Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses • Hacker News Board

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#101

Post by Marsymars » Thu, May 14, 2020, 3:57 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #49

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is, if deaths going down isn't the end condition, what is? Surely there has to be some point soon where the legislature gets to determine the laws of the state again.

Deaths going down is only one thing that needs to occur. And, by the way, deaths going down is doing so soooo slowly because we really didn't get the R0 much 1.0. If people had actually locked down PROPERLY , deaths would be dropping much faster. In addition, you need testing and contact tracers. You also need abundant personal protective equipment in your health providers for if you get a spike. The problem is that…

> And, by the way, deaths going down is doing so soooo slowly because we really didn't get the R0 much 1.0. If people had actually locked down PROPERLY, deaths would be dropping much faster.

I broadly agree with your post, but even in countries like France/Italy that have had very strict lockdowns, there's still like a three-week half-life to deaths per day.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#102

Post by ardy42 » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:00 AM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #26

daenz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>can harm others Can you be more specific? It's the nebulousness of what "can harm" that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Taken to one extreme, there's almost nothing you can do that doesn't potentially harm others. For example, I could leave my stove burner on and burn down the entire apartment building. So many things come with risks to others, and those things are just part of existing in society.

Does the Bill of Rights give the police the right to arrest you for driving drunk?

> Does the Bill of Rights give the police the right to arrest you for driving drunk?

Yes, actually. The Tenth Amendment does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_power_(United_States_co...

> In United States constitutional law, police power is the capacity of the states to regulate behavior and enforce order within their territory for the betterment of the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of their inhabitants.[1] Police power is defined in each jurisdiction by the legislative body, which determines the public purposes that need to be served by legislation.[2] Under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the powers not delegated to the Federal Government are reserved to the states or to the people.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#103

Post by pdonis » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:00 AM UTC

arkades wrote: post #6

Grakel wrote: post #3

What we should do is one thing. Saying the government can make us do it is something else entirely.

There's a couple centuries of common law precedent that the government can compel behavior for public health crises. The state supreme court here grossly violated legal precedent, and will have its ass overturned in a heartbeat if anyone has the time, resources, and will to escalate.

*> government can compel behavior for public health crises

You do recognize the difference between "government, acting according to established procedures with proper involvement by all branches of government" and "one single person, acting on emergency authority that was never intended to last this long", right?

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#104

Post by shepherds » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:02 AM UTC

arkades wrote: post #6

Grakel wrote: post #3

What we should do is one thing. Saying the government can make us do it is something else entirely.

There's a couple centuries of common law precedent that the government can compel behavior for public health crises. The state supreme court here grossly violated legal precedent, and will have its ass overturned in a heartbeat if anyone has the time, resources, and will to escalate.

How did they "grossly violate legal precedent?" Nobody challenged the governor's order, they challenged the authority of the health services secretary to extend the order. Conservative judicial interpretation of the constitution is that power not explicitly granted by congress is not lawful. Even though I'm not a conservative, I'm glad that opinion won.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#105

Post by pdonis » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:03 AM UTC

organsnyder wrote: post #7

Grakel wrote: post #3

What we should do is one thing. Saying the government can make us do it is something else entirely.

When our actions can harm others, the government absolutely has the right—and the obligation—to step in.

> When our actions can harm others, the government absolutely has the right—and the obligation—to step in.

No. When our actions have harmed others, then the government has the right to step in--because we delegated that power to them.

But the government does not have the right to step in just because some government official things our actions "can" harm others. That's not their call to make. We are adult human beings and don't need keepers or nannies. We make our own choices, and if those choices do harm others, we take the consequences. But if they don't, the government needs to leave us alone.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#106

Post by daenz » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:03 AM UTC

djannzjkzxn wrote: post #96

daenz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes across as bad faith to ignore my question and expect me to answer yours. What is the definition of "can harm" that excludes activities like leaving my stove burner on?

You could be charged with crimes (eg. arson, child endangerment, negligent homicide) depending on the scenario in which you left the burner on.

But I wouldn't be preemptively barred from turning my burner on in the first place, which is my point.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#107

Post by Thriptic » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:08 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #16

aegis4244 wrote: post #9

The Republicans who brought the lawsuit argue that, in part, continuing the lock down isn't appropriate because deaths from covid19 are going down. They don't connect the declining deaths to being locked down. You would think they would notice.

The question is, if deaths going down isn't the end condition, what is? Surely there has to be some point soon where the legislature gets to determine the laws of the state again.

A plausible plan for actually solving the root problem, namely a realistic strategy for mass testing, contact tracing, and non-voluntary quarantine; or a functional vaccine. Right now we have neither, so getting people back out simply puts us back into the same situation we were in before initiating the lockdown.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#108

Post by pdonis » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:09 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #65

daenz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>can harm others Can you be more specific? It's the nebulousness of what "can harm" that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Taken to one extreme, there's almost nothing you can do that doesn't potentially harm others. For example, I could leave my stove burner on and burn down the entire apartment building. So many things come with risks to others, and those things are just part of existing in society.

Fine. I doubt you're arguing in good faith, but let's go there ... Vaccines. The government has the right to require your children to have vaccines before they go to school because not doing so has extremely harmful effects on others when we drop below herd immunity. Smoking. The government has the right to create anti-smoking laws because the market simply wouldn't produce a non-smoking bar that wouldn't affect the…

> The government has the right to require your children to have vaccines before they go to school

Only if the school is run by the government. The government has no right to enforce vaccination on children who go to private schools or are home schooled.

In other words, the government's right in this case stems from owning the school, not from a general right to micromanage every aspect of people's lives.

> The government has the right to create anti-smoking laws

No, it doesn't. It was allowed to pass such laws because smokers had become obnoxious enough in insisting on their "right" to smoke everywhere (which didn't used to be the case--houses and other places once had special rooms for smoking, precisely because smokers had enough manners not to obtrude their activities on non-smokers) that non-smokers picked the lesser of two evils and allowed the government to overreach its power rather than have practically all public spaces be unlivable.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#109

Post by djannzjkzxn » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:09 AM UTC

asabjorn wrote: post #57

sterlind wrote: post #47

Both sides: courts are supposed to apply the law to the facts. Lawyers guide judges in their arguments, and the court weighs each one, resolving conflicts through tests and precedent. Read the text of the decision before bringing politics into it. IANAL, but browsing the text: - The ruling cites the Wisconsin constitution. - Governors can issue emergency orders (and maybe rules?) effective for 150 days. - There's a d…

> If the legislature resists, or the court doesn't grant the stay, that sucks, the bars and restaurants will open, people will get sick and die. Or maybe the Republicans will turn out correct and everything is fine. This assertion needs a citation. If this should be true either hospitalization must be so high that it overwhelms the health system, which was the original justification for the lockdown, or death rate mu…

1 in 400 New Yorkers have died from this in the past 2 months. The flu doesn’t do that.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#110

Post by pdonis » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

singlow wrote: post #98

daenz wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Shall I go on? You should, because you'll quickly realize that there are far, far more activities that potentially cause harm to others than there are laws that prohibit them. Also, vaccines and smoking have a history that are peppered with lawsuits about their legality, so as far as examples go, they are not the ones I would hold up as evidence of laws that people clearly think are constitutional. The flu killed ~5…

The government does not have to protect its ability to ban potentially harmful actions by banning every possible harmful action. The purpose of the legislative representatives is to make judgement calls about which things have enough potential harm to warrant restriction. I really don't understand the argument here that because not all harmful actions are banned, that banning harmful actions is not constitutional. Am…

> The purpose of the legislative representatives is to make judgement calls about which things have enough potential harm to warrant restriction.

That's what they currently claim, but it's not what they're supposed to be doing. We made a huge mistake when we allowed the government to morph from "enforce the minimum basic rules that are necessary to have a civil society" to "solve everything that anyone thinks is a problem".