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

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

#151

Post by cryptonector »

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.

This case is not about covid-19 facts but about constitutional law in Wisconsin. The various legislatures and Congress tend to be jealous of their powers and prerogatives. Executive orders in the U.S. can't have statutory force without supporting statutes.

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

#152

Post by raverbashing »

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…

> Stanford study [2] shows same death rate as flu.

Oh you mean the article whose title is "Study challenges reports of low fatality rate for COVID-19" and adds that " data scientists estimate that the fatality rate in New York City and Santa Clara County in California can be no less than 0.5%, or one of every 200 people infected."

(contrasting a previous study)

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

#153

Post by elicash »

carlivar wrote: post #149
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.

Declining current deaths. Now, how many deaths long term from economic damage? We don't know. More than zero. This isn't a yes/no decision.

Long-term economic damage is likely to be reduced by containing the pandemic. This isn't either/or.

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

#154

Post by cryptonector »

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.

Yes, but there's much less support for Executives acting alone. We have a republican form of government where only the legislative branch can pass criminal statutes. In this case the Wisconsin Legislature sued to preserve its powers and prerogatives, as well it should. That does not mean that it won't be amenable to passing supporting statutes.

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

#155

Post by [deleted] »

denkmoon wrote: post #18
organsnyder wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not at the expense of individual liberty. This principle is well established in the USA at least, given the continuing presence of 2A.

[deleted]

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

#156

Post by Frondo »

denkmoon wrote: post #18
organsnyder wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not at the expense of individual liberty. This principle is well established in the USA at least, given the continuing presence of 2A.

Yes, at the expense of individual liberty. Traffic laws are an obvious and rights-restraining example of this.

I may or may not cause harm by running a red light in the middle of the night, or speeding on a freeway -- in fact, I know a guy who habitually runs reds at night, "just because" -- yet the constitutionality of ticketing people for running reds or speeding is not, as far as I know, in dispute.

How this maps onto public health in a pandemic, I don't know.

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

#157

Post by ajmurmann »

pdonis wrote: post #130
ajmurmann wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how does your "if those choices do harm others, we take the consequences" get enforced in practice and doesn't turn into a situation where a few people who don't take care to not infect others will kill millions?

> how does your "if those choices do harm others, we take the consequences" get enforced in practice and doesn't turn into a situation where a few people who don't take care to not infect others will kill millions? By looking at everyone's choices, not just the one person you want to pick on. Suppose Person A is an asymptomatic COVID-19 carrier and doesn't know it. They go to the grocery store without a mask. Person…

That's not how masks work though. Masks mostly protect others, not the wearer. I of course wear a mask on the very rare occasion that I leave the house and rubber gloves and disinfect my hands and everything I touched asap. However, that doesn't give me full protection from the a-hole who almost ran me over at the UPS store the other day who wasn't wearing a mask and was keeping no distance whatsoever.

If we all could take proper precaution this whole thing would be over much quicker and we could return to something that's close to normal. We could get to a place where we have few enough cases that we can test and trace. Other countries are on their way to accomplish this.

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

#158

Post by unclebucknasty »

rayiner wrote: post #134
djannzjkzxn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But we’re talking about Wisconsin, not New York. The death rate in Wisconsin is 1 in 14,000. Flu is about 1 in 4,000-5,000 in a typical year. New York is such an outlier in terms of death rates that it should be a totally separate conversation.

I get that the geography, density, etc. are different, but isn't the point to avoid anything approaching the New York scenario?

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

#159

Post by srj »

jb775 wrote: post #129
djannzjkzxn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That argument loses steam when you find out the 1 in 400 got hit by a bus and the hospital flagged it as a covid death because that person tested positive on a previous covid test. Listen to the Joe Rogan podcast from last week w/ Elon Musk, he agrees with my statement. EDIT: Is it just me or is HN becoming more and more of an echo chamber where people downvote anything that goes against their own politics and yet th…

You're saying coronavirus mortality figures are fabricated by state and hospital personnel, adding it to death certificates when it was not the cause. What's led you to that conclusion?

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

#160

Post by cryptonector »

kumarvvr wrote: post #75
npongratz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One member of the court had just left the court, could have easily been 4-4 or another combination The incumbent (Kelly) was voted out of office about a month ago, and the winning challenger (Karofsky) won't fill the seat until August 1, 2020. Kelly sided with the majority opinion in this decision.

I don't understand that when the incumbent has been voted out, why does he/she still have powers to make decisions? Shouldn't they be some sort of stand-in and only take care of routine / bureaucratic tasks? It's a system that is ripe for making these already out people do stuff that is ideological and hardline, while the voters obviously don't want it.

Lame ducks (Congresses, Legislatures, Governors, and Presidents) often do things that they should not. Republicans and Democrats have done plenty of lame duck things they shouldn't have. It's a fact of life in the U.S. system that mostly derives from long transitions having been necessary in the 18th century due to the slowness of communications and travel back then.

The long transition from FDR to Hoover caused the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to be passed and ratified which greatly shortened it -- it's still too long! One of the reasons the transition from general election to Presidential inauguration is so long is that the Electoral College has to convene, and that legal challenges to electoral results have to be resolved -- all that takes time, and some times (e.g., in 2000) it takes almost all the allotted time. Still, it could probably be made much shorter, but it would require yet another Amendment.

I suspect long transition periods in State governments have similar reasons for being.

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