Stupid Laws (and public health)
The public trust has been highly damaged through government enforcement of unscientific, arbitrary, non-sensical laws and regulations.
When it comes to the laws of our land, almost all people know to ignore stupid laws unless the penalties are too severe and demanding, unless the social stigma is too strong and exclusionary.
Do you:
Eat while driving?
Drink beer on your boat?
Let your dog out in the forest?
Have an undeclared bank account oversea?
Play poker or watch a movie at home with friends?
Share your Netflix password?
Access public Wifi without permission?
Sing the Macarena in public with an audience?
I won’t explain all these but every day, people break laws, knowingly or unknowingly. There isn’t a person on the planet who doesn’t - EVERY day.
Why do people break laws? For the most part, it’s because the laws are stupid.
However, sometimes stupid laws become strictly enforced and reveal that the law is an ass. For example, in Ontario, you can’t drink a beer on a public beach. Concealed or unconcealed. Fines range from $300 to $5,000 and you can also be jailed. It’s strictly enforced. So people obey, even though the law is stupid.
And there are some people who love these stupid, enforced laws. The law and order at all costs crowd. They’d comply and put a tin-foil hat on their head if the government told them it protected them from harmful alien radiation.
And oh yeah, if you are rich or connected, you can get around these stupid laws. Afford to pay the fine, challenge it in court. You can do what you want, when you want. The rest of us can’t. Boris Johnson and the party gang of Number 10 will tell you that. Justin Trudeau, on the private train, unmasked while those on public trains were masked up - he can tell you too.
And what happens when governments enforce stupid laws? The public trust is eroded. This has serious consequences throughout society when people no longer trust or call upon public services for help, assistance, reliable guidance, and governance.
Now, let’s look at public health.
All over the world, governments put into place laws, fines, and punishments for health-related behaviors that we now know were just farcical and wrong.
The credibility and legitimacy of public health demands two things. The rules have to make sense; they can’t be nakedly contradictory. And the rules have to benefit people. You can’t demand jumping through hoops merely for optics. - Dr. Vinay Prasad
Let’s look at the CDC - the Center for Disease Control and its mission statement.
CDC works 24/7 to protect America from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and in the U.S. Whether diseases start at home or abroad, are chronic or acute, curable or preventable, human error or deliberate attack, CDC fights disease and supports communities and citizens to do the same.
CDC increases the health security of our nation. As the nation’s health protection agency, CDC saves lives and protects people from health threats. To accomplish our mission, CDC conducts critical science and provides health information that protects our nation against expensive and dangerous health threats, and responds when these arise. - CDC’s Mission Statement
What we’ve seen over the last few years is the CDC acting completely at odds with its mission statement. They enacted policies that harmed public health. They farmed out science to the highest bidder and they provided the public with health information that didn’t work.
The CDC said masks don’t work, aren’t needed. Then said masks were essential and mandatory to wear. This same agency said natural immunity wasn’t enough and didn’t exist. Now it says it works and provides protection against Covid 19. This same agency said the unvaccinated were killing others. Now it says no difference and no discrimination between the vaxxed and unvaxxed should exist regarding treatment.
I could go on and on … The CDC has no public trust anymore.
But what happens is stupid laws stay on the books. And continue to erode the public trust.
Thousands of unvaccinated attend a basketball game or watch a tennis match - yet one tennis player can’t play because he’s unvaccinated. CDC - tell me where the public health threat is? Tell me how, his attendance or the law against unvaccinated entering the US is anything but stupid? 1,000s of unvaccinated Americans fly into the USA each day without restriction and circulate throughout society, yet one Serbian can’t?
Really, all we can do is hope for civil disobedience when there are stupid laws. If enough people speak out, demand, and stand up - the powers that be will be forced to take the stupid laws off the books. Remember how blacks couldn’t drink at certain water fountains?
Or remember when you snuck around like a criminal smoking a reefer?
“The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.” ― H.L. Mencken, Minority Report.
I call on the CDC to make a PSA declaring that all mandates of any kind related to Covid 19 are discriminatory - so every person knows this.
I call on the CDC to rescind the entry requirements of vaccination into the US.
I call on the CDC to stop hiding the data and share all information related to the vaccines and what’s in them, how they were tested - everything.
I call on the CDC to punish those who advocated such unscientific and damaging regulations.
I call on the CDC to mandate stringent and focused autopsies of all “cause unknown” deaths and look for vaccine harm.
I call on people to disobey, always disobey stupid laws.
