To paraphrase a well known orthodox rabbi in the US who wrote a long letter on the topic where he rules that one should wait where he ends: "we can to wait on returning to synagogue attendence, but we can't bring back a life".
Does he comment on motorcycle riding? I know two people who died riding motorcycles. Can't bring them back, either. Maybe motorcycle riding should be banned?
Supreme Court says state may enforce some restrictions on religious gatherings [pdf]
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Re: Supreme Court says state may enforce some restrictions on religious gatherings [pdf]
#12To paraphrase a well known orthodox rabbi in the US who wrote a long letter on the topic where he rules that one should wait where he ends: "we can to wait on returning to synagogue attendence, but we can't bring back a life".
Does he comment on motorcycle riding? I know two people who died riding motorcycles. Can't bring them back, either. Maybe motorcycle riding should be banned?
Additionally, safety rules are in place to make Motor cycle riding as safe as possible for the rider and anyone with whom they interact.
Re: Supreme Court says state may enforce some restrictions on religious gatherings [pdf]
#13To paraphrase a well known orthodox rabbi in the US who wrote a long letter on the topic where he rules that one should wait where he ends: "we can to wait on returning to synagogue attendence, but we can't bring back a life".
Does he comment on motorcycle riding? I know two people who died riding motorcycles. Can't bring them back, either. Maybe motorcycle riding should be banned?
Re: Supreme Court says state may enforce some restrictions on religious gatherings [pdf]
#14Re: Supreme Court says state may enforce some restrictions on religious gatherings [pdf]
#15probably this will rub some people the wrong way but, it amazes me how people put fiction before their well being.
Re: Supreme Court says state may enforce some restrictions on religious gatherings [pdf]
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does he comment on motorcycle riding? I know two people who died riding motorcycles. Can't bring them back, either. Maybe motorcycle riding should be banned?
I lean libertarian, but there's cases where paternalistic laws make sense. For example, w.r.t. motorcycle riding, helmets are required. COVID-19 is a special case where paternalistic laws (albeit technically these orders aren't laws) seem proportional. A reduction in church capacity doesn't really seem like government overreach in the middle of a pandemic; especially because buildings already have (fire-department im…
Re: Supreme Court says state may enforce some restrictions on religious gatherings [pdf]
#17This is a good ruling regardless of the importance of religious beliefs one might have. Churches are still subject to baseline rules like building codes, food safety (if they have a kitchen), have to pay their phone bill or else lose phone services,and the like. This represents an appropriate segregation of responsibility and allows parishioners to participate without having to consider externalities.
I also am interested by the prevalence of 5-4 rulings, which are typically taken to imply a highly polarized court (and thus leads to some consternation when the voting is “strange”). Consider the opposite: perhaps all the justices want people to be safe: when they know that five will vote in that way, the other four can safely issue “position papers”.
This latter point could be very important to the survival (credibility) of the court. The justices, though they don’t face elections, sometimes describe themselves as politicians: if people consider the court illegitimate or irrelevant then their rulings won’t be observed. So by signalling that every position is considered they help rope in those disappointed by the result.
Re: Supreme Court says state may enforce some restrictions on religious gatherings [pdf]
#18To paraphrase a well known orthodox rabbi in the US who wrote a long letter on the topic where he rules that one should wait where he ends: "we can to wait on returning to synagogue attendence, but we can't bring back a life".
Does he comment on motorcycle riding? I know two people who died riding motorcycles. Can't bring them back, either. Maybe motorcycle riding should be banned?
Re: Supreme Court says state may enforce some restrictions on religious gatherings [pdf]
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
I lean libertarian, but there's cases where paternalistic laws make sense. For example, w.r.t. motorcycle riding, helmets are required. COVID-19 is a special case where paternalistic laws (albeit technically these orders aren't laws) seem proportional. A reduction in church capacity doesn't really seem like government overreach in the middle of a pandemic; especially because buildings already have (fire-department im…
Helmets aren't required in all US states (not sure why people don't wear them anyway, but some people don't).
It's not strange at all. America is a federation of states which get to tax you, and get to pass their own laws. Your Mayor and Governor have much more impact in your day-to-day life than the President.
Re: Supreme Court says state may enforce some restrictions on religious gatherings [pdf]
#20To paraphrase a well known orthodox rabbi in the US who wrote a long letter on the topic where he rules that one should wait where he ends: "we can to wait on returning to synagogue attendence, but we can't bring back a life".
Does he comment on motorcycle riding? I know two people who died riding motorcycles. Can't bring them back, either. Maybe motorcycle riding should be banned?
The calculus of a pandemic is different. Your choices affect others, potentially exponentially. You can decide you're in a low risk group, and so you don't care if you get infected. So you do get infected, and like your risk analysis determined, are fine. But you also infected 3 more people thinking the same thing. They each infect more people. One of those people several "generations" away from you then receives an emergency phone call from the nursing home, and rush to go see grandma. They infect several people in the nursing home, and now people that didn't want to take the risk of getting COVID-19 so you could do something you wanted to get COVID-19 and die. When dealing with exponential growth, your small choices can explode into large consequences.
People don't do well with cause and effect that they are strongly removed from, and that's what we're seeing with calls to reopen. The negative effects of their behavior will never affect them, so their thought is to ignore it. People in charge of public health have to balance these externalities, and that's what they're trying to do. I am not saying that they made the right decision, but it still seems prudent to me to avoid unnecessary activities if it means you may save someone else's life. We did achieve some important goals in the 3 months that we've been shut down so far. We have better tests. We have better contact tracing. We have more PPE. We have taught people to socially distance. So we are certainly making progress towards being able to live more freely without increasing the risk to the most vulnerable. But we are not in the clear yet.