It’s Time To End The Great American COVID-19 Police State

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We now have the most severe, widespread, and protracted form of martial law in our nation’s history … except as it applies to dangerous criminals who are undeterred and released. How much worse will we allow this to get until we call a foul on these gross constitutional violations?

As I observed last week, states have wide latitude to forcibly quarantine individuals or groups of people from the general population. But they don’t have the power to shut down the entire general population. Also, as the Supreme Court has said many times, there are times when life, liberty, and property can be infringed upon, but it must be narrowly tailored to the least invasive means needed to achieve the compelling state interest. What is happening now is anything but narrow.

Consider the following:

> A 19-year-old woman was given a citation and forced to go back home after a state trooper in York County, Pennsylvania, caught her simply “going for a drive.” She was alone in a car, the ultimate social distancing. There is no way under any emergency power that such a broad, arbitrary and gratuitous edict can be justified under the Constitution, given the severity of its restriction on personal liberty. Meanwhile, subways are still open!

> Numerous states have arbitrarily banned nonessential medical services, defined as pretty much anything that is not an urgent emergency. It would be one thing if the areas were overrun with COVID-19 patients, but as I reported yesterday, these hospitals are in fact empty and are now laying off vital medical staff because of the unlawful edicts.

> In Los Angeles County, a paddleboarder was arrested for being in the ocean … alone! The San Diego sheriff bragged about giving people a $1,000 citation for sitting alone in their cars at the beach. Again, no violations of federal health and distancing guidance occurred. This is straight unconstitutional fascism.

Read the rest from Daniel Horowitz HERE.

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