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

#261

Post by simonh » Thu, May 14, 2020, 9:51 AM UTC

dgzl wrote: post #230

simonh wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brit here. By and large we have the rights we want. Some rights we have voluntarily abrogated in order to meet what we believe to be more important responsibilities. These are legitimate decisions for a democratic nation to make.

That's a unanimous opinion? You're speaking for all 66M of your citizens? >Some rights we have voluntarily abrogated in order to meet what we believe to be more important responsibilities This would be handled by our 10th amendment rights. So I'm looking for a source of what rights Brits have and it's sort of difficult to understand... This [0] outlines several dates of ratification but I'm not really sure which curr…

>That's a unanimous opinion?

As I pointed out in my post, we are a democracy. Off the top of my head, I'm not familiar with any forms of government that require unanimity. Do you really think that's a necessary requirement?

>So I'm looking for a source of what rights Brits have and it's sort of difficult to understand...

Rich coming from someone in a country that has blatant civil forfeiture, practices extraordinary rendition, still has the death sentence, has courts which have ruled that "Innocence is not sufficient grounds for appeal", that has appalling systematic gerrymandering disenfranchising millions of citizens at the heart of the electoral process, in which monstrous levels of vote buying are routine, oh good grief I could go on and on.

Theory is great, but practical results matter. In theory a written constitution sounds great, but I'm really not impressed at all with how it seems to work out in practice. Don't take this too closely, I love the USA and have visited many times, youre is a safe, prosperous and largely free country I admire very much, but the problems you do have are so deeply ingrained into the culture and society and frozen in place by partisan interpretations of technical language that I do despair sometimes. In practical terms I genuinely feel vastly more confident in my liberty, safety and freedom over here than in the US.

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

#262

Post by threeseed » Thu, May 14, 2020, 9:53 AM UTC

bz33t wrote: post #252

threeseed wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about one of the most similar countries to the US ? Australian deaths per million = 3.92 US deaths per million = 228.5 And the US number is likely to go to 500 in the next two months whilst in some Australia states it looks like COVID-19 is fully eradicated.

Australia has its seasons shifted by half a year, so even if Australia had taken similar measures, I'd expect them to have a lot lower transmission rates because respiratory disease peak in winter. https://www.mja.com.au/sites/default/files/issues/210_10/mja...

1) No evidence that COVID-19 is affected by weather.

2) Australia and US have quite similar temperatures right now given that it’s often moderate in Autumn/Spring.

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

#263

Post by makomk » Thu, May 14, 2020, 9:54 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #233

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a Presidential election in six months. That means there is a major element of politics in everything that happens between now and then. The incumbent candidate wants to reopen. Because the election is near, it's especially important for the other side to portray whatever he does as wrong and incompetent and life-threatening. So you then have a major political apparatus pushing the argument that reopening is…

> The incumbent candidate wants to reopen. Because the election is near, it's especially important for the other side to portray whatever he does as wrong and incompetent and life-threatening. So you then have a major political apparatus pushing the argument that reopening is dangerous and publicizing any instance of any authority saying anything negative about it. They don't benefit from a nuanced or moderate positi…

All of the stupid, cynical partisan bullshit that America's press comes up with to try and kick Trump out of office is spilling over to other countries and screwing up our ideas about our coronavirus responses, though. For example, early on the CDC screwed up its coronavirus test, delaying the rollout of wider testing. The press saw blood and started blaming all the American deaths on the Trump administration failing to test for coronavirus. The trouble is, this was fixed some months ago, so in order to keep this narrative going publications like the New York Times took increasingly massive levels of testing that no country had managed, such as testing everyone with symptoms or testing 10% of the population a day, and made them sound like things all countries had achieved but the US had missed due to Trump. This worked on a massive scale - the narrative spread, and people in every Western country became convinced that their government is failing at coronavirus testing compared to the rest of the work due to not being able to manage those things, and that it was killing people.

I even had a discussion with a couple of Germans on here the other day who were convinced their coronavirus testing was abysmal, despite them having one of the biggest programs out there and being the country that the US and UK media currently point to in order to convince us that our governments are failing on testing.

To make matters even more stupid, the US actually passed mass testing success story South Korea - the country which supposedly proves all those deaths could be avoided if you just had proper coronavirus testing - quite some time ago, and people didn't realize because the media carefully avoided updating people's beliefs since this changed. I keep seeing people point to the US supposedly having less per-capita testing than South Korea in HN comments as proof they should be able to do better, even now. Astoundingly, when Trump debunked this widespread, false belief in a recent press conference, this is how the New York Times summed it up in a headline "Trump Misrepresents Testing Record". (The "misrepresentation" was that even though what he said was true it wasn't true two months ago, and also the US hadn't beaten every single country on the planet on coronavirus testing. Seriously.)

Also, the sides certainly aren't the same in all countries when it comes to the legal legitimacy of lockdowns. For example, in the UK our right-wing party is currently in power, which means that arguments that their lockdown rules are illegitimate and exceed their powers mostly come from supporters of the other, left-wing party. The justifications for why they're exceeding their powers actually look similar in many ways to the ones in this lawsuit.

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

#264

Post by dgzl » Thu, May 14, 2020, 9:55 AM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #259

dgzl wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must be missing something, where is the distinction here? They seem like equally problematic actions of speech.

One is private to his home. It was the broadcasting that got him the conviction.

I think I'm missing some context. Filming isn't the issue then, broadcasting is? Seems like another asterisk on supposed "rights" that exist in countries that pretend they have them.

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

#265

Post by roenxi » Thu, May 14, 2020, 9:57 AM UTC

techsupporter wrote: post #223

roenxi wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people don't obey the "orders" nor follow advice. Then they wrap themselves in the flag and actively work against the measures in the name of freedom. That cultural chicken has now come home to roost. That cultural chicken is still a massive net win; I'd still much rather live in America and get coronavirus rather than live in China and get black-bagged someday because of my refusal to take authorities seriousl…

> I'd still much rather live in America and get coronavirus rather than live in China and get black-bagged someday because of my refusal to take authorities seriously. At the risk of potentially misunderstanding what you meant, there's a yawning chasm between "freedom to die from COVID-19 because public health orders are affronts to liberty" and "extra-judicially kidnapped by one's own government." I'd much rather li…

> I'd much rather live in Sweden or Germany, where people have sufficient trust in their government...

I'm a bit hesitant to compare to either of them because I can't read the local news. That being said, didn't Sweden go with a lockdown-lite policy?

The Sweedes do have the freedom to die from COVID-19 because public health orders are affronts to their liberty.

EDIT And the lockdowns are threatening something like 265 million people experiencing famine [0]. "flag-wrapped know-betters demand Golden Corral reopen for buffet service" is trivialising a serious thing here; the economy isn't a nice-to-have. It is the major generator of all the prosperity that exists in the world. It is too complicated for me to understand causes and effects, but if it doesn't start back up again ASAP the hurt will get worse.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/21/c...

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

#266

Post by votepaunchy » Thu, May 14, 2020, 9:58 AM UTC

ginko wrote: post #258

dgzl wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar in what ways? Aus is an island country whose societal composition and Constitutional rights are nothing like ours. I wouldn't say they're very similar at all.

English speaking, lots of space, common law..

Yes, but Australia has kangaroos and the Us doesn’t. What does English have to do with COVID—19?

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

#267

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 14, 2020, 9:59 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…

[deleted]

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

#268

Post by dgzl » Thu, May 14, 2020, 10:01 AM UTC

jptoor wrote: post #67

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.

I can tell you're a smart guy, but it reads like you're buying into the politicization of an apolitical problem. The end condition is a therapeutic/vaccine, and since that is not available yet, the next option is a national testing and contract tracing plan. Every successful country has a good one, every country that's seeing mass casualties doesn't have one. There is no political aspect to this. The science is prett…

I generally lose respect for people who think caps-lock is an acceptable way to type messages to others. You should try looking for more descriptive words to get your point across.

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

#269

Post by ginko » Thu, May 14, 2020, 10:03 AM UTC

votepaunchy wrote: post #266

ginko wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English speaking, lots of space, common law..

Yes, but Australia has kangaroos and the Us doesn’t. What does English have to do with COVID—19?

So what country do ou think is more similar culturally to the US, then?

Or is your point just that America is Special and can't be compared to anyone?

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

#270

Post by makomk » Thu, May 14, 2020, 10:04 AM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #246

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is what I don't understand. (I seriously don't, and would honestly appreciate some explanations or ideas. And keep in mind I am 100% on board with following any and all recommendations of the CDC.) When we were all sent to sit at home back in March, the word was "flatten the curve." The idea was that containment was no longer an option, as declared by the CDC/WHO. Epidemiologists were predicting that somewhere b…

Lockdown can't last forever and so countries or US states need a plan to transition away from lockdown back to a new normality. That plan includes massive testing and tracing. It includes science and data. It includes sensible triggers for further action -- if we start seeing more infections in the community we slow down the transition to normality. I don't know much about the US but it feels like a lot of this is re…

It's literally unprecedented as a method for trying to deal with a respiratory infection, as far as I can tell. Test and trace worked for SARS and MERS, but they were much easier diseases to contain for various reasons and didn't require massive-scale testing and tracing as a result. It is not in any way, shape, or form part of the normal playbook for dealing with a pandemic like this.