If the Law be Down...
Scroll down for article on federal judge's ruling voiding mask mandates for air and other travel.
In America, philosophically speaking, the whole idea of government is reduced to one purpose - the protection of the individual citizen's God-given liberties. The people rule - they are not ruled over. They rule through the letter and spirit of the Constitution and the duly constituted rule of law that flows from it.
In America, unelected bureaucracies and their strutting little potentates like Anthony Fauci do not have the legal right or power to supersede or suspend the Constitutional protections of human liberty. That is in fact all this judge pointed out in her carefully argued ruling. Self-important, power-hungry, aspiring dictators like Fauci have simply assumed power they did not have under the law, and for a long time they have gotten away with it. This judge stood up for the law and knocked the perpetrators back over the line.
Bottom line in all this is that, in America's constitutional republic, built on the premise of individual human liberty and government's sole purpose as the protector of that liberty, human freedom must trump any other consideration, even when human life is at stake. As one of our illustrious founders, Patrick Henry, put it, "Give me liberty or give me death!" For an enlightened, liberty-loving people, it will always come down to that.
If we face a choice between the freedom of the people and some bureaucrat's despotic judgment about what the people ought to do to avoid a plague or some other purported danger, the people's liberties should win out. If those in government, in their ever-dubious wisdom - and over the past two years that purported wisdom has been a worldwide, catastrophic laughingstock - wish to argue for a certain course of action that might restrict common liberties, their job, in an enlightened America, should be not to arbitrarily impose a jackbooted tyranny, as has been done over the past couple of years, but to fully inform and appeal to the intelligence of the people - as, in the case of Covid and the vaccines, they most certainly have not done - and leave the people to decide for themselves what they will do. Instead, Fauci and others of the same arrogant and venal mindset have overthrown the rule of law and assumed the role of ham-fisted dictators - and we can be sure they will continue to infringe on the people's liberties just as far as the people allow them to.
As Sir Thomas More's character observed in the film "A Man for All Seasons", "If the law be down" - and it has been down in America for a good while now - "such a wind will blow in the land that no man can stand." Standing up to punks like Anthony Fauci, Judge Mizelle, by stating and affirming what was obvious under the law, has made a great contribution toward reenforcing the rule of law in our country. As she rightly concluded, the law, not unelected bureaucrats, reigns supreme.
There will always be among us scheming, tyrannically minded, power- and money-hungry people looking for ways to exploit cracks in the resolve of the people to stand up for their liberties. Over the past two years or so such morally bankrupt individuals have been brilliantly successful in perpetrating against the people The Great Covid Pandemic/Covid Vaccine Swindle.
Happily, their fraud is beginning to come apart - but you can be sure these demons will not go quietly into the night.
Torquemada
Florida judge voids US mask mandate for planes, other travel - ABC News (go.com)
Florida judge voids US mask mandate for planes, other travel
A federal judge in Florida struck down a national mask mandate on airplanes and mass transit Monday, and airlines and airports swiftly began repealing their face covering requirements
By CURT ANDERSON Associated Press
April 18, 2022, 9:37 PM
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- A federal judge in Florida struck down a national mask mandate on airplanes and mass transit Monday, and airlines and airports swiftly began repealing their requirements that passengers wear face coverings.
The judge's decision freed airlines, airports and mass transit systems to make their own decisions about mask requirements, resulting in a mix of responses.The major airlines switched to a mask optional policy, with some eliciting cheers from passengers when the changes were announced over loudspeakers. The Transportation Security Administration said Monday night that it would it will no longer enforce the mask requirement, and airports in Houston and Dallas almost immediately did away with their mandates after the TSA announcement.
Los Angeles International Airport, the world's fifth-largest by passenger volume, also dropped its mandate but the Centers for Disease Control continued to recommend masking on transportation “and I think that's good advice," LAX spokesman Heath Montgomery said.
Sleepy passengers on a Delta Air Lines flight between Atlanta and Barcelona, Spain, cheered and applauded when a flight attendant announced the news mid-flight over the ocean.
“No one’s any happier than we are," the attendant says in a video posted by Dillon Thomas, a CBS Denver reporter, who was on the flight. She added that people who wanted to keep on their masks were encouraged to do so.
“But we’re ready to give ém up," she added. “So thank you and happy unmasking day!”
New York City’s public transit system planned to keep its mask requirement in place. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority said it would make masks optional for riders on its buses and trains.
The Association of Flight Attendants, the nation’s largest union of cabin crews, has recently taken a neutral position on the mask rule because its members are divided about the issue. On Monday, the union’s president appealed for calm on planes and in airports.
“The last thing we need for workers on the frontlines or passengers traveling today is confusion and chaos,” union leader Sara Nelson said.
Nelson said it takes airlines 24 to 48 hours to put new procedures in place and tell employees about them. She said passengers should check with airlines for updates about travel requirements.
The mask requirement covered airlines, airports, mass transit and taxis, and was the biggest vestige of pandemic restrictions that were once the norm across the country.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, also said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention failed to justify its decision and did not follow proper rulemaking procedures that left it fatally flawed.
In her 59-page ruling, Mizelle said the only remedy was to vacate the rule entirely across the country because it would be impossible to end it for the limited group of people who objected in the lawsuit.
The judge said “a limited remedy would be no remedy at all” and courts have full authority to make a decision such as this — even if the CDC's goals in fighting the virus are laudable.
The Justice Department declined to comment when asked if it would seek an emergency stay to block the judge’s order. The CDC also declined to comment.
The White House said the court ruling means that for now the mask order “is not in effect at this time.”
“This is obviously a disappointing decision,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “The CDC is recommending wearing a mask on public transit.”
The CDC had recently extended the mask mandate, which was set to expire Monday, until May 3 to allow more time to study the BA.2 omicron subvariant of the coronavirus now responsible for the vast majority of cases in the U.S.
In New York, Metropolitan Transportation Authority communications director Tim Minton said the system was "continuing to follow CDC guidelines and will review the Florida court order.”
The MTA operates New York City buses and subway trains as well as two commuter rail lines. Face coverings have been mandatory on all trains and buses since early in the pandemic.
United Airlines said in a statement that, effective immediately, masks would no longer be required on domestic flights or certain international flights.
"While this means that our employees are no longer required to wear a mask – and no longer have to enforce a mask requirement for most of the flying public – they will be able to wear masks if they choose to do so, as the CDC continues to strongly recommend wearing a mask on public transit," United said.
Delta Air Lines and Alaska Airlines also made similar announcements.
The federal mask requirement for travelers was the target of months of lobbying from the airlines, which sought to kill it. The carriers argued that effective air filters on modern planes make transmission of the virus during a flight highly unlikely. Republicans in Congress also fought to kill the mandate.
Critics have seized on the fact that states have rolled back rules requiring masks in restaurants, stores and other indoor settings, and yet COVID-19 cases have fallen sharply since the omicron variant peaked in mid-January.
There have been a series of violent incidents on aircraft that have mainly been attributed to disputes over the mask-wearing requirements.
The lawsuit was filed in July 2021 by two plaintiffs and the Health Freedom Defense Fund, described in the judge's order as a nonprofit group that “opposes laws and regulations that force individuals to submit to the administration of medical products, procedures and devices against their will.”
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was not directly involved in the case but has battled against many government coronavirus requirements, praised the ruling in a statement on Twitter.
“Great to see a federal judge in Florida follow the law and reject the Biden transportation mask mandate. Both airline employees and passengers deserve to have this misery end,” DeSantis tweeted.