Alright...which is it?
As a Democrat I'm starting to get mixed messages from Fox News. Can somebody please remind me?
Are we trying to keep people alive against their will or are we trying to kill people against their will? I think I missed the memo between reports of the Death Book and Death Panels and now this...
Swine Flu Martial Law Clears Massachussets Senate
It took corporate media swine flu hysteria to ram through a martial law bill in Massachusetts. S18 gives the Governor the power to authorize the deployment and use of force to distribute supplies and materials and local authorities will be allowed to enter private residences for investigation and to quarantine individuals.
The bill specifically mandates the following:
(1) to require the owner or occupier of premises to permit entry into and investigation of the premises;
(2) to close, direct, and compel the evacuation of, or to decontaminate or cause to be decontaminated any building or facility, and to allow the reopening of the building or facility when the danger has ended;
(3) to decontaminate or cause to be decontaminated, or to destroy any material;
(4) to restrict or prohibit assemblages of persons;
(5) to require a health care facility to provide services or the use of its facility, or to transfer the management and supervision of the health care facility to the department or to a local public health authority;
Holy False Umbrage, Batman...some of these cries of fear and outrage are from the same people who applauded the Patriot Act.
There are significant flaws in the Patriot Act, flaws that threaten your fundamental freedoms by giving the government the power to access to your medical records, tax records, information about the books you buy or borrow without probable cause, and the power to break into your home and conduct secret searches without telling you for weeks, months, or indefinitely.
This Massachussets bill extends not lifetime imprisonment without charge a la the Patriot Act...at worst it punishes people with a $1000 fine or not more than 6 months in prison. And why?
Because if you have the Avian Flu and you're quarantined and told to stay home, but you fly in a cramped jet across the country making stops in Chicago, Dallas, Montreal, and Denver on your way to a daycare in LA so you can lick the door knobs, but first you go to the farmers market and take in a movie or two...
...Massachussets lawmakers feel you should get a fine.
(e) Any person who knowingly violates an order for isolation or quarantine shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 30 days and may be subject to a civil fine of not more than one thousand dollars per day that the violation continues.
Here's the bit where Massachussets can enter your house...with "reasonable cause" as it turns out, sounding a lot like current law which also permits entry in exigent circumstances -- somebody yelling to a cop standing outside the door "help! help me! I'm being stabbed in here!!!"
The order may be a verbal order in exigent circumstances, and in such case it shall be followed by a written order as soon as reasonably possible. The written order shall specify the reasons for it, and may include, but is not limited to:
(1) requiring the owner or occupier of premises to permit entry into and investigation of the premises;
(2) requiring the owner or occupier of premises to close the premises or a specific part of the premises, and allowing reopening of the premises when the danger has ended;
(3) requiring the placarding of premises to give notice of an order requiring the closing of the premises;
(4) requiring the cleaning or disinfection, or both, of the premises or the thing specified in the order;
(5) requiring the destruction of the matter or thing specified in the order.
As for the notion that you'll be forced to take a vaccination against your will, I personally didn't find language in the bill that punishes non-compliance to be injected with something. Maybe somebody can help me out.
I'm a bit ambivalent about this bill.
I neither love it.
Nor do I hate it.
But the timing of the Right's false umbrage of this bill after their silence during the significantly worse and more intrusive Patriot Act is highly suspect. Especially considering the current climate of the health care reform discussion.
I can't tell if us Dems are trying to KILL people or force them to stay alive. Or maybe we just want to do things against peoples' will just to be dicks. With Fox News's wailing, it's hard to keep track.