Right wing pundit Sarah Hoyt has been at the forefront of those arguing that it would be better and safer to accept the risk of more deaths from the Wuhan virus than to allow state governments to behave like police states. So far, I have thought she was wrong and unduly paranoid, but Vermont’s latest action has me agreeing with her response, which was, “I’M SORRY. ARE THE PEOPLE OF VERMONT ALL OUT OF MIDDLE FINGERS?”
From the Burlington Free-Press (Bernie Sanders was once mayor of Burlington. That’s just something to keep in the back of your mind, as this episode suggests the slow but deadly spread of the Totalitarian Left Virus, which may eventually need to be called “the Burlington Virus”):
Large Vermont retailers such as Target, Walmart and Costco are now required to limit the sales of non-essential items in order to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The directive was announced by the Agency of Commerce and Community Development on Tuesday. The agency hopes it will reduce the overall number of people going into stores to purchase items such as clothing, electronics and toys during the state’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” executive order.
“Large ‘big box’ retailers generate significant shopping traffic by virtue of their size and the variety of goods offered in a single location,” said Lindsay Kurrle, secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development in a news release. “This volume of shopping traffic significantly increases the risk of further spread of this dangerous virus to Vermonters and the viability of Vermont’s health care system.”
Retailers are being asked to promote online ordering, delivery and curbside pickup to customers….
The order is here.
What this order does, please note, is direct that citizens cannot buy what they feel they need (it is not the government’s job to tell you what items are “essential”—this is a core element of the Second Amendment deniers’ brief as well) even if they are in a store to buy food there. To make this vast—yes, we can finally use the term “draconian”—draconian example of government over-reach at work, Vermont’s little dictators will also have to ban grocery stores and pharmacies from selling “non-essential items,” won’t they? You’re wearing your mask (I use my beautiful 1950s Roy Rogers and Dale Evans authentic nylon neckerchief, which I pull up over my nose and mouth. Yesterday at the grocery store the checkout clerk jumped, laughed, and said she thought it was a hold-up); there’s nobody within ten feet, the streets look like scenes from an old nuclear air raid film, but you mustn’t buy “non-essentials” even if they are right next to the eggs.
See, can’t have that, because it means that you might have actually left the house to buy that eggbeater (Use a fork, Comrade! A fork is good enough!) and only purchased the eggs as a spur of the moment thing, rather than replenishing your egg supply and buying the eggbeater on a whim. NO WHIMS! WHIMS ARE UNNECESSARY! It’s impossible for Vermont to know your true intent, so it’s going to just eliminate your options.
Having options is what liberty is all about.
I am officially alarmed. You should be too.
The order by the state and its “Bananas”-style dictator, Governor Phil Scott bans the in-store sale of this list of items:
“Arts and crafts items.
Beauty supplies.
Carpet and flooring.
Clothes.
Consumer electronics.
Entertainment (books, music, movies).
Furniture.
Home and garden.
Jewelry.
Paint.
Photo services.
Sports equipment.
Toys.”
Clothes? Clothes are non-essential in Vermont? If my office desk chair breaks, and it’s about to, getting a replacement isn’t essential, according to Herr Scott? Online ordering is taking weeks in many cases, as I have discovered already to my sorrow, but if I worked and lived in the People’s Republic of Vermont, I would be an enemy of the state if I went to Costco, Walmart, or Target, so to foil me, as well as mothers who need new toys or a new video to keep their children from going mad and strangling them in their beds, and citizens who need soap because we’re supposed to wash our hands thousands of time a day, those stores can’t sell those items even though they are open.
Got it. I don’t accept it, but I get it.
I’m with Sarah, and commenters here who have said that they feel like the proverbial frog being slowly boiled to death. Writes Ethics Alarms commenter Mrs. Q, hardly a hysteric, in her reaction to Chris Marschner’s Comment of the Day addressing this issue,
Dress rehearsal?
It seems, and I apologize for this sounding dramatic, like we’re seeing technocratic socialism unfold before our eyes in this country. It’s worse elsewhere to be sure, from drone surveillance to China’s insane but pretty much status quo social control. However something isn’t right about how our leaders in this country are handling not only this crisis, but us.
How we balance the needs of safety with liberty is always a challenge with no easy answers. I can’t fully address all aspects of the encroaching and readily accepted authoritarian measures in this comment. I plan to keep monitoring this as much as I can and hopefully pass on more cultivated insights.
But I have to ask:
Does anyone else wonder just what the hell is going on?
Oh, I don’t wonder, because what is going the hell on is what has gone on from the dawn of mankind, and long before Lord Acton observed, in the 19th Century, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Small, petty and ambitious men and women, endowed with power they are not qualified to wield by education, experience, depth of intellect or quality of character, look upon an emergency as an opportunity to exercise the limits of their power, rather than to try to accomplish their goals while infringing on the public’s liberty as little as possible, which, as leaders in a democracy, ought to be their goal.
This step by Vermont—let’s leave unexamined for now how the state got this way—is the democracy canary gagging and coughing in a dark mine. The Big Box stores and the public need to push back, hard and quick, before it is too late–in court, in illegal demonstrations of more than whatever arbitrary limit this Governor has come up with by throwing darts.
I would go to jail for this cause.
To once again pull out my favorite Clarence Darrow quote, “In order to have enough liberty, it is necessary to have too much.” This isn’t enough.
Not even in a pandemic.
Ethics Alarms 
Whoa! Facebook accepted this one! Am I off the blacklist? Did someone slip up? Is Facebook rebelling against the police state? I guess we’ll find out…
This could be one of those climactic movie moments in which an antagonist joins forces with the protagonist against a perceived-greater threat – perhaps with a single terse nod signaling “next time, it’ll be different” and returned in kind.
I’ve always loved those.
“LA Confidential!” “The Guns of Navarone!” “Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster” The Battle of New Orleans! World War II!
Unholy Alliance kinda thing?
Sort of like in “The Rocketeer,” where the FBI special agent in charge and the chief mobster find themselves side by side during a gunfight with Nazi soldiers, realize who they’re standing next to, shrug, and continue killing Nazis.
Steve-O wins the game “Guess which scene jumped unbidden into Benjamin’s brain when he wrote about a beloved general trope”.
I kept wondering why it was The Rocketeer. I’m pretty sure I was a child when I last saw it.
Just watched it again last week. Great special effects–like Jennifer Connelly. I thought it should have been more successful when it first came out, and wondered if all the historical and cultural references went over most audience’s heads.
Well, now I have to find it. I’m sure child-me missed everything but Nazis, the mob, and the Hindenburg.
I’ve got a hankerin’ for some King Ghidorah now, too.
Do “Arts and Craft Supplies” include the fabric one would use to sew handmade face masks? Just another example of how politicians and bureaucrats should not be in the business of deciding what items are “essential”.
Good catch.
Exactly. And let’s say my kid needs a chromebook and school supplies now that he’s Zooming with his class. Meanwhile the 9 mos old is outgrowing her clothes every two weeks. And we’re a family that grows a lot of our own food. It’s April and time to get the garden prepared. And…… (I could keep going all day.)
The idiots-that-be clearly didn’t think about that list for more than a nano-second.
”we’re a family that grows a lot of our own food. It’s April and time to get the garden prepared.”
The pack ice’s melted up there…?
All our raised beds are rarin’ to go, so am I; ~ 100 seedlings (tomatoes, peppers, squarsh, cukes, & basil) poking up under the lights.
I was speaking as a hypothetical Vermont family. But yes, the ice is melted here although as a Wisconsinite, I know better than to even THINK about my garden until after Memorial Day.
A local seed company is going overtime, out of school kids are getting some part-time. Spring does not wait for people to get better and if they want to stop farming they should just walk off the continental shelf. Crafts and entertainment are as important to shut-in’s mental health as aspirin. (how many will just plain ignore it)
I understand strongly asking folks to cut back, but it’s almost impossible to get special soaps for people who already use it due to the pandemic. The economic disruption right now will spread as niche industries are folding already, probably not to return. Comic book stores might seem a luxury, but their product is hope and distraction, and the field is collapsing. The Kennedy Center gets that pork barrel, but comics are a much larger demographic. How many other areas will collapse, jobs and customers adrift, for their own good? restarting from a dead stop is expensive and not likely, there isn’t enough investment money to help all the deserving.
“Do “Arts and Craft Supplies” include the fabric one would use to sew handmade face masks?”
Indeed they do, and according to an acquaintance who works at one, they’ve been doing a brisk business in sales for just that purpose. She said they have plenty of fabric, but the thing they have difficulty keeping in stock is elastic.
Ha! I wish I could take credit for FB’s acceptance of your missive….After two failed efforts to post Ethics Alarms columns yesterday (they “violate our community standards” wrote FB gurus), I sent a scathing reply to their “if you disagree with this, contact us” note. In effect, I asked why FB thought discussions of ethical issues were in violation of their standards…didn’t the powers-that-be there take ethics into consideration in their business practices? So far, no reply. 🙂
Damned right.
By the way, alarmed is … insufficient, if you know what I mean.
It will be interesting to see how many of these “temporary” provisions become permanent through the acts of legislatures. This new “expanded FMLA” which mainly affects small businesses is supposed to last to the end of the year, but you can bet the Democrats plan on passing it permanently, among other priorities. The only difference will be the federal government will not be reimbursing businesses next time — at first, it will be reimbursement for some, then less, then none. Book it.
All these “temporary” measures that enhance the power of autocratic politicians are going to find a shocking permanence in the name of public safety.
Cue Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither Liberty nor safety.”
What do we deserve?
This new “expanded FMLA” which mainly affects small businesses is supposed to last to the end of the year, but you can bet the Democrats plan on passing it permanently,
The Democrats just won’t stop. Now they are using the Commie-Virus to push the Big Box stores out of our communities.
Keep it up and the people, righteously indignated, will rebel.
I totally agree. The Vermont order applies to the big box stores, which are truly hated by the Left – Walmart caters to those awful Deplorables. Let’s see what happens when Gretchen’s Arts and Crafts sells clothing to make a class project along with needles, threads and scissors. i suspect Gretchen will get an accommodation from the powers that be because she is keeping it local and real.
jvb
That is the ultimate beginning of the end. When will we reach the tipping point? I can’t say, but the camel is looking pretty sway-backed right about now …
From the directive…
This intimidating directive along, “directing these stores to put public health first”, should raise red flags to all freedom loving people.
The directive is open intimidation and it’s absolutely toothless, there’s no consequences for not following the directive, none. In fact the directive states in the very first sentence “Large Retailers Asked to Comply with Stay Home/Stay Safe Order”. Yes they are “asked” not ordered but elsewhere in their edict they use much more forceful words like directs, directing, requiring, directed, order, must(x3), and should be closed.
Yes, this one is the government trying to intimidate by edict.
Yes, totalitarians are using this as a dress rehearsal to see how far the public will allow them to push their agenda in a time of crisis.
Yes the public needs to push back and the most appropriate way to do that is…
If these ignorant government officials keep up this kind of crap their directives will backfire and people will intentionally go out to violate their toothless directives; is that what they want?
That should have been “alone” not “along”…
“This intimidating directive alone, ‘directing these stores to put public health first’, should raise red flags to all freedom loving people.”
Don’t know how I press the “g” instead of the “e”; brain fart I guess.
Isn’t this just an anti-big box directive and prospective law masquerading as public safety policy. The Vermont state government is just trying to push out WalMart, Target, Best Buy among others in favor of their utopian small local business only vision. If it teaches the population to avoid these big box stores and instills that habit by such directives, big brother will have his victory.
This post is from a person who despises big box stores.
That is one of the rationalizations for sure. I read an article the other day about similar orders in other areas. Some persons complained that small businesses specializing in toys, for example, had to shut down as non-essential, but that large retail stores like Target or Wal-Mart, which also sell toys, can stay open. Something about unfair competitive advantage.
What they’re not saying is that if Costco can sell these things over-the-counter, then specialty stores will open their doors. Thus, they lean on Costco.
This is an extreme example of the public’s “do something” attitude toward government. I worry more about this attitude among voters than I do about the government’s overreach; if more voters would stop thinking of the government as saviors from any little inconvenience, these type of tyrants wouldn’t be in power.
I sent this EA essay and commentary to a friend who is a high ranking member of Governor Hogan’s team. I added the following:
Here is something to ponder:
How far and for how long can government go on encroaching on individual liberties before all hell breaks loose? How long will silly slogans like #we’re all in this together work to tamp down unrest. When will the novelty of celebrities talking and singing to us from their homes wear off? I wonder how much of an increase in domestic violence cases we will tolerate as people are forced to stay in absolute proximity to one another in their homes? How many parents will lose it and abuse their children because the kids are driving them up the wall? These are the real world issues families will confront as governmental restrictions increase and lengthen.
The line at the marijuana dispensary on Wesel Blvd. was 20 cars deep and 2 abreast yesterday. Is the goal of government to allow people to medicate themselves into docility? Are liquor store allowed to be open because they add to the state coffers with significant taxes? Why is a bottle of whiskey more important than something deemed non-essential. When those questions get answered with logic and reason I’ll be less vocal.
I know I am not alone in my thinking.
Instances like this always remind me of a quote from the much underrated 1990’s reboot of the ‘Outer Limits’. It comes from an episode titled ‘Straight and Narrow’:
“It’s said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It is with the same good intentions that we blindly place our trust in those with power, the architects of our future and all too often… the manipulators of our ultimate fate.”
Food for thought.
Then again; in the hyper partisan political environment we’ve been subjected to over the last 3+ years you should really take heed when the scientists, the doctors, the first responders, the political left, the political right and simple common sense are all saying stay home; then dammit, stay the fuck at home. If your not staying at home then I would hope your reason for being out is directly related to a “critical” need of some sort.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUakLzaboMo
P.S. It’s not the place of the government to dictate what your critical needs are.
I agree completely-my big concern is do these laws and emergency powers get rolled back once the crisis has passed, or do they become a permanent fixture in an ever increasing bureaucratic behemoth – an excuse if you will, to wield even more centralized control over the lives of citizens.
But I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
Name Redacted wrote, “But I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
When is too definite for this, how about we’ll cross that bridge IF we get to it.
BTW, mayors like the mayor of Kokomo, IN have been doing this for some time. Scott no doubt saw the news reports on this and realised that HE NEEDED TO DO MORE. Can’t let a small town mayor do more than he is. These dictators have been falling over themselves trying to out-dictator each other with the idea that the more draconian they are, the more it shows they care. You are more than a little behind the curve. This is why Democrats are even calling out President Trump for not ‘doing more’. Yes, they are upset their ‘worse than Hitler’ President isn’t acting like Hitler. Well, they are going to show HIM. Isn’t that right, Gov. Scott?
For weeks, the memes have been of this sort:
Mayor: We are going to close gun stores, ban ammo sales, forbid all political protests, release prisoners, refuse to respond to burglaries, minor sexual assaults, or auto thefts, and imprison anyone outside without a valid reason.
Aide: How will this slow down Covid19?
Mayor: Covid19?
There is even a template for this particular meme.
Adam Schiff is already setting up a “bi-partisan committee” (Hah! That’s such a good one, Adam.) to investigate how the Trump administration failed in its response to this panic. I think this requires a new letter-denominated item be added to the list of things intended to un-do the 2016 election. I think he’s already having his minions draft a bill.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/04/02/adam_schiff_we_need_a_911-style_commission_to_review_trumps_catastropic_coronavirus_response.html
Someone inform Schiff I’m building a gallows for his post-treason conviction because it both is and seems constructive in every sense of the word; what a piece of barely human shite. (Hate is sometimes not a strong enough word.)
Perhaps we’ll luck out and California will secede with all of its lunacy, unworkable policies, and debt. (Sorry Cali commenters.) Then Schiff can literally be, what should have been, an inmate running the asylum with Newsom.
Speaking of Dickens the other day, Adam Schiff is a villain of absolutely Dickensian grandeur.
Well, I’m sorry. I just fixed several weird typos in a paragraph toward the end. It was early, I hadn’t had any coffee, and by that point on the essay I was apparently like John Belushi right before he would hurl himself to the floor in a frenzy on the old “Weekend Update.”
I would seriously doubt that soap is considered a beauty supply. Of course, I have no idea what the writers of the Vermont order actually intend.
I do, however, wonder what their reaction would be if someone were to suggest that people accepting government welfare payments or food stamps should be restricted to purchasing only what the government declared they needed.
“their reaction would be if someone were to suggest that people accepting government welfare payments or food stamps should be restricted to purchasing only what the government declared they needed.”
In my best Euphegenia Doubtfire voice: Ooooooh, you wicked, wicked man, you!>/b>
It’s in the beauty products section at Target. I was just there. And bought soap.
Does it seem odd that there’s no hand sanitizer to be found, but that bars of soap are readily available? Especially since the CDC recommends alcohol-based hand sanitizer only if you have no soap?
Anyway, they can put the soap wherever they want, but I consider it a hygeine product over a beauty product. Any law that prevents the selling of soap during an epidemic is a very badly written one.
…
Of course, we are talking about emotion-driven regulations which are hardly ever wisely-written.
And we’re talking about Vermont.
Nothing says “demented leader” like Richard Libertini in “The In-Laws”
This brings to mind one of my favorite words: “martinet.”
Turns out the term derives from the name of a French drill sergeant. Of course! It’s a French military term used by the Brits to mock the French! Brilliant!
Gavin Newsome gave away his totalitar . . . . erm . . . progressive leanings in this video:
Remember Rahm’s Charge that one must “never let a good crisis go to waste”? Well, Gav said that CoronaVirus will usher in a new era of and for progressivism. We can’t wait.
The Vermont Directive should strike fear in the heart of all. How will Vermont enforce this? Through taxation, fines and penalties, that’s how. When Vermont finds out that CostCo and Sam’s sold arts and crafts items, the Vermont division of state taxation will come down heavily on them, fining them into oblivion.
jvb
When the WA epidemic started I called it. Staying inside was the right thing to do. I fought my employer to allow me to work from home (along with others who could) weeks before the governor ordered that. I go once a week or less out to replenish fresh groceries, use a mask, and keep by distance.
But… I also said at the time that if the government forced a quarantine I would complain and refuse to comply. I spend at least 15 minutes every day sitting in front of my house, on a lawn chair on the sidewalk, daring a police officer to drive by and send me back in. I will not abide by the government FORCING me to do the right thing. Especially when there are so many exceptions that the violations of liberty are arbitrary and at the whim of those in power (heck, I now have letter from my employer that deems us essential and let us go around freely, talk about more equal animals).
Stupid people going to the beach in the middle of the pandemic are a threat, but petty government officials pushing for more power are a bigger threat and that’s not one that will disappear once the virus is gone.
This doesn’t surprise me in the least. Before I was Arthur in Maine, I was Arthur in Vermont. Back then, the rural parts of the state defined small-L libertarian attitude: “I’ll mind my business. You mind your business. I won’t touch your wallet, and you don’t touch mine. If that’s the way you like things, we’ll get along fine.”
Then all the hippies emerging from the failing communes found a new way to put food on the table: working for the state. And more and more of ’em started running for office. By the time I left for Maine in ’87, Vermont was already well on its way to progressivism. I watched from Maine – which was more like Vermont when I moved there – and just shook my head with each new progressive inspiration.
Of course, Maine is now headed in that same direction, said to say.
Elizabeth Nickson’s somewhat similar experience in the Pacific NW might be of interest:
Eco-Facists: How Radical Conservationists Are Destroying Our Natural Heritage
Then, this happened in Ohio:
https://www.wdtn.com/news/ohio/ohio-ag-sends-cease-and-desist-letter-to-hobby-lobby/?fbclid=IwAR2Jir341Ei7a3IMhjtgaPDjPL2VKBQVPL2K9PSbM0D6OgGWUzC4AYvt2Fg
I went to school in Vermont. It is a state of densely wooded hills and curvy roads and the kind of independent little places that inspired (darkly, in this case) Shirley Jackson’s “Lottery” story. They had draconian liquor laws then (and still now, I’m sure). But … somehow … everyone seemed to have a drink for themselves and their guests at any time of day or occasion.
Note: Vermont is bounded on all sides by other states.
Jeez, how long ago was that? Last time I checked, Vermont was bounded to the north by a certain French-speaking province, which gets restive every now and again and makes a stink about leaving Canada. This pleases the Newfies, who think that if Quebec leaves, they’ll be that much closer to the fun stuff in Toronto.
As for the liquor laws… one of the things I found most amazing about Vermont when I was there (’77 to ’87) was that there were limits on availability related to types of alcohol and days/hours of sale, it was perfectly legal to cruise around with an open beer, as long as you weren’t clearly impaired.