William Barr threatens to take legal action against states with overly oppressive lock down orders

  While all states are in a varying degree of lock down there are some states which Attorney General William Barr believes are going too far and he is threatening to go after them. Here is more:

The Justice Department will consider taking legal action against governors who continue to impose stringent rules for dealing with the coronavirus that infringe on constitutional rights even after the crisis subsides in their states, Attorney General William Barr said.

Blunt means to deal with the pandemic, such as stay-at-home orders and directives shutting down businesses, are justified up to a point, Barr said in an interview Tuesday on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.” Eventually, though, states should move to more targeted measures, Barr said.

“We have to give businesses more freedom to operate in a way that’s reasonably safe,” Barr said. “To the extent that governors don’t and impinge on either civil rights or on the national commerce — our common market that we have here — then we’ll have to address that.”

One way the Justice Department might act against state or local officials is by joining lawsuits brought by citizens or businesses over restrictions, Barr said. He acknowledged that state governments are at “a sensitive stage,” as they try to balance health and safety against pressure to reopen. But he said that “as lawsuits develop, as specific cases emerge in the states, we’ll take a look at them.”

“We’re looking carefully at a number of these rules that are being put into place,” Barr said. “And if we think one goes too far, we initially try to jawbone the governors into rolling them back or adjusting them. And if they’re not and people bring lawsuits, we file statement of interest and side with the plaintiffs.”

  I could not agree more with the sentiment but I disagree with the idea that any of the actions these states have taken are reasonable infringements on our rights. In the states with the least offensive restrictions most people have still had their livelihoods and their businesses stolen from them, the people are not allowed to go to their places of worship, they have lost the right to assembly, all parks and beaches have been shut down, and there are limits on what and how much a person can buy.  

  In my opinion William Barr is not going far enough, if he does decide to move on this, because no infringement on our rights is acceptable. It is unacceptable to me that a governor can order people to stay at home and businesses to close and I think every governor in the United States needs to be voted out of office as soon as he or she comes up for reelection and if your state has a procedure for recall I see no need to wait that long.

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium