Dear Editor,
Our government’s response to the COVID-19 “pandemic” is an excellent example of how our elected leaders, especially at the state and local level, and the cabal of “experts,” bureaucrats, and alarmists they rely on, consistently chose to ignore the safeguards our Constitution provides to protect us from tyranny.
“Tyranny” may seem too harsh, but their choices and actions support that characterization. Tyranny is, on its face, an “arbitrary, unrestrained, oppressive, exercise of power by an individual or group of individuals.”
That’s what has been happening in South Carolina since early-March!
Our Governor, and many mayors, city/ county councils, and even some lesser municipal officials issued “executive orders” that not only exceeded their lawful authority, but also deprived us of our constitutional entitlements under the Bill of Rights!
Their capricious and arbitrary actions took away:
- Our right to free exercise of religion by closing houses of worship.
- Our right to peaceably assemble by closing parks, beaches, and other outdoor recreational areas.
- Our right to petition the government for a redress of grievances by limiting access to the General Assembly.
- Our right to vote is seriously threatened by unfounded concerns about our ability to maintain social distancing at the polling place.
Some constitutional scholars are even discussing the impact of these kinds of actions on our rights under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
These mandates are not only illogical but completely disproportional to the actual “threat!”
They are predominately based on projections and/ or perceptions – essentially guesses, most of which have been proven to be unreliable and highly exaggerated!
Reasonable people will respect logical, temporary constraints on their personal liberty to benefit their fellow citizens. However, they will not abide the kind of outrageously restrictive constraints our leaders are imposing on them in the name of “public health and safety.”
Despite legal opinions to the contrary – and any hint of common sense – they continue to impose extreme restrictions on individual liberty! Some going as far as restricting vehicle occupancy to only one person.
Their actions are unconstitutional, unreasonable, and unnecessarily harmful to the livelihoods of an incredible number of honest, hard-working citizens!
Elected officials take an oath to “… support and defend the Constitution …” and “… bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” That means the decisions they make should be based on its contents and a conscientious attempt to respect the limits it imposes on their authority, decisions, and actions!
Only a few governors are taking their oaths seriously. Most others, including Henry McMaster, are not!
As we approach the upcoming “primary election” season, please remember how most of these people trampled on our liberty out of a horribly misguided sense of wanting to protect us from ourselves!
Sincerely,
Ron Tamaccio
Greenville, S.C.
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