Swine Flu creating a legal pigsty

Since Swine Flu outbreaks are soaring, obviously it’s time for the government to step in with nonsensical, megalomaniacal legislation. Starting in Massachusetts, the Senate has decided to basically create a police state whenever/wherever “health officials” see fit.

Pandemic Response Bill 2028, which passed in the Senate and will probably be approved by the House, will allow police to quarantine people during a health emergency, force health providers to vaccinate, and break into private property and fine noncompliant, possibly startled or completely healthy, citizens. Anyone who defies these rules can be imprisoned for 30 days—perhaps giving everyone else in the pen H1N1—and fined $1000.

Here are just a few intellectual nuggets from this proposed bill:

With the approval of the commissioner, police may:

• to require the owner or occupier of premises to permit entry into and investigation of the premises;

• 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;

• to decontaminate or cause to be decontaminated, or to destroy any material;

• 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;

The list of outrageously constrictive and unconstitutional meanderings goes on and on, with the crown jewel being, drum roll please, the suspension of habeas corpus: law enforcement may “arrest without warrant (!!!) any person” who basically isn’t okay with his or her house being taken over by Big Brother agents authorities.

The last time habeas corpus was suspended for American citizens (and yes, they were suspended for terrorists in Gitmo—les horreurs!) was during the Civil War when honest Abe was using Machiavelli’s convenient ends-justify-the-means argument, which does not seem particularly germane in this situation and was certainly not an available option during the Bush years.

Again the current administration is creating a safe haven for power-wielding politicians to basically make any personal decisions you may have once been burdened with making, for example healthcare or Internet usage.

Four legs good, two legs bad better!