At this rate, the only “constitutional rights” left that will be guarded by the courts are those of illegal aliens, violent criminals, and baby-killers at abortion facilities.
For the first time in American history, all churches and most businesses have been shut down indefinitely – even those following the CDC guidelines – all without sufficient evidence that it is necessary. Every mayor, county executive, or sheriff has become a medieval duke who can rule under the divine right of a king. Every clause of the Bill of Rights has been suspended in its most basic application without any desire to more narrowly tailor the severe infringements to clearly defined, evidence-based policy goals.
Where is that judicial supremacy juggernaut during this whole ordeal, the same juggernaut that spawned the worst border and health crisis from illegal aliens in 2018-2019?
Well, we’ve finally detected a pulse in the courts. Indeed, there are limitations on the power of a governor to shut down our lives and economy at any cost: A federal district judge in Texas ruled yesterday that Governor Greg Abbott has no power to violate the Bill of Rights and shut down abortion services for the duration of the epidemic!
“Regarding a woman’s right to a pre-fetal-viability abortion, the Supreme Court has spoken clearly,” U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel of the Western District of Texas on Monday. There can be no outright ban on such a procedure.”
But you can ban opening your business outright? You can ban movements and travel between states outright? You can ban all assembly outright?
You see, there is one “religious” service that is evidently legally protected even during a pandemic. It just happens to be the religious service that involves killing babies and is of course not mentioned in the Constitution. A broken clock might be right twice a day, but the corrupt legal profession and court system are perfectly perverted without exception. They rule on the side of fake rights every time, and they ignore infringements on the most foundational natural rights every time.
Judge Karen Henderson noted this in 2018 in the context of illegal immigration. In a dissent in the Garza case, the federal appeals court judge in D.C. wrote that the majority had created a right for illegal aliens to access abortion when even legal immigrants are excluded from the Second Amendment right to own a gun and the First Amendment right to donate to political campaigns.
Abortion is a super-right invisibly inked into the Constitution by the judicial tyrants. Henderson observed sarcastically how settled case law dictates that most other major citizen rights “must yield to the ‘plenary authority’ of the Congress and the Executive, acting in concert, to regulate immigration; but the freedom to terminate one’s pregnancy is more fundamental than them all?”
A few hours after the ruling in Texas yesterday, U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett issued a similar temporary restraining order in Ohio, accusing the governor of creating “a substantial obstacle in the path of patients seeking pre-viability abortions, thus creating an undue burden on abortion access.”
What about an undue burden on just about every other medical service and nearly every other service known to man during this pandemic?
My father needed emergency surgery last week after a bone fragment chipped off his lumbar spine and lodged itself in the sciatic nerve. He was experiencing excruciating pain that even the oxycontin didn’t ease much, but he had a great deal of trouble trouble finding a doctor to even perform the surgery. Finally, thanks to an extended family connection, he found a surgeon willing to perform the operation, but even then, the medical director of the hospital had to sign off on the procedure as “essential.” When he arrived at the Baltimore hospital, personnel were standing around with almost no patients – coronavirus or otherwise. It was a close call and made me wonder how many others will wind up missing out for weeks on end on what should be considered essential procedures.
No, none of those people will get their day in court. But abortion is a sacred religious service to our court system, and “freedom of religion” is protected at all costs.
Or is it?
Yesterday, Florida Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne of the River Church of Tampa was arrested by local police for violating a county order banning services with more than 10 people. While obviously we all want to be careful with public gatherings at this point, we have to be even more careful before we set the precedent of arresting pastors for holding services.
According to his lawyer at Liberty Counsel, Browne was following the CDC guidelines. The church held services in a large auditorium, abiding by the six-foot distancing rule. “The church spent $100,000 on a hospital-grade purification system set up throughout the church that provide[s] continuous infectious microbial reduction that is rated to kill microbes, including those in the coronavirus family,” wrote Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel.
Staver notes that the Tampa order “has 42 paragraphs of exceptions, and another paragraph that further exempts any business that can comply with a six-foot separation.”
“No other secular business has done what this church has done to protect its people. Yet, Hillsborough County and Sheriff Chronister want to openly discriminate against church gatherings.”
At some point, we must recognize that this has gone too far. We have the most inalienable rights on the one side, not to mention zero violations of federal or state law in this case. How can a city or county ordinance written up by an executive, not a legislative body, categorically ban the most foundational rights indefinitely, arbitrarily, and without providing evidence that this is necessary to this extreme extent?
The Supreme Court made it clear in the landmark Jacobson v. Massachusetts case that while the state has the right to mandate vaccinations, state actions to protect public health must “be so limited in their application as not to lead to injustice, oppression or absurd consequence.
As the entire premise for some of these policies is rigorously debated, the American people need to rise up and throw the red flag.
This is the worst mix of tyranny and anarchy. You would think these fascist jurisdictions have zero tolerance for any law-breaking if they are going to “make examples” of people violating made-up edicts against inalienable rights. Not so! We are destroying every foundation of this country and declaring full martial law in order to stop a virus, but on the other hand, the same government officials are releasing violent criminals and allowing abortion to continue. Mind you, these very same jurisdictions acting as if they mean business on law-and-order with lawless edicts are continuing to violate federal immigration law and harboring other countries’ criminals.
One thing we’ve learned through this process is that the ACLU is a fraud through and through. They are absolutists in the context of defending criminal liberties, but never the civil liberties of peaceful Americans exercising their God-given rights. At some point, the enduring words uttered by Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty or give me death,” should mean something to us. (For more from the author of “You Can’t Go to Church, but You Can Get an Abortion. Stop the Coronavirus Insanity!” please click HERE)
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