Let’s Open Oregon’s Economy NOW!
Together We Can Restore Freedom, Free Markets,
and Constitutionally Limited Government.
By: Sen. Dennis Linthicum
In the old days, everyone recognized a bank-robber by his face mask. Today, radical terrorists also use masks to hide their faces and identities while beheading investigative journalists or the innocent traveler. Antifa adopted the black mask to hide their identities from surveillance cameras while assaulting journalists, throwing bricks and starting fires. Now everyone is mandated to wear a face mask. And why?
The original intent of our American government’s role as a guardian was well-founded. The rule of law, not men, was raised as a bulwark to protect and safeguard the lives, liberties and core constitutional rights of its citizens. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The God who gave us Life, gave us Liberty” and believed government should protect Life, Liberty and our own just pursuits for individual Happiness.
Throughout the history of our American experiment, when a rogue authority, whether a legislative body, agency, department or governor, engineered a policy that crushed those core constitutional rights the government’s authority was considered null and void. It had no weight and no basis for enforcement because the policy itself was lacking the firm ground of constitutional authority.
The current lockdown mandates are the closest equivalent to martial law that Oregonians have ever seen. These rules are commonly referred to as self-isolation, but the purposeful confusion regarding arrest, fines and jail time has turned this from a “self-imposed” sanction to an official one. It is a modern house arrest without any mandatory ankle-bracelets.
The quicksand supporting a total lockdown came from modeling efforts that have now been entirely disproven. Decisions based on those models were once appropriate, given our limited knowledge at the time. Yet, as more information has become available and as our understanding of COVID-19 expands, we can see that these decisions should now be reversed. Newer understanding, more data and enhanced modeling informs us that there is no justifiable, compelling public interest to keep Oregon locked up.
Based on OHA’s own numbers, Governor Brown’s COVID-19 re-opening framework and the 60-day lockdown extension is needless and unjustified. It is, therefore, a direct deprivation of our rights under the color of law.
Recall that Oregon’s current death toll is comprised of 113 mostly elderly people. Of those 113, 76% were older than 70-years-old. Also, 95% expressed one or more chronic medical conditions. The rest, who could have been more actively shopping, working, building and traveling have a death rate of 0.23 per 100,000 population. There have been no tragic deaths for anyone under 40-years-old. The evidence argues against extended quarantines.
As I have shown on many occasions, the consequences of this COVID-19 contagion are similar to other influenza like illnesses (ILI). The testing regimen that is currently in-place is showing far more people have already been exposed to COVID-19 than previously thought. Most never realized that they had been caught by the “dreaded” disease because they chalked-up their experience to feeling under-the-weather or a flu-like illness. As we gain knowledge and understanding, new information should translate into changes in our policy.
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The current policy for virus mitigation and the Governor’s draconian efforts are crushing our cultural, societal and economic lives. These mitigation efforts are unacceptable. The new target date for full-steam-ahead is July 6th and I can only imagine why that date was chosen… and not because it was a Monday.
Gov. Brown appears to be relying on a tactic perfected by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. His tactic was to grow government by slopping rewards amongst small, identifiable groups and well-connected supporters. Patronage is common and is used in most progressive strongholds to ensure the success of their enterprise. Amity Shlaes, author of the New York Times bestseller, The Forgotten Man, documents that in 1936 Pres. Roosevelt systematically figured out how to establish the modern political constituency.
It is a two-fold process comprised of a wedge and a ratchet. The wedge is the small opening meticulously exploited under tumultuous or frantic circumstances – Let no serious crisis go to waste.
The ratchet is the tool that ensures that no government program, regulation, tax or intrusion is ever allowed to be rolled back. Hence, in Oregon, there are safe-space rangers, diversity officers, pay equity wranglers and an entire battalion of contract tracing specialists being hired to “protect us” by intruding on our Liberties. Will these contract workers be on call for the next emergency? How many staff positions will be needed to manage and hire these contractors?
Our real problem is that we have allowed the bureaucratic machine to become a hallmark of fine engineering. It now has an immortal life. The machine will live longer than the governors, commissioners, agency heads or regional directors. Even President Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force will now operate indefinitely. Government grows by pretending to provide safety from life itself.
The constitutional rights of Oregonians – free religious expression, peaceable assembly, free speech, the right to petition for grievances – have been sorely damaged. Due process regarding unconstitutional takings from our fundamental economic liberty and well-being have been thoroughly molested. The current rules make no exemptions with regard to the essential activities of life and the rightful expression of our guaranteed liberties.
How can anyone swallow the idea that a battalion of new-hires with clipboards, or new taxpayer-funded iPads, can meaningfully “track and trace” all of the individuals that have come into contact with the “diseased”? What follows the tracing effort? Lockdown, or jail?
Not only does this lead to unwarranted suspicions that everyone is contaminated but inevitable distrust and shunning will occur. No doubt there will also be issues with economic depression, social isolation, public health ramifications, mental health, and suicide.
The lockdown format creates an uncharitable attitude of distrust that gains momentum through the needless cries warning about the ‘asymptomatic’ nature of COVID-19. Yet, every flu, virus, or common cold that has ever existed can be expressed asymptomatically.
This is also the nature of STDs like, chlamydia, gonorrhea, antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea and syphilis which are all currently at epidemic proportions. The double-standard becomes obvious when we realize that a condom mandate would never be proposed, yet you and your three-year-old are mandated to wear masks.
Last week, Cheryl Chumley, hammered the clan of elitist experts and cowardly governors who are turning their “laboratories of liberty” into rumpus rooms of ruin.
Chumley is an opinion editor for The Washington Times, and author of “Police State USA: How Orwell’s Nightmare is Becoming Our Reality.” Her commentary started with:
“COVID-19 will go down as one of the political world’s biggest, most shamefully overblown, overhyped, overly and irrationally inflated and outright deceptively flawed responses to a health matter in American history, one that was carried largely on the lips of medical professionals who have no business running a national economy or government.”
I think she is right!
LET’S MOVE FORWARD
Re-Open Oregon’s Economy
Sign the Petition – NOW!
Regards,
Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate – District 28
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/linthicum
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