Gorsuch Condemns COVID
Policies for Violating Civil Liberties: Where Are the
Rest?
Written by: Robert W. Peck, former Executive
Committee Member, State Chairman of the Constitution Party of
Washington and current continuing supporter
In a statement relating
to the case of Arizona v. Alejandro Mayorkas (Secretary of Homeland
Security), US Supreme Court Justice, Neil Gorsuch, condemned
government-imposed COVID policies that turned the legal and
legislative process on its head and violated civil liberties. The
justice’s review of actions taken by local, state, and federal
governments over the past three years reads like a report on human
rights abuses from the socialist Soviet Union era. Previous
generations of Americans would have thought the justice’s statements
were from a dystopian novel, not current events.
Here are some key passages from Justice Gorsuch’s
statement.
“Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions
on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country. Executive
officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a
breathtaking scale. Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown
orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered
businesses and schools, public and private. They closed churches even
as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on… They
divided cities and neighborhoods into color-coded zones, forced
individuals to fight for their freedoms in court on emergency
timetables, and then changed their color-coded schemes when defeat in
court seemed imminent.
“Federal executive officials entered the
act too... They deployed a public-health agency to regulate
landlord-tenant relations nationwide. They used a workplace-safety
agency to issue a vaccination mandate... They threatened to fire
noncompliant employees, and warned that service members who refused to
vaccinate might face dishonorable discharge and confinement. Along the
way, it seems federal officials may have pressured social-media
companies to suppress information about pandemic policies with which
they disagreed.
“While executive officials issued new emergency decrees at a
furious pace, state legislatures and Congress—the bodies normally
responsible for adopting our laws—too often fell silent. Courts bound
to protect our liberties addressed a few—but hardly all—of the
intrusions upon them. In some cases, like this one, courts even
allowed themselves to be used to perpetuate emergency public-health
decrees for collateral purposes, itself a form of
emergency-lawmaking-by-litigation.”
Amen Justice Gorsuch–someone finally said it!
But where are the rest?
For over three years now, governors, presidents, and a plethora of
agents and agencies under their charge have usurped powers not
constitutionally delegated to them and trampled on rights once held
sacred. The lawless and oppressive nature of
lockdown-shutdown-maskup-vaxup orders was able to be known from day
one (Why
Covid Orders Are Not Law) . Statements like that of Justice
Gorsuch could have and should have been issued by every public
official in the land, including two Presidents that presided over the
pandemic, 535 members of Congress, 50 governors, 7,558 state
legislators, thousands of county commissioners, thousands of county
sheriffs, and tens of thousands of mayors and city councilmen.
Yet of those thousands of public officials whose duty it is to
defend our God-given rights and uphold the constitutional rule of law,
we now have this statement issued by one Supreme Court justice, two
governors who either declined to implement, or stood up against
unlawful policies (South Dakota and Florida), and Rand Paul, who
continues to be a voice for liberty in the US Senate.
So again, I ask, where are the rest?
Are there any others in elected office anywhere in the land who
comprehend the concept of inherent, immutable, God-given rights and
who hold fidelity to the plain text and original intent of the
Constitution provided for the preservation of those rights?
There has been discussion about the effectiveness of masks and the
safety of the shots, though relatively little of that has come from
elected officials. But frankly, those discussions distracted us from
the paramount issue. From day one, the salient question has been
whether we will remain free and autonomous souls with rights bestowed
by our Creator, or become the slavish wards of an almighty state.
So again, I ask, where are the voices of other public officials
championing the rule of law and decrying the violation of rights?
Where were the hundreds of Republican members of Congress who could
have provided national leadership by issuing a joint statement
denouncing such policies as unlawful and violating civil
liberties?
Where was the Republican Party, which could have issued a statement
akin to that of Justice Gorsuch, then threatened to expel from the
party any governors issuing emergency orders that violate the
God-given rights of their citizens?
Where were the large, well-funded organizations of the right–the
ones that beg Granny for her social security check so they can save
the grandkids from the libs by electing more Republicans–organizations
that could have mounted major legal battles in defense of churches,
small businesses, and workers rights?
Finally, where was the Christian-conservative-right, the voting
block that talks about liberty, complained about masks and mandates,
then went back to the polls to reelect nearly every Republican
regardless of whether they perpetrated, or merely tolerated the
violation of our rights?
It would appear the favored party of the right, nearly all its
office holders, and the people who elect them have all collectively
lost the understanding of, and forsaken devotion to, the concept of
God-given rights and constitutionally limited government.
No, I’m not exaggerating. Just look at the results. The violations
outlined by Justice Gorsuch occurred in every blue state and over 90
percent of red states, including states with complete Republican
control (23 states after the 2020 election). The land of liberty has
lost its constitutional compass, and the conservative right has
forgotten the rights it set out to conserve.
This is the fruit produced by a policy of pursuing victory through
compromise.
For over 30 years now, I’ve watched as the
Christian-conservative-right has consistently moved away from
candidates who embodied its professed values in favor of those the
pundits and party hacks told them could “beat the Democrat.” Over this
same time, the right gradually forgot the principles it was
compromising away to win at the polls. Slowly and subtly,
conservatives assimilated the policies and practices of those they
were taught to cheer for as their perceived deliverers. The result is
that today the right supports a party and votes for politicians its
predecessors would have tried for treachery.
The loneness of Justice Gorsuch’s voice crying in the political
wilderness demonstrates the degree to which there is no longer a major
political party or a significant faction within a party that retains
the American ideals of liberty through inherent, immutable, God-given
rights protected by the constitutional rule of law.
Yes, a few small activist organizations have pursued remedy against
COVID policies in the courts, and a rare few alternative media
commentators have voiced a constitutional and rights-based view on the
matter. But there is no body of elected leaders, no well-funded
political organizations, and no populist movement left in the land
acknowledging and holding fidelity to the Creator as the source of
rights and the Constitution as the source of law. There may be some
politicians who give lip service to such, but their inaction during
COVID belies them.
Without the acknowledgment of the Creator as the source of rights
and the Constitution as the source of law, we are left to drift on a
sea of secular humanist philosophy where the passions of human opinion
and whims of government edict reign supreme, arbitrarily decreeing
who, if any, has rights and what they might be on any given day.
Yes, I’m saying that all our human institutions, including the
popular organizations of the right, have failed us, and we’re now
beyond all political hope of recovering the republic. But that’s a
good thing. It’s good if it leads us to give up hope–false hope that
is. And indeed, all hope that looks to man, man-made institutions, and
man’s political machinations is false hope.
The only valid basis for all true hope is faith in the integrity of
our Creator and the veracity of His word.
Does that mean we should withdraw from the political realm? Not at
all. Quite the opposite.
The proper role of the church as ambassadors for the owner and
soon-coming king of this planet is to declare our Lord’s counsels,
principles, and purposes to mankind, including to the institutions of
men and their civil societies, so that they might know how to govern
themselves according to His will and be blessed.
However, it is utterly perverse for the people of God to go around
looking to human political institutions for power by which to save
ourselves, prostituting ourselves and our professed principles in
exchange for a seat at their table. Satan has twisted our minds and
turned the tables on us. He has us seeing ourselves as beggars seeking
power from the world by which to save ourselves from the world.
In reality, all power, both in heaven and on earth, belongs to our
Lord, and the power that this world’s leaders currently wield is on
loan to them from him. They will soon give an account to him for their
use of it. And we will give an account of our ambassadorship and
whether we have used it to properly represent our king and the
counsels of his kingdom.
No, I’m not saying we should despair of hope and give up.
I am saying that it’s time for Christians in America to turn off
the TV news, turn off the talk radio, put down the column by our
favorite pundit, and instead go aside, get quiet, get alone with our
own thoughts, and ask God to begin showing us again what are the first
principles of His revealed will for human society and its civil
governance. Then, return to the standard that the Lord shows us and
refuse to be moved from it even if it means standing alone; even if it
means voting alone; even if it means writing in the name of the one
person we know who overtly honors God and upholds the rule of law.
You see, God’s ability to bless, honor, protect, and provide is not
determined by who is in office. God’s honor comes upon those who honor
Him (1
Samuel 2:30), and blessing is to those who forsake trust in man
and human might and return to trusting in the Lord (Jeremiah
17:5).
Please support returning our
nation to a constitutional republic by making your most generous
donation in support of the Constitution Party. Click
here:
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Comments or Questions: Contact Donna Ivanovich, Adm Asst to
the National Chairman
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