Coronavirus and the Courts Term Paper

The Right to Due Process and Privacy in Times of Coronavirus

Introduction

One of the major problems in the US and the wider world is the dissemination of news or information that is accepted uncritically as gospel truth because it comes from a trusted source, a trusted outlet, a trusted organization, or a professional with the right sort of credentials that get people to assume trust. With regards to the coronavirus there is a great deal of misinformation and a great deal of legitimate questions and points that are raised by professionals, doctors, scientists, researchers and people with extensive backgrounds in epidemiology and health care that are not promoted in the mainstream media because those questions and points do not provoke fear and hysteria, which are the main drivers of the lockdown. Governors across the US have used fear and hysteria, rather than common sense, as justification for locking down their states and putting 20 million people out of work. Sweden, on the other hand, has not embarked on a mission of economic suicide and has adopted the position that few of its citizens are at risk from the novel coronavirus, which the state has identified as new form of the flu, and effect of this decision is that Sweden has weathered the appearance of the novel coronavirus just fine (Baker). Elsewhere in the US, the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services have raided the offices of a health clinic that was treating coronavirus patients with vitamin C IVs to great success; the reason for the raid was the doctors were not following the recommended protocol for putting coronavirus patients on ventilators, which have a 90% kill rate (Fox 2). One must begin to see that the coronavirus scare is a manufactured crisis that has been used as a pretense to bailout corporate America and Wall Street (once again) while leaving Main Street to dither in the wind. It is egregious and when a case like Ernie Camacho’s or JoJo’s comes up, as a member of the US Supreme Court, I have to state up front my bias—I am completely in sympathy with Camacho and JoJo and find Barr’s actions and California’s overreaction to the novel coronavirus to be a horrible violation of human and civil liberties.

With that said, we are tasked not only with assessing the spirit of the law but also the letter of the law, even though it has been said that the letter kills but the spirit gives life. The letter of the law exists to set the parameters for the spirit—not to be twisted by linguists and lawyers whose livelihoods depends upon their ability to reinterpret and re-imagine new meanings for words. The law is a thing to be respected, and yet everywhere it appears it has been gravely abused with fear and hysteria serving as the underlying motivation for this abuse.

But the Constitution does not give governors or the federal government the right to assume dictatorial control just because fear and hysteria are in the air. It is a mistake to believe that people naturally and legally give up their rights as US citizens because social media users, or politicians, or media personalities, or the governor’s office is in a panic about a flu about which speculation has run wild and the health care system, using exceedingly questionable tactics, has been essentially permitted or rather encouraged to euthanize its patients (via ventilators) so as to contain the spread of the virus.

In short, there is a great deal of noise and passion and hysteria and misinformation surrounding the issue of the coronavirus. Thus, what can we do to filter out the noise and reduce our own cognitive bias as we begin to examine the relevant factors of this case? I have already bracketed out my bias by stating it up front. Conscious of my own thoughts and feelings on this matter, it is now time to look at the facts of the case. This we can do by highlighting them as succinctly as possible.

Facts of the Case

1. The Yaz Act of 2020 was passed by Congress mandating every American to receive the flu vaccine.

2. If it is “my body, my choice” for women who choose to have abortions, it must also be “my body, my choice” for people who choose to go unvaccinated. The utilitarian principle of a perceived “greater good” does not eviscerated the individual’s right to choice.

3. District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) held that grammatical re-interpretation of the collective vs. the individual with regard to the expression “the people” is needed. I disagree with this conclusion: “the people” is not an expression that changes meaning from one Amendment to the next but rather…

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…the obvious since the media is not doing its job and the lawmakers are not doing their job. The hysteria must be brought to heel and it must be brought to heel within the framework of the constitutional law that gives this country the conditions upon which rights are to be exercised and laws are to be implemented.

Due process is one of the most important aspects of American law and yet it is flagrantly disregarded by lawmakers and justices, all of whom find ways to manipulate language to their own ends. It is Ethical Egoism run amok and the people of America are the ones who are made victims of a vile and unscrupulous approach to law and the execution of justice. Every American has the right to due process as defined by the Constitution and no American should feel like he has to make a defense for his liberties by appealing to a commerce clause. How utterly ridiculous that a human being in this nation in the 21st century cannot expect to win a lawsuit against a tyrannous regime by appealing to his Constitutional rights under the 5th Amendment! How utterly sad! And yet here we are: so little is the respect shown to the Constitution and to the spirit of the law that today’s executive branch decision makers believe the law is whatever they say it is and that the lawyers will justify whatever they say it is by playing word games that undermine the confidence of the average American in the ability of the Constitution to protect him from tyranny any longer. By taking the law into its own hands, the executive offices at local, state and federal levels seek to circumvent the actual law of the land and create for themselves the ability to turn their will into law. But doing such is the essence of tyranny and no citizen should feel obliged or compelled to obey or conform to such tyranny.

Conclusion

The state of repression in American society has reached a new low with the unconstitutional arrest and imprisonment of Ernie Camacho and the denial of the right to interstate travel and an infringement of his personal liberty in the person of JoJo White. The Constitution itself safeguards and protects the right to privacy and the right to liberty of Americans—yet executive offices in the US are trampling upon these rights…