On Fri, 14 Oct 2022 07:39:40 -0700, NOT Michael Ejercito <MEjercit@HotMail.com> wrote:
HeartDoc Andrew wrote:
Michael Ejercito wrote:I am wonderfully hungry!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/13/boris-johnson-covid-laws-rights-decree-two-years-democracy
Boris Johnson’s Covid laws took away our rights with flick of a pen. >>>> Don’t let that happen again
Adam Wagner
Ministers were able to rule by decree for more than two years. That’s >>>> not true democracy and it remains a risk in the future
Boris Johnson addressing the nation from 10 Downing Street as he placed >>>> the UK on lockdown.
Boris Johnson addressing the nation from 10 Downing Street as he placed >>>> the UK under lockdown in March 2020. Photograph: PA
Thu 13 Oct 2022 05.07 EDT
730
It is almost three years since the first case of a novel coronavirus was >>>> identified in Wuhan, China.
It’s just over two and a half years since Boris Johnson gave us a “very
simple instruction”, that we “must stay at home”, followed – three days
later – by a law that for the first time in our history would impose a >>>> 24-hour curfew on almost the entire population. The years, months, weeks >>>> and days since have been so relentless – and at times almost beyond
belief – that it is difficult to begin to process them. Many of us have >>>> experienced personal bereavement, and everyone has been touched in some way.
But as tempting as it is to move on, to focus on other important issues >>>> vexing our society, there are some aspects of the past three years we
must face up to.
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There are a hundred lenses through which to view this important period >>>> in modern history, but as a barrister I have looked at the more than 100 >>>> laws that placed England in lockdown, imposed hotel quarantine,
international travel restrictions, self-isolation, face coverings and
business closures.
These were probably the strangest and most extraordinary laws in
England’s history, imposing previously unimaginable restrictions on our >>>> social lives, bringing into the realm of the criminal law areas of life >>>> – where we could worship, when we could leave home, even who we could >>>> hug – that had previously been purely a matter of personal choice.
By early 2020, the Johnson government already had form for seeing
democracy as a gadfly to be swatted away, having tried, and failed – >>>> thanks to the supreme court – to shut down parliament for weeks to ram >>>> through a Brexit deal. When the pandemic hit, it is no surprise that it >>>> took the same approach to involving parliament in the most consequential >>>> decisions and laws in living memory.
The Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 allowed for ministers to >>>> enact the coronavirus regulations with almost no parliamentary scrutiny. >>>> Of 109 lockdown laws, only eight were considered by parliament before
coming into force, usually only a day before. The rest became law
(literally) as soon as Matt Hancock, the then health secretary, put his >>>> signature at the bottom of the page.
Finally, this reckless government faces a reckoning for Covid deaths in >>>> care homes
Charlie Williams
Read more
I am not suggesting that emergency law-making would ever be
straightforward and neat, following all the processes of ordinary
legislation. During public emergencies, events move swiftly and
mercilessly. But it did not have to be like this.
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Also troubling was the constant refrain that the government was
“following the science”, by which it meant its scientific advisory >>>> group, Sage. But decisions were ultimately taken in the extremely
powerful but opaque Covid-19 cabinet committees, presided over by four >>>> ministers – Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, Matt Hancock and Michael Gove. >>>> No minutes were released and no explanation offered of how decisions
were made. This was the most powerful government committee since the
second world war, but received no scrutiny. Important political
decisions need to be understood, scrutinised and tested. These hardly were.
We still live in the state that permitted ministers to rule by decree
for more than two years, and where basic freedoms were removed without >>>> democratic scrutiny or accountability. In 2008, the Public Health and
Wellbeing Act was amended to include vast powers for ministers to use in >>>> the case of a public health emergency. And because ministers would have >>>> the power to impose laws without parliament having to review them for
four weeks (or sometimes longer), they could, as one prescient member of >>>> the House of Lords put it during the brief 2008 debate, “at the stroke >>>> of a pen … limit and constrain the daily lives and freedoms of citizens”.
Parliament, meanwhile, allowed itself to play the role of a 1,400-person >>>> rubber stamp. The police, tasked with enforcing the ever-growing mass of >>>> legislation, often being changed more than once a week, floundered
between excessive and unjustified intrusions into our private lives, or >>>> – as was initially the case with the Partygate investigation –
attempting to stay out of the fray altogether. The courts, for their
part, also played a limited role, ruling repeatedly that pandemic policy >>>> – even when it interfered with fundamental rights – was a matter for >>>> government and parliament, not judges.
Why does this matter now? Because the pandemic – and the ease with which >>>> ancient freedoms such as the right to protest, to worship, to see our
families, were removed essentially by decisions of a tiny group of
ministers – should be a wake-up call. It is only a matter of time before >>>> a new crisis will arise – either connected to Covid-19, to another virus >>>> or to another kind of emergency altogether.
We must face up to the fact that we are not well protected from a
government if it wanted to use a state of emergency to corrode our
freedoms. We have no written constitution, meaning it is more difficult >>>> for people to claim their rights, and – unlike in many other democracies >>>> – the courts are reluctant to become embroiled in cases involving
fundamental rights that involve political controversy. Government power >>>> has been on the rise for years, not least through the ever increasing
use of secondary legislation to set policy. And our public health
legislation remains extraordinarily broad.
CK Allen, scholar of the vast emergency powers built up during the
second world war, reminds us that freedom “is not easily gained, and, >>>> once surrendered – however necessary the surrender may be – is even less
easily regained”. As tempting as it is to put this dark period in our >>>> history behind us, it is only by looking back that we can, finally, hope >>>> to move forward.
Adam Wagner is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers. His debut book is >>>> Emergency State: How We Lost Our Liberties in the Pandemic and Why it
Matters (Vintage)
The only *healthy* way to stop the pandemic, thereby saving lives, in
the U.K. & elsewhere is by rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19
) finding out at any given moment, including even while on-line, who
among us are unwittingly contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or
asymptomatic) in order to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John
15:12) for them to call their doctor and self-quarantine per their
doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the
best while preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage
mutations and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota,
Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations combining via
slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids like
http://tinyurl.com/Deltamicron that may render current COVID
vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
AGAIN? For fuck's sake, gook, think of something ELSE to say to gook
Chung!
On Sun, 16 Oct 2022 09:23:47 -0700, NOT Michael Ejercito <MEjercit@HotMail.com> wrote:Nithing, there you go again with your diarrhoea obsession!
Professeur de merde, Mikhail Blumboig wrote:
On Fri, 14 Oct 2022 07:39:40 -0700, NOT Michael EjercitoMangina, you should try being wonderfully hungry.
<MEjercit@HotMail.com> wrote:
I am wonderfully hungry!
AGAIN? For fuck's sake, gook, think of something ELSE to say to gook
Chung!
Gook, you need to give the freshly squeezed jew diarrhoea a rest.
I am an American so the ICE 5-0 is not after me.Then you can be rapture ready and stop being a craven Nazi coward!
You ARE rapture ready for the ICE 5-0 and you can stop being a craven jewlover and ainlunguist!
You are a Nazi.
As a Nazi, you are, above all else
Yup.
Indeed.
Right on, all counts.
I sure, am.
No doubt, about it.
You got, THAT right.
YOU, on the other hand, are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY below all else.
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