Ronald Reagan
My wife and I have spent the better part of our adult lives engaged in service of local government. She, in particular, dealt closely with municipal officials of one stripe or another for several decades. Both of us worked on local election campaigns. While there is much we don't know, there are some things we know all too well.
Mug of coffee in hand, most of the morning news digested, I set about to see if there was anything on social media worth exploring. My wife signed me up for the "Album Cover" challenge (today - Tapestry), I think I'm caught up on pictures of the grandkids and the Global Cycling Network workout wouldn't start until ten thirty. So far, so good.
I happened across a live feed of a virtual Ft. Myers Beach city council meeting. Why I enabled the speaker to listen in, I'll never know. One of the talking heads - I'm going to assume the City Clerk - was reading an email from a constituent, a restaurant owner. The writer was explaining that they derive little enough from their establishment as it is, but what with the shutdown and all...
The email's author went on to wonder out loud what the benefit was for the shelter-in-place, close the beaches and breathe through a bandana orders? He wondered why he/she was being pushed to (over?) the brink of bankruptcy when things didn't appear as dire as they'd once been represented. He/she went on... Well, they did go on. Finally, in what had all of the appearances of a remake of Hollywood Squares, a guy in the lower left square, bearing a remarkable resemblance to Charley Weaver, signaled for a time out - literally forming his hands into a T. Or, he was calling a technical - I suppose that is open to interpretation.
At that moment, a well dress, impeccably groomed older gent with a pure white goatee evidenced assent and called a halt to the reading. I assume this is the mayor. They'd all gotten this email, and read it themselves, right? They all got the gist of it, right? Moving along...
Some hours later, this august and important deliberative body issued their latest missive on battling the 'Rona. People could return to the beach between 7AM and 10AM. They must be residents of Ft. Myers Beach, and carry proof thereof. They must enter and exit the beach area via the public ingress/egress points. No beach parking was available. No tarrying, no congregating, tread no higher than the high water mark. Etc.
It is axiomatic, to the point of near unanimity among scholars, that Americans voluntarily follow the law because that makes sense to the stunning majority of them. This can be further broken up into a subset of notions, all of which are subject to some discussion and dissent. For example, someone who believes a law idiotic and arbitrary may nevertheless obey it because the penalty for obedience is small. Others - there's a video of a man testifying before a city council who says "I'm a law-abiding citizen" with an authority that caused most of America to take notice.
Here, we come to a conundrum. If the beach is safe for individuals residing within the city limits of Ft. Myers Beach, why is it not safe for others? Have the residents on Estero Island acquired some form of immunity? Are they uniquely qualified to judge social distance? What is magic about the permitted timeframe - is COVID-19 asleep? Can the locals view the beach, instantly assess the numbers present per square meter and resign themselves to heading home? Do they buy their grits from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?
Sorry.
Most - one would hope all - of the Q-rules that brought a stunning number of businesses to their knees and threatened otherwise solid citizens with arrest are based on known threats and unknown, but potentially substantial outcomes. Clogged ERs, overflowing ICUs, bodies stacked like cordwood; all reasonably foreseeable outcomes based on what was known seven weeks ago. Flattening the curve seemed prudent, even imperative. Most people recognized the need for drastic action.
That was then. The balance of information has shifted, the curve well and truly flattened and now... The legal justification - a dire emergency requiring sweeping governmental powers - has passed, to be replaced with vigilance involving enhanced PPE, a greater role of cleanliness and continued social distancing strategies.
That's not the present justification used by government, who have shifted their focus to present (and less deadly) vulnerabilities. Now we hear about target rates. Contact-mapping. Herd mentalities...er, immunity. Insufficient bureaucratic structure. These governmental agencies have supplanted the urgency of life and death exigencies with an array of arbitrary rules and restrictions carrying the weight of law totally unteathered to objective data or solid medical evidence. Because five elected officials in a city raised their hands, their citizens (only) may tread the sands of their community three hours a day, in a manner prescribed by law, without bothering to justify the laws they enacted as objectively necessary, or even suggest they are authorized by the statutes and caselaw pertaining to emergencies.
The interesting thing, from a governmental standpoint, is that there is no one, even their own citizens, who can tell them no.
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