews were a lot cleaner than Non-Jews and had fewer rats and hence fewer fleas. Had the Christians kings ordered all Christians to rid their homes of rats, the Black Plague would been insignificant. Instead, the Christians had the freedom to live in filth with rats.

          This was all before the Empire of Japan assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in your timeline, right?

          1. Unicorn Abattoir   2 years ago

            Just after we fought North Korea on Mars.

            1. VULGAR MADMAN   2 years ago

              According to my uncle, Korea was as cold as mars.

              1. Unicorn Abattoir   2 years ago

                My dad agrees with your uncle.

                1. VULGAR MADMAN   2 years ago

                  My uncle got a dishonorable discharge for falling asleep on duty.

                  I hope your dad didn’t.

                  1. Unicorn Abattoir   2 years ago

                    No, served until '56. Air Traffic Control for the atomic tests when he got back to the states.

            2. The Angry Hippopotamus   2 years ago

              And right before the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor

        3. mad.casual   2 years ago

          Thomas was a predator... nominat[ed] to the Supreme Court

          So, being both supreme and a predator, you might call him a super predator?

          1. JesseAz   2 years ago

            Slow down uncle Joe.

            1. mad.casual   2 years ago

              Actually, in case you were confused as to the prevalence of racism in the DNC regime, it was HRC who coined the term 'super predator'. Joe just implied that they were poor predators who were just as smart as white kids.

        4. A Cynical Asshole   2 years ago

          Fuck off, slaver.

        5. Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)   2 years ago

          Some people thought that murdering Jews

          That escalated quickly...

          I like this FBI guy. He makes reading the comments exciting.

          1. Unicorn Abattoir   2 years ago

            Some people thought that murdering Jews

            Go on...I mean wait! That never happened!

            /Rod Mysuck

            1. A Thinking Mind   2 years ago

              Hah!

        6. Michael Ejercito   2 years ago

          The public health establishment discredited itself.

          https://ethicsalarms.com/2020/06/08/oh-no-its-monday-ethics-review-6-8-2020-a-yoos-rationalization-orgy/

        7. JesseAz   2 years ago

          "Often died" "some survived"...

          Jfree sock?

          1. Sevo   2 years ago

            Not required. Assholic boot lickers, like the poor, you always have with you; JFree is just one more, slightly less able to use logic.

          2. Overt   2 years ago

            No, I think I nailed it: Joe Friday is back....Probably forgot is password.

        8. Overt   2 years ago

          Watching Rick beclown himself has been an order of fun I haven't enjoyed since Joe Friday....

          Wait...It is Joe, isn't it?

          1. mad.casual   2 years ago

            Between Joe and Christians, Rick and Christians, Kirkland and backwater Christians, Misek and Christofascists and Mormons... they really start to just bleed together.

          2. DesigNate   2 years ago

            Nah, he seems to earnest to not be a parody of someone like Joe.

      3. Nardz   2 years ago

        The covid fiasco was the most massive crime against humanity that's ever been committed

        1. BigT   2 years ago

          Mao, Stalin, and Hitler would agree.

          1. Nardz   2 years ago

            Mao, Stalin, and Hitler didn't impose their transgressions on billions of people across 5 continents

      4. Overt   2 years ago

        "As for everyone’s willingness to go along with the pandemic bullshit, that just goes to show how powerful a motivator fear really is."

        It was more than just fear. As soon as the political lines were drawn, it was more about Tribe than anything.

        1. VULGAR MADMAN   2 years ago

          Now they claim nobody was obligated to go along with it.

          Shitheads.

          1. Sevo   2 years ago

            Yeah, it was just a "recommendation" (hint, hint, nudge, nudge).

        2. JesseAz   2 years ago

          Which reason writers tweeted about wearing masks so people wouldn't think he was conservative?

          1. DesigNate   2 years ago

            I bet it was Mcardle’s bitch boy, SuderMan.

        3. mad.casual   2 years ago

          It was more than just fear. As soon as the political lines were drawn, it was more about Tribe than anything.

          Yeah, nobody who said, "I'm not getting Trump's vaccine... I'll get Biden's vaccine.", including Biden and Harris, was acting out of fear. That decision was made in 2016, if not before.

  10. A Cynical Asshole   2 years ago

    "Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country. ...

    As some Gorsuch critics have been quick to point out on Twitter, it might be a bit of an exaggeration to call this the "greatest" attack on civil liberties in American history. There are unfortunately more than a few other contenders for that ignominious crown: slavery, Jim Crow, the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War.

    Perhaps some people need to learn what the word "peacetime" means. While yes, you could argue that the internment of Japanese Americans during WW2 is worse, and I would be inclined to agree (rounding people up and throwing them in camps is worse than stay at home orders, although let's not forget that there were plenty of assholes who wanted the un-vaccinated to be thrown into camps too), Gorsuch specifically said "peacetime."

    Did Boehm just leave that out thinking we wouldn't notice?

    1. Longtobefree   2 years ago

      Lest we forget:
      While the Japanese were being rounded up and sent to internment camps, Americans were being rounded up and sent to Army training camps, then sent to war zones and (maybe) dying.
      Alternate history option 2: The Japanese weren't rounded up, they were lynched by rioting mobs.

      1. mad.casual   2 years ago

        Alternate history option 2: The Japanese weren’t rounded up, they were lynched by rioting mobs.

        Just to be sure I have my alternate history options straight: lynched by rioting mobs 1967-style, 1992-style or 2020-style?

        If you think internment is bad, try getting caught in a time loop.

      2. Unicorn Abattoir   2 years ago

        Lest we forget, Nisei were drafted too. And sent to Army training camps. And War zones.

        1. Sevo   2 years ago

          Some were drafted for the Korean War AFTER they had been deported to Japan with their parents. Fuck FDR with Biden's limp dick!
          (Yes, Harry, it was a war, and you should have asked Congress permission with an apology, but, hey, he was a D).

    2. Overt   2 years ago

      "Did Boehm just leave that out thinking we wouldn’t notice?"

      No, Boehm got sloppy and he was not saved by his editor. Indeed, you can tell that they probably wish they didn't have to credit a CONSERVATIVE justice for stating the obvious, and so they blindly repeated what dunks on him they could. Because if they must acknowledge the point, it is best to ensure everyone understands he makes it grudgingly.

  11. Zeb   2 years ago

    And where were these cases in 2020? 3 years later and a huge amount of damage has been done.

    1. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)   2 years ago

      The *checks previous Reason articles* data didn't support them.

  12. mad.casual   2 years ago (edited)

    Jim Crow

    Pretty objectively: Minorities sit at the back of the bus sit in the black section of the restaurant, drink from the black drinking fountain, must wear shirt and shoes, and can only attend black schools is subordinate to no one, man, woman, black, white, yellow, red, Mexican, Jew, or other (MWBWYRMJOO) can ride public transportation, no one (MWBWYRMJOO) is allowed in the restaurant, no one (MWBWYRMJOO) is allowed to use the drinking fountains, everyone (MWBWYRMJOO) must wear masks, no one (MWBWYRMJOO) is allowed in school.

    Even the Tuskegee experiment only included some 600 people 2/3 of which were already infected by an STD.

    Also, there’s a racist joke about miscegenation and 6 ft. of separation in there too.

    Edit: And slavery is a shit cop out. Even in peacetime the law was generally passive (slaves and indentured servants didn't have to be punished, punishment just wasn't forbidden) and, more critically, didn't encroach on rights, they weren't recognized as being plainly self-evident even for white indentured servants. It's like saying the Crusades encroached on the 1A.

    1. Nardz   2 years ago (edited)

      They filled skate parks with sand and took the rims off public basketball hoops

      1. mad.casual   2 years ago

        I watched Mayor Groot chase black kids off a basketball court for being outside together. I know plenty of kids and even adults have been chased off of courts and baseball fields, forbidden from golf courses, by private groups acting of their own volition and authority. I don't know of any other Mayor, Klansmen or not, who has chased kids off a basketball court for being outside together in an effort to conform to Federal directives/guidance.

  13. Its_Not_Inevitable   2 years ago

    "didn’t encroach on rights" Wow, I don't know how much more wrong that could be. Rights are not permissions granted by government. If you don't think slavery violates an individuals' rights to their own life, liberty and property I don't know what to say.

    1. mad.casual   2 years ago (edited)

      Wow, I don’t know how much more wrong that could be.

      So, by your own tenets (and ignoring the issues with zeitgeist, wet-roads-cause-rain illusions), your stupidity is your fault, not mine, and neither myself nor the government are culpable for any personal failure on your part to liberate yourself from your own stupidity.

    2. Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)   2 years ago

      If you don’t think slavery violates an individuals’ rights

      Perhaps you didn't read Dred Scott?

  14. (Impeach Biden) Weigel's Cock Ring   2 years ago

    For the sake of absolute precision, Gorsuch should definitely have written "the greatest UNIVERSAL intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country" in order to distinguish it from the more narrowly targeted but obviously worse violations of the past.

    Other than that sloppy bit of verbiage though, his statement is 100% true. He is a true profile in courage (what a stark contrast to the pathetic profile in cowardice John Roberts) and he will go down as one of the absokyre best justices in American history.

    1. mad.casual   2 years ago

      For the sake of absolute precision, Gorsuch should definitely have written “the greatest UNIVERSAL intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country” in order to distinguish it from the more narrowly targeted but obviously and acutely worse or more protracted violations of the past.

      For the sake of absolute precision.

  15. shortviking   2 years ago

    Gavin Newsom belongs in prison.

    1. Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)   2 years ago

      Cuomo should be hanging from a gallows.

      1. VULGAR MADMAN   2 years ago

        For what? Killing a bunch of useless eaters?

        He’s just following the progressive tradition.

  16. Raccroc   2 years ago

    I think you are reading this wrong (even ignoring the peacetime gaff).
    "...we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country. Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale..."
    That seems to indicate that Gorsuch was specifically talking about "executive" overreach; not about bad laws by the legislative branch. Slavery was implemented by the state legislators, as were the Jim Crow Laws. He seems mostly concerned about the executive branch (state and federal) and 4th branch (administrative) intruding on folks liberties by decree; things like vax mandates, eviction moratoriums, forced business closures, etc. that were done without going through the proper law making processes.

    From a state perspective, "greatest" might be a bit of hyperbole, as state Governors have done some pretty vile shit, especially during the westward expansion. That said, I think his is right in that you will not find anything in US peacetime history were as many Governors acted in such rapid and consorted fashion to intrude upon civil liberties.

    From a federal perspective, he may be right at least since Lincoln (who's executive actions forced us into a civil war).

    1. Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)   2 years ago

      as state Governors have done some pretty vile shit, especially during the westward expansion

      Missouri Executive Order 44, issued on October 27, 1838, by Governor Lilburn Boggs:

      Your orders are, therefore, to hasten your operation with all possible speed. The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond all description.

    2. mad.casual   2 years ago (edited)

      That seems to indicate that Gorsuch was specifically talking about “executive” overreach; not about bad laws by the legislative branch.

      This is a good point and it raises another good point that I would understand if people considered it irrelevant, but Boehm brought up “slavery” with all it’s nebulous connotations so…

      Whereas another justice might bring up immigration globally or a hypothetical discussion between some niño and his abuelita as relevant to a specific case about potentially illegal solicitous speech, Gorsuch could be acknowledging something larger and setting it aside as irrelevant to Title 42. “The greatest-ever encroachment on Civil Liberties in National history of peace time began with the NIAID funding of a Wuhan lab, continued with the likely perjury and denial of that funding, expanded to encompass the blocking and screening of any who disagreed, even reinforcing the narrative within transnational bodies like the WHO to a degree we weren’t fully aware of then but… Since March 2020…”

      Almost certainly agreed that he’s not saying this but since we’re speculating a bit as to his thinking and, again, Boehm brings up… but slavery…

  17. Gaear Grimsrud   2 years ago

    "Gorsuch's statement shouldn't be regarded as a hot take about the worst civil liberties violations in American history, but a thoughtful review of how governments failed in this instance—so that they might do a better job in the future."
    Wishful, silly thinking. Covid taught our masters a valuable lesson. They can piss all over your liberty and not only get away with it, they'll get reelected to do it again.

    1. Nardz   2 years ago

      Governments didn't fail.
      Fairly certain they were extremely successful regarding their goals.

  18. Operator Six   2 years ago

    It’s not an exaggeration, don’t feel bad about reporting it with the libs in mind

  19. Use the Schwartz   2 years ago

    The Twitter Critics (redundant?) who are going after Gorsuch's rhetorical description are committing a classic fallacy of division clearly meant to distract.

    How about the real churnalists start ignoring what dipshits on Twitter say?

  20. ATCme   2 years ago

    Here's the question for the libertarian audience.

    While there are still many unknowns about CoVid, the WHO claimed 103 million confirmed cases of CoVid in the USA & 1.127 million deaths. Some people like to bandy about a mortality rate of 0.5%. This would suggest that 2/3 of the US population has been infected at least once.

    Given that the libertarian stance is that people should not face government restrictions unless they are causing harm to others, how do you measure (& proportionally restrict) the harm caused by a virus when the carrier often isn't even aware that they are carrying it? The estimated reproduction rate of 3 (combined with 3 day incubation period) means that an unquarantined person will likely infect enough people to result in 1 death after two weeks. What responsibility does that infected person have to their fellow citizens to try to prevent that death & what responsibility does the government have to try & prevent that first infect person from infecting 243 people within 15 days of the first infection and probably kill at least one of them. Assuming that the person didn't intentionally try to infect others, doesn't that at least count as manslaughter?

    1. Unicorn Abattoir   2 years ago

      how do you measure (& proportionally restrict) the harm caused by a virus when the carrier often isn’t even aware that they are carrying it?

      Assuming that the person didn’t intentionally try to infect others, doesn’t that at least count as manslaughter?

      What if you have a bear in your trunk, and you don't know about it?

      1. A Thinking Mind   2 years ago

        These hypotheticals are really, really strained now that it's been shown some things we've learned, and some things we knew all along.

        A) Masks don't work even slightly, and might be actually worse than useless.

        B) The vaccine doesn't prevent transmission.

        So therefore, what supposed efforts could people have been forced to take that might actually have limited the spread?

        1. Unicorn Abattoir   2 years ago

          We could have prayed harder to the God King Fauci.

        2. JFree   2 years ago (edited)

          Pandemic means everyone is gonna be exposed sooner or later. So transmission is merely an issue of timing not extent. Are you people just fucking stupid about what words mean?

          The purpose of the vaccine was to create antibodies before exposure to the virus – thus preventing (and NOT 100% – NO VACCINE EVER HAS BEEN 100%) SERIOUS cases (meaning hospitalization and death).

          You anti-vax assholes lost all your credibility about everything outside the GOP – and inside the GOP you merely killed your own moron believers.

          And no I don't ever give a shit about mandates. They are obviously pointless.

          1. VULGAR MADMAN   2 years ago

            You really are evil. The “vaccine”
            wouldn’t only prevent you from getting Covid, it wouldn’t even prevent you from giving it to others.

            You should kill yourself.

            1. JFree   2 years ago

              EVERYONE WAS GOING TO BE EXPOSED TO THE VIRUS SOONER OR LATER. EVERYONE. THAT'S WHAT THE WORD PANDEMIC MEANS.

              1. Stuck in California   2 years ago (edited)

                What’s with the all caps? It doesn’t seem like this dude’s even arguing the same topic as the thread. It’s like he’s angry at some voices in his head or something.

              2. Sevo   2 years ago

                You should kill yourself.

          2. JesseAz   2 years ago (edited)

            When are you going to be finally shamed to the point you were a frightful authoritarian moron during covid?

            And yes you gave a shit about mandates. You advocated for them. Even advocated denying medical care to unvaccinated. Fuck off shit weasel.

            1. VULGAR MADMAN   2 years ago

              He can’t feel shame.

            2. JFree   2 years ago

              Even advocated denying medical care to unvaccinated.

              My proposal was nothing more than:
              a) redefining 'crisis standards of care'. All states have that set up - eg Minnesota here. All hospitals know when they need to invoke it themselves and what to do when they do. 1/2 the states did so at least once during covid.
              b)telling people about that change so that they have the info needed to make a real vax/novax decision. Not the horseshit rationale of antivaxxers about transmission. But the real rationale of reducing your odds of hospitalization or death.

              That's what really pisses you people off about my proposal. Because it would have eliminated YOUR horseshit propagandizing. You people are nihilists. You don't give a rat's shit whether people die or not. Real libertarians are not nihilists. You can't give a shit about someone's liberty if you don't give a shit about whether they live or die.

              1. Junkmailfolder   2 years ago

                Why stop there? Hospitals should deny services to overweight people, people who injure themselves doing dangerous activities, and people who visit foreign countries.

                In fact, COVID taught us that we're responsible for the germs within our bodies, too. I'm beginning to wonder whether there are any bodily afflictions that couldn't be avoided through behavior modification.

                Denying services to people who are sick due to their own choices is merely enforcing accountability, right?

                1. JFree   2 years ago (edited)

                  None of those situations you cite create the conditions where crisis standards of care get invoked. None of those would be a meta – approach (meaning going beyond the one on one of direct medical treatment) to quickly eliminate the need for crisis standards of care.

                  It saves lives.

                  1. Junkmailfolder   2 years ago

                    What a stupid argument. Yes, they all create conditions that lead to crisis standards, because they all increase the usage of resources.

                    In other words, COVID wouldn't have (and very seldom did anyway) led to crisis standards if not for all the people who were sick or injured because of their own choices.

                    If hospitals should get into the business of denying care based on preventability of injury, it should apply to all such injuries during crises, not just the politically unpopular ones.

                    1. JFree   2 years ago (edited)

                      In other words, COVID wouldn’t have (and very seldom did anyway) led to crisis standards if not for all the people who were sick or injured because of their own choices.

                      Holy Christ. You assholes really believe that shit don’t you. Still. Here is the announcement by Idaho of a statewide crisis standards of care on Sep 16, 2021 – and the reasons for that..

                      Idaho COVID-19 hospitalizations, largely of unvaccinated individuals, continues to climb to record levels…LHS reported that of their 71 occupied ICU beds, 58 were COVID-19 patients

                      That’s a mere 82% of ICU capacity – with the projection that Covid hospitalizations would increase by 51% in the next two weeks.

                      My proposal would have immediately led to the unvax asking themselves a new vax/unvax decision in light of what is happening in hospitals around them. 1. Covid is here in my town. 2. It is clogging up my hospital – aka pushing others of my neighbors who are sick out to die 3. Am I perhaps fatter and unhealthier (meaning do I have the comorbidities that leads to serious covid cases) than I like to pretend? I’m not going to be skinnier in two weeks but I sure as fuck can be vax in two weeks. 4. Am I really willing to put my life at risk because of what that asshole antivaxxer snake is whispering to me? In hindsight – the data shows that – yes that is who was dying of covid by late 2021. The antivaxxers killed their own. They also however clogged up the hospitals and killed people of the wide range of other diseases that resulted in patients denied care during those crisis standards.

                      I don’t pretend that those folks would have gotten vaccinated en masse quickly at that point. Stupid is as contagious as covid. Stupid and stubborn is worse. But I also suspect that real accountability would have led some of those with comorbidities (the ones with the huge risk of hospitalization) to get vax – and the red pill. And that would have saved lives.

                      Your ilk should never be believed about anything that you advocate. Ever. And I’m done.

                    2. Sevo   2 years ago

                      "...Stupid and stubborn is worse..."

                      Check that mirror, steaming pile of shit.

                  2. Sevo   2 years ago

                    "It saves lives."

                    "If it saves just one life", right jackass?
                    Eat shit and die.

          3. Sevo   2 years ago

            Stuff your PANIC flag up your ass, stick first, chicken little.

          4. mad.casual   2 years ago

            Pandemic means everyone is gonna be exposed sooner or later.

            No, it doesn't. Annihilation of the species means everyone was effectively exposed. Anything effectively short contains some herd immunity, meaning someone somewhere was not effectively exposed.

            You anti-vax assholes lost all your credibility about everything outside the GOP – and inside the GOP you merely killed your own moron believers.

            "A new Yale study looks at excess deaths by partisan affiliation in two states during the pandemic."

            Wow! Unprecedented levels of testing and monitoring nationwide and internationally and you pick a cite that, for some reason, chose two states.

            You apparently don't give a shit about facts or data or lives either. The only good anti-vax moron Republican is a dead black anti-vax moron Republican, right?

            Asshat.

            1. JesseAz   2 years ago

              The studies own authors stated it did not have knowledge of political affiliation and to not use the study to confirm political party composition.

              But like everything covid, jfree is a fucking idiot.

              1. JFree   2 years ago (edited)

                The studies own authors stated it did not have knowledge of political affiliation and to not use the study to confirm political party composition.

                I’m glad you read part of the summary. But you of course failed to understand what you read. Or just chose to lie as usual.

                What they said was – Does this mean that differing vaccine uptake levels between Republicans and Democrats caused the mortality gap? Goldsmith-Pinkham says this study alone doesn’t prove that’s the case. However, he believes it does offer “pretty good evidence” that vaccines are at least an important part of the story.

                They didn’t specifically have info linking the individual death records with the individual vaccine records. But even the ‘pretty good evidence’ that vaccines are part of the story – from the study summary – The gap in excess death rates between Republicans and Democrats is concentrated in counties with low vaccination rates and only materializes after vaccines became widely available.. Meaning – the study authors are just overly careful. I’m NOT.

                They EXPLICITLY included party registration – They gathered nearly 600,000 Ohio and Florida death records from 2018 to 2021 and matched those records to voter registration data from 2017. This allowed them to determine the party affiliation of each person who died. THAT’S why they only did two states. That’s a shit-ton of work. They chose two states that are both big and purple (meaning statistically comparable numbers of D and R even for subsets like age) and provided voter registration records that could be linked to death records.

                1. mad.casual   2 years ago

                  Meaning – the study authors are just overly careful. I’m NOT.

                  Overly careful of misleading people or lying and you are not.

                  They chose two states that are both big and purple (meaning statistically comparable numbers of D and R even for subsets like age)

                  Except they didn't choose either the most populous state(s) nor any relatively young states median age-wise. But, again, the authors are being overly cautious against lying to people and you are not.

                  1. JFree   2 years ago

                    Whatever. You keep on doing your thing with your yapping and lying. The people who believe you are the people who die.

                    Kind of funny in a surreal way.

                    1. Sevo   2 years ago

                      "Whatever. You keep on doing your thing with your yapping and lying. The people who believe you are the people who die."

                      JFree: Too fucking stupid to understand "projection".

                    2. mad.casual   2 years ago

                      No lie. Scientists are cautious against drawing the wrong conclusions and misinforming people. You by your own assertion aren't.

          5. DesigNate   2 years ago

            Of course the mRNA isn’t a fucking vaccine by any colloquial or traditional measure so you can take your “anti-vax” bullshit and fuck off.

    2. A Thinking Mind   2 years ago

      While there are still many unknowns about CoVid, the WHO claimed 103 million confirmed cases of CoVid in the USA & 1.127 million deaths.

      The cool thing about this sentence is that it's self-negating.

    3. Sevo   2 years ago

      Here's one answer for the boot-licking inquistor:
      Fuck off and die in a fire.

    4. mad.casual   2 years ago

      how do you measure (& proportionally restrict) the harm caused by a virus when the carrier often isn’t even aware that they are carrying it?

      How do you measure (& proportionally restrict) the harm caused by ATCme's free speech when the speaker often isn't aware they are being harmful?

      The answer, since before the founding of the Republic, is people are presumed innocent until proven otherwise; so go shove a bag of dicks up your ass sideways you totalitarian motherfucker.

    5. Overt   2 years ago

      I have written about this at length. My largest treatise on it is here:

      https://reason.com/2021/08/19/you-staying-at-home-is-the-future-unvaccinated-punishers-want/?comments=true&amp#comment-9056503

      TL;DR - There is no moral imperative for us to protect others from a natural pathogen. If you are upstream from a neighbor, and you find that the water coming onto your property is contaminated, you are not obligated to treat it for your neighbor. If wolves tend to come out of the woods and prey upon livestock, you are not obligated to fence your property and shoot the wolves as they cross.

      Nature is nature. The default is that we will all die from nature if we don't protect ourselves. We should appreciate and thank a person who does more than required to help protect us from nature, but to expect it from them is to draft them into your service, like drafting your neighbor to go fight an encroaching forest fire.

      1. DesigNate   2 years ago

        Thank you Overt, you put it much more eloquently than my usual “fuck off, slaver”, though I enjoy the brevity of mine from time to time.

        1. Overt   2 years ago

          It takes all types. Some people are willing to read a lot, and others just need the quick jolt. I am happy to serve my market (likely countable on one hand) and you can take the rest.

  21. Taito7   2 years ago

    The Japanese were thrown into internment camps during WW2. During Covid we had to wear a mask at the grocery store and walking into restaurants. This guy is a dumb-ass.

    1. markm23   2 years ago

      Do you comprehend "peacetime"?

    2. Sevo   2 years ago

      "...This guy is a dumb-ass."

      You certainly are and you also can't read.

    3. Overt   2 years ago

      Where are all these crazies coming from? did someone post to Reddit?

      There is nothing worse than a person who supported the perpetration of mass violations of liberty turning around and trying to minimize it. Kids lost an entire year (or more) of schooling. Thousands of elderly died alone. Still thousands fell into depression and committed suicide. And to that great attrocity, Taito7 (and others) try to minimize it as having to wear a mask at the grocery store.

      At least the ones trying to insist it was worth the cost- though also wrong and evil- aren't demeaning the suffering of those who they fucked over. Have a little decency kid, before you fuck off to whichever social media hive you buzzed out of.

      1. Stuck in California   2 years ago

        Even if it was just being forced into performative nonsense, what the fuck does that have to do with WWII?

        This is an obvious troll. False equivalency and an air of superiority to stir up an emotional response. We all know that two wrongs don't make a right, two completely unrelated wrongs especially.

    4. CE   2 years ago

      It wasn't just masks. Businesses were shut down, landlords were prohibited from collecting rent, schools were closed, vaccinations (and numerous "boosters" of dubious practicality) were mandated (for school kids and for some employees), COVID tests were required, 14-day (or later 10-day) isolation was mandated for a positive test (and they wonder why the supply chain was disrupted), among other affronts to personal dignity and liberty. And much of it was totally ineffective. I had more workers miss time from being sick after the vaccination or from contact tracing than who were actually sick.

  22. JesseAz   2 years ago

    Anyone else notice that sarc and mike were once again claiming they just want libertarian discussions on this site this morning but they avoid this topic like the plague not even bothering with the facts changed, conspiracy theorist angle.

  23. Nardz   2 years ago

    https://twitter.com/EvaVlaar/status/1659585467736637443?t=dMVeFu--uPxfq3EY0am25A&s=19

    John Kerry Declares War on US Farmers: Gov't Farm Confiscations 'Not Off The Table'

    They’re coming for your farmers next, America. I told you, The Netherlands is just the pilot country. The war on farming is global, because the agenda behind it is global.

    [Link]

    1. Unicorn Abattoir   2 years ago

      Lysenko's "Law of Like Species" returning next. Control the food, control the people. John Kerry doesn't hide the fact that he wants an aristocracy and a servant class.

      Law of Like Species - You can plant similar crops closer together because they won't steal nutrients from each other. - Killed tens of million in the USSR and Mao's China.

    2. (Impeach Biden) Weigel's Cock Ring   2 years ago

      This isn't even worth mentioning according to Reason. It's WAY more important that some dude nobody ever heard of wrote a book a few months ago advocating for a Christian government.

  24. Uomo Del Ghiaccio   2 years ago

    The words MAY HAVE have meaning. Gorsuch was not claiming that IT WAS, but simply stressing how egregious of an attack on civil liberties that it was.

    "Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country. Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale,"

  25. TJJ2000   2 years ago

    Treasonous UN-Constitutional [Na]tional So[zi]alist-Empire Agencies made it all possible. And so long as the treasonous Nazi-Empire Agencies remain intact they will continue to conquer the USA at any and every excuse they can muster up. ...because that's what Nazi's do.

  26. I, Woodchipper   2 years ago

    He isnt perfect but he is SO good. We dont deserve him.

  27. CE   2 years ago

    What are the odds?
    A Supreme Court justice has a more libertarian take than Reason, and it's not Thomas, but Gorsuch.

  28. Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland   2 years ago

    Justice Gorsuch is still butthurt because good Americans held his mother accountable for being a shitty public employee. He is just another culture war casualty consumed by downscale, misguided grievance against modern America.

    1. Sevo   2 years ago

      Fuck off and die, asshole bigot

  29. easterncashforcars   2 years ago

    Which pharma company?
    cash for cars near me

  30. BDavi52   2 years ago

    Gorsuch is right.
    But the problem is not the Pandemic Panic, per se....that's just the proximate trigger. The problem is Safetyism, and more: the ridiculously bone-deep Progressive belief that one is owed, that one DESERVES a safe, safe, and safer still kind of life (as guaranteed by the State).

    After all, aren't we all destined to live forever, all things being equal???

    If we eat ONLY what the Experts tell us what we should eat...and exercise exactly as much as the Experts tell us we should exercise... If we don't have too much screen time... if we have enough 'me-time'. And if we surround ourselves with supportive friends who are there when we need them (and not when we don't).... We're immortal, aren't we? I mean, what else could we possibly do?

    Well whatever Fauci sez -- that's what.

    So...social-distance-footprint-signs... silly, flotating plexiglass barriers (that we all ignored in order to talk to the individual on the other side), wearing a mask to enter a restaurant, but not after you lift a fork or sip a margarita, elbow coughing, knapsack-sized portable sanitizer containers so I disinfect myself after elbow-bumping you in a distanced meet & greet: they all make perfect sense. Fauci Sez. Wear two masks, Fauci sez. Get the jab; get two; get three! Hunker Down; Don't go out! Spray your children with Clorox before hugging them!

    If Fauci sez we all must cut-off our left big toe to be absolutely super safe; we'd have left toe collection centers outside every Walmart.

    So of course we're willing to enthusiastically witness (from the safety of our Netflix Couches) and encourage (even demand!) the crushing of civil liberties, and the accompanying economic crash & burn. We're safer that way aren't we??

    Come let us celebrate our newest Declaration:
    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created safe, that they are endowed by the State with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Safety, Security, and Lack of Risk. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the need to guarantee the Safetyist Life Possible, no matter what!

    And if anyone complains, screw 'em. They're not our Safetyist kind of people anyway!!

    Fauci save us; Amen!

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