I can no longer sit quietly while people are screaming in the streets of Sacramento about their “right” to keep their businesses open in violation of the State’s health and safety laws and orders. This is perhaps the most inane demonstration that I have heard over a year of some pretty big doozies. Of course there is no “right” to keep a business open in violation of heath and safety orders. There is no more “right” to do this than there is to shot children in the playground, or drive your car on a freeway without a license, or pour poison in drinking water supplies, pour poisons into the air, or … the list is infinite because nobody has a right to do something endangers the health, safety and lives of others. If the State has determined that operating your business endangers the public (and it has so determined), then they have the right (and obligation) to prevent you from doing so.

You also don’t have the “right” to totally unfettered free speech. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater because people die when that happens, you can’t say things to incite a riot because people die when that happens. While the first amendment says is: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” That does not mean that there is unlimited freedom to say whatever you want, it is that congress shall not make any laws abridging the freedom of speech. There are many, many cases where the courts have agreed to the concept that there are limits on freedom of speech, pretty much along the same lines as I outlined in the first paragraph. Your freedom of speech ends where it can, or does, cause damage or injury to others. In my mind, stirring up a lot of support for the idea of massive violations of the State’s health and safety laws with regard to the covid pandemic fit into the category of speech that has the potential for resulting in massive illness and death.