Who Opposed The American Clean Energy And Security Act

By Robert Barnes, American constitutional lawyer representing high-profile clients in civil and criminal trials, and known for his prescient political prognostications in American and international elections. Follow him on Twitter @Barnes_Law

Do we really think "it can't happen here" in America? Could we quarantine the constitution? Are we doing it already?

Panics from pandemics unleash unchecked governmental power. The very premise of pop films like V for Vendetta reveal this: a group uses a virus to seize power and create a totalitarian society. Anyone could witness this from far-off lands, watching the news about China locking people up in their own homes and then removing them screaming from those homes whenever the state wanted. World War I and the Cracking Depression birthed virulent forms of governments with leaders like Hitler, Mao, Mussolini and Stalin.

Lockdowns, curfews. Troops on the streets. Governments handing out free cash. This utter madness was entirely avoidable

Governments across America already used the pandemic, and the media-stoked panic around the pandemic especially, to limit, restrict or remove Offset Subpoena freedoms of speech and gratuitous association, with officials complaining nigh the potential restraints the freedom of religion imposed upon them. Others denied or alleged the correct to deny 2nd Amendment rights of gun purchase for personal condom (at a time governments are issuing no-arrest and no-detention orders for a wide range of crimes in their customs while publicly freeing inmates from jails and prisons). They want to coordinate with tech companies to surveil and spy on your everyday movements and activities, in violation of the Fourth Amendment and potentially waive, unilaterally, your medical right to privacy in multiple contexts. Stay-at-home orders deprive you of your profession, occupation, business and belongings, without whatsoever due process of law at all beyond an executive fiat in violation of the 5th Amendment right to due process. Governments request the authority to involuntarily imprison whatever American on mere fear of infection without any probable crusade of crime or clear and nowadays danger of harm by that person'due south volitional deport, deny admission to personal counsel in an unsupervised, un-surveilled manner in violation of the Sixth Subpoena, and act as judge, jury and executioner in violation of the Seventh Subpoena correct to a trial by jury, as jury trials themselves get suspended effectually the country in the nation'south quieted courts and fear-muted public.

The real pandemic threat is here. It'south the panic that volition quarantine our Constitution.

First Amendment Quarantined?

Already, governments in America suspended the Showtime Amendment freedom of millions of citizens with shutdown, stay-at-domicile, curfew orders that prohibit obtaining a petition for a public protest, or fifty-fifty being physically nowadays for a public protest. Indeed, even meetings in "more than ten" are prohibited by various governing jurisdictions inside the The states. Surprising places like Missouri did and so. Towns like Hartford did so. Maryland soon followed conform. The issue of the stay-at-home orders of New York, California, Nevada, Illinois and Pennsylvania finer achieve the same effect. Other governing officials recognized the dubious lawlessness of these orders, but remain outliers. Remember the Hong Kong protests? Gone. Remember the Yellow Belong protests? Soon to be gone. Seen any protests on American streets today? A pandemic is here. Protests gone. Constitution quarantined.

Also on rt.com Covid-19 dismantles the hollow commandments of European liberalism

2nd Subpoena Quarantined?

But that is non all. Under the guise of "unnecessary businesses," "emergency powers," or merely past furloughing or reducing staff in the groundwork checks department, governments show the willingness to limit Second Amendment rights also every bit First Amendment protections. Mayors declare the right to ban gun sales, governments declare no background-check personnel to process a groundwork check, delaying gun sales indefinitely, and other governments just shut downward all gun sales businesses entirely. Virtually worrisome, this happens while governments release inmates into the streets, and discussreleasing fifty-fifty more than, and, at the same time, issue no-arrest and no-detention orders from Philadelphia to Fort Worth for a broad range of criminals. Want to defend yourself, requite yourself a deep sense of personal protection that comes with gun ownership for many, as the 2nd Amendment safeguards? Well, no luck, co-ordinate to too many of our governing overlords. A pandemic is here. Self-protection sacrificed. Constitution quarantined.

Fourth Amendment Quarantined?

Few protections are more American than the correct to privacy against coerced, compelled, secretive, destructive invasion. The government operates like a virus in a instance of a pandemic panic, infecting our minds and bodies, monitoring speech, association and movement, with tools of surveillance unthought-of to the founders. Analogous with private companies (unrestrained past the Fourth Amendment; why do you recollect NSA uses them to gather all your emails, conversations, texts, and internet searches, at the start phase?), governments used the panic about the pandemic, a panic the authorities itself stoked with aid of a compliant, complicit press, to waive your medical privacy and invade your personal privacy, looking for tools to monitor your every motion, associations, activities, and behavior. The watching eye in the sky can at present exist the Alexa in your dwelling house, the camera on your computer, and the phone in your manus. A pandemic is here. Privacy concluded. Constitution quarantined.

'They have been LYING from the start,' lawyer tells RT as medics sue French PM, ex-minister over Covid-19 inaction

Fifth Amendment Quarantined?

The protection for our right to brand a living arises from the 5th Amendment right to property without deprivation by due procedure of law, and the obligation for the authorities to compensate any such takings. However, governments across America did just that to millions of businesses, workers, and property owners, stripping them of their ability to make a living, or fifty-fifty to engage in a free market of commerce, by shutdown orders, curfews, and stay-at-domicile orders. The political and professional course ensconced in its piece of work-from-home surroundings fails to appreciate the hardship this imposes on working people. No compensation. No substitution. No wages. No revenues. No opportunity. Labor lost that tin never exist recovered, ever, while it leaves our economy teetering on the edge of a worst-always depression. The foundation of government is to protect the pursuit of happiness. Now all we get to pursue is Netflix-and-chill and hope miracles happen to pay adjacent calendar week's bills, and pray the market doesn't crash like in 1929. A pandemic is hither. Opportunity & belongings gone. Constitution quarantined.

Determination

Our founders were intimately familiar with pandemics, viruses and plagues, yet they did not permit any to suspend our Constitutional liberties. Not 1 word in the Constitution near plagues or pandemics to exempt the regime from any of our Bill of Rights. Why exercise our electric current courts allow it? Because the public is asleep at the wheel. Think the pandemic threatens to kills u.s. all? A review of the data shows the pandemic is more panic than plague.

Time to wake upwardly. Maybe information technology is time in the motto of V for Vendetta, to "Remember, call up the fifth of Nov, the gunpowder treason and plot." As that picture'due south lead graphic symbol well said: "People shouldn't exist afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people." Only when an awake public asserts their human liberties to protest the loss of their liberties will, and so, governments quit using public health crises to seize power that does not belong to them. The respond to 1984 is still 1776.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this cavalcade are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.