Freedom to be stupid

[kengr]

In Union county, Oregon, they went from 22 Covid-19 cases last week to 224 this week. this in a rural, low population area.

It appears that the increase is mostly due to *one* church there. Even though the county was in phase 1, which means no large gatherings they had a service with several hundred people in attendance. There was a video of it up on their website (which has since vanished, but people saved copies)

Said video shows nothing remotely resembling social distancing. Doesn't show any masks either.

I'm sure they felt they were exercising their rights. Freedom of religion (which hasn't actually been restricted), freedom of assembly (which *has* been restricted and quite *legally* restricted)

What they actually did was exercise their right to be stupid. And exercise the *non*-right of endangering other people.

Oh yeah, about that freedom of religion bit. It'd only be a restriction on that if church gatherings were restricted aand other types weren't.

Since *all* gathering above a certain size are restricted there is *no* religious component to the restrictions.

the protests that it is infringing their freedom of religion are just another case of people thinking that their religion (almost always Christianity in the US) is somehow "special" and deserves to be exempt from the rules.

Sorry doesn't work that way.

And I trust the jump in cases demonstrates the idiocy of "god will protect us".

We've got free will. And that means god *has* to let us suffer the consequences of making bad choices.

Comments

[conuly]

Oh yeah, about that freedom of religion bit. It'd only be a restriction on that if church gatherings were restricted aand other types weren't.

A ruling that is consistent with similar rulings regarding, say, school clubs.

[elf]

I suspect the only reason we're not seeing more reports like this, is that in even slightly more urban areas, the results are harder to track.

There is room for churches to argue about the restriction. A law might restrict an activity entirely, and still have to allow churches. Like, a law might forbid any buildings higher than 20 feet as eyesores, and church steeples might still be allowed.

So it's reasonable for churches to consider: should this apply to us?

But in this case, the restrictions will pass the "strict scrutiny" standard. The law was passed to further a "compelling governmental interest," and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest: It restricts only a few very specific activities, and it's for a limited time.

[kengr]

Some of the stupidity from the *non*-religious is even dumber.

I saw some idiots on TV saying that if you are going to be quarantining people it should be in medical facilities.

Aside from the lack of facilities and lack of resources to do the required testing to do that, these idiots have no clue regarding *recent* history.

As recently as the 60s you'd see houses with quarantine signs on them for things like the measles and chickenpox. No need to waste hospital space on people who weren't *that* sick. Not until they took a turn for the worse, which most didn't.

I recall a session somewhere where a teacher passed out some cards after shuffling them. Then she had the kids read them. Cards said things like "died in infancy", "died of measles", "deaf from measles", "crippled by polio", etc.

It made one *hell* of an impression.