Rights, Risks, and Responsibilities

I've been seeing a lot of news reports about anti-quarantine protests in several states, and truthfully, I don't see a lot of daylight between most of the people attending these protests and spoiled children screaming "You can't tell me what to do!"

Look.  I get that these sheltering-in-place measures are hurting a lot of people economically.  A lot of small businesses are teetering on the precipice of going out of business, and the income they're losing might mean not being able to put food on the table or pay for essential medicine or save for retirement or a kid's college fund.  If you're protesting because your economic livelihood is at stake, I sympathize and I understand.

But if you're protesting because you're tired of being cooped up and you miss your favorite sports bar - too bad.  Suck it up and act like an adult.

And if you're piggy-backing on the protest to promote your pet cause--like these guys, who appear to be celebrating the right to bear arms, even though these quarantine measures have nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment. . .

. . .you're a dumbass.

And if you're waving around a sign like this to express your political beliefs:

. . .punch yourself in the face. You fail at life.

"But the 1st Amendment says people can gather in public."

That's true.  It's right there: "Congress shall make no law. . .of the right of the people peaceably to assemble. . ."

But here's the thing about rights: NONE of them are universally absolute.

There's a certain tolerance for risk built into the Constitution. One of the potential negative consequences of living in a free society is that someone will misuse that freedom, and we're constantly struggling to balance preventing people or groups from exercising their Constitutional freedoms in malicious ways with protecting the average person's rights.  For example, free speech isn't really free if it only protects banal topics of discussion like sports or TV shows.  If it doesn't protect controversial speech such as protesting the government or even making public speeches that advocate the violent overthrow of the government (aka sedition), the 1st Amendment is meaningless.  There's a certain level of tolerance for rebellious anti-government speech baked into the 1st Amendment.

But that risk tolerance for malevolent abuses of one's Constitutional rights only goes so far.  If you commit a violent felony, and your 2nd Amendment right is curtailed. It's right there on ATF Form 4473--Question 11c. You use your 1st Amendment right of free speech to spread malicious lies about someone, and you're open to criminal or civil liability.  You're not protected by the 4th Amendment in certain ways if law enforcement has probable cause that you're committing a crime. And so on. Even the right to peaceably assemble comes with caveats: ever heard of maximum occupancy regulations?

I'm no Constitutional scholar, but the general rule seems to be that a person starts losing their rights the moment they misuse them in a way that's harmful to others, whether maliciously or recklessly.

"But I'm not hurting anybody! I'm just showing up and protesting!"

Are you sure? Do you know for certain you're not a Covid vector? Infectees take up to two weeks to exhibit symptoms, so maybe you feel fine today, but you could have been exposed and you just don't know it. And even if you haven't been exposed, what about the ten people standing next to you? The country's infection rate has kept rising for several weeks, so there are a whole lot of someones unknowingly spreading the virus. And since the US still doesn't have enough detection tests or PPE. (Side note: I don't think it's a coincidence that nobody seems to be protesting that, even though it's where most of the blame lies. But I'll address that in a bit.), we have to do what we can with what we have. Which is making people stay at home.

Of course, there are certainly some officials who are taking it too far and venturing into draconian territory, and that undermines the ability to enact sensible measures.  And history isn't too kind to people who overreact in these situations. Some of America's most shameful moments sprung out of a panic-driven compulsion to infringe on people's rights in the name of safety and security: the Japanese internment camps, COINTELPRO, the NSA's bulk data collection, to name a few.  Once the dust settles and the inevitable lawsuits are resolved, we'll have a handful of elected officials to hold up as examples of what NOT to do, as well as a better understanding of how to handle a crisis like this in the future.

So, the legality of these "stay at home" measures will probably be decided in a future courtroom.  But for now, here's a little test. Replace "go out in public" with "get drunk and drive as fast as I want" and see if you sound at least a little irresponsibly stupid.

Now remember where I rhetorically asked why there aren't any protests over the lack of testing kits & PPE? That's because these protests are partly an "astroturf movement". They're being bankrolled, organized, and publicized to a decent degree by the GOP and right-wing media in order to remain in power in 2020.  They want the economy back open because bad economies hurt reelection efforts, possibly more than any other issue.  And they're using words and phrases like "freedom", "violation of our rights", and "Unconstitutional" because they know those terms resonate with some people.  That's all there is to it.  They're pushing so hard to reopen the economy because they want to get Trump reelected, not because they're so concerned about America's values or about the mom & pop businesses at risk of folding or the thousands of people who may go broke because of this quarantine.

They don't give a rat's ass about the American public.

And they're hypocrites. You can see for yourself: go back through their social media posts, their press releases, and their legislative records.  You'll find that their stances about public protests were markedly different when those protests were about the Dakota Access Pipeline or Black Lives Matter.

Weird, huh?

So do me a favor: stop listening to bad-faith pundits, politicians, and "experts" who are using you as pawns. Think before you exercise your rights in a reckless, potentially harmful way.  And unless you have a legitimate reason, park yourself on your couch and stay home. The more people who break the "stay at home" guidance, the longer the Coronavirus will keep circulating among the population.

You're adults. Act like it.