Enough is enough. On Freedom is Scary, Episode 13, LIVE on Youtube and Facebook, I will discuss the fact that the Governor of West Virginia has left me no choice but to file another lawsuit. (UPDATE: it’s filed: https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/2020/09/15/filed-bridge-cafe-bistros-federal-lawsuit-against-the-w-va-governor-and-putnam-county/?fbclid=IwAR039nWl-txdpdX5WPQa76t9JiRgkWwDGKbicA46VtkUsReuNpZzRUYVNKQ) This time I’m filing in federal court, on behalf of a restaurant who was on the receiving end of our Governor’s tyranny, via his local health department secret police. It’s been proven that lockdowns and other governmental tyranny doesn’t work.
Even assuming it was constitutional, it doesn’t work. The virus is/was going to take its course. Where the lockdown measures were most tyrannical, the virus spread at the same rate, or even worse. Then there’s the unintended consequences and side effects of keeping people locked down, and destroying their small businesses, which is the reason why we weren’t supposed to attempt lockdowns in the first place.
POST-VIDEO UPDATE: I will be filing a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Bridge Cafe & Bistro in Putnam County, West Virginia, challenging the constitutionality of both the “Stay at Home Order” as well as the Governor’s “Mask Mandate.” You may recall this restaurant’s Facebook post expressing their First Amendment protected speech pertaining to the concept of forcing people to cover their faces:
This social media post, on what is obviously an intense political topic of current days, resulted in the Putnam County Health Board (they’re located in Hurricane, West Virginia) threatening administrative closure, for which they physically inspected the restaurant twice for mask compliance, and then charged them for it. They were dragged through the (actual) media, and through social media, in response to the substantive content of their speech, which is allowable for private citizens to do, but is a big no-no for the Government. Because, the First Amendment. Here’s some of the media aftermath:
Threatened with closure if they didn’t change the content of their opinions, and comply with the unconstitutional “Mask Mandate,” they had no choice but to comply:
We’re suing in federal district court for First Amendment retaliation, under Section 1983, and we’re also challenging the constitutionality of the “Mask Mandate” itself, as well as the “Stay at Home Order,” as it applies to this restaurant and the family who owns it. I’ll post the Complaint as soon as it’s filed. Due to the great timing, we’re now incorporating some of today’s ruling out of Pennsylvania. More about that below:
Update No. 2: Today a federal judge in the Western District of Pennsylvania issued an opinion striking down the Pennsylvania Governor’s order closing “non-life-sustaining” (i.e., non-essential) businesses, as well as the order restricting large gatherings. It was a great opinion, and great timing as well, since we can now incorporate some of it into our federal lawsuit against the West Virginia Governor. It’s not binding in any way in our federal courts, since Pennsylvania is in a separate federal circuit. But it will be great guidance for the Court, and it also incorporates some of the federal rulings in Kentucky, which clipped the wings of their tyrant governor. Some of the highlights:
The fact is that the lockdowns imposed across the United States in early 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are unprecedented in the history of our Commonwealth and our Country. They have never been used in response to any other disease in our history. They were not recommendations made by the CDC. They were unheard of by the people this nation until just this year. It appears as though the imposition of lockdowns in Wuhan and other areas of China—a nation unconstrained by concern for civil liberties and constitutional norms—started a domino effect where one country, and state, after another imposed draconian and hitherto untried measures on their citizens. The lockdowns are, therefore, truly unprecedented from a legal perspective…..
As with the lockdown, Defendants’ shutdown of all “non-life-sustaining” businesses is unprecedented in the history of the Commonwealth and, indeed, the nation. While historical records show that certain economic activities were curtailed in response to the Spanish Flu pandemic, there has never been an instance where a government or agent thereof has sua sponte divided every business in the Commonwealth into two camps—“life-sustaining” and “non-life- sustaining”—and closed all of the businesses deemed “non-life-sustaining” (unless that business obtained a discretionary waiver). The unprecedented nature of the business closure—even in light of historic emergency situations—makes its examination difficult from a constitutional perspective. It simply does not neatly fit with any precedent ever addressed by our courts. Never before has the government exercised such vast and immediate power over every business, business owner, and employee in the Commonwealth. Never before has the government taken a direct action which shuttered so many businesses and sidelined so many employees and rendered their ability to operate, and to work, solely dependent on government discretion. As with the analysis of lockdowns, the unprecedented nature of the business shutdowns poses a challenge to its review. Nevertheless, having reviewed this novel issue in light of established Due Process principles, the Court holds that the business closure orders violated the Fourteenth Amendment….
An economy is not a machine that can be shut down and restarted at will by government. It is an organic system made up of free people each pursuing their dreams. The ability to support oneself is essential to free people in a free economy. The late Justice William O. Douglas observed: The right to work, I had assumed, was the most precious liberty that man possesses. Man has indeed as much right to work as he has to live, to be free, to own property. The American ideal was stated by Emerson in his essay on Politics, ‘A man has a right to be employed, to be trusted, to be loved, to be revered.’ It does many men little good to stay alive and free and propertied, if they cannot work. To work means to eat. It also means to live. For many it would be better to work in jail, than to sit idle on the curb. The great values of freedom are in the opportunities afforded man to press to new horizons, to pit his strength against the forces of nature, to match skills with his fellow man. Barsky v. Board of Regents of University of State of New York, 347 U.S. 442, 472 (1954) (Douglas, J, dissenting). In a free state, the ability to earn a living by pursing one’s calling and to support oneself and one’s family is not an economic good, it is a human good.
Here’s a .pdf of the 66 page ruling: