COVID19, Law, Religion

Cain, Abel and Covid19. Are We Our Brother’s Keeper?

adraper

And the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother? And he said, "I do not know: am I my brother's keeper?" Someone on Facebook posted something I disagreed with the other day. I know what you're saying, "That happens to me all...the...time!" And I'm sort of glad it does! Posts I disagree with give my brain more exercise than posts I agree with. Sometimes I lie awake at night going over aspects of my argument in my head. For the most part, these resemble conversations with myself. Me: "There is no way that you have to be either a dog person OR a cat person. What if you just love all animals? Other Me: "That's just a false dilemma!" (A false dilemma is usually characterized by "either this or that" language but can also be recognized by an omission of choices.) The post that got me thinking the other day went something like this: "I can't believe that

people think we should be responsible for the health of others!"Poster on Facebook who lives in a vacuum. (Note: not the cleaning kind) The rant continued longer than this and there was of course the necessary pre-rant warning. But what the poster eventually expressed was that she didn't think she should have to wear a mask. If she transmitted Covid19 to someone else it wasn't her fault they got sick. The government was making her wear a mask in order to protect OTHERS from getting a virus. And the poster acted like this was the first time in her life (she's in her 40's) that she had ever encountered such a concept in America. It made me wonder if the poster had ever heard of laws against driving under the influence. Sure, that law is to protect the drunken fool from smashing up their car and themselves. But it is mostly meant to protect the family of four with the…

Black Lives Matter, Law Enforcement, Politics, Religion

White Privilege — according to a White guy.

adraper

I am white. And I benefit from white privilege. Before I wrote this, I spent a lot of time soul searching trying to decide how I felt about it. I know that some of you will have a knee jerk reaction to this — especially if you're white. I know you aren't used to being defined by your race or singled out because of it. I also know that you will probably bristle at the word privilege. Privilege makes it sound like we are part of high society, that we've never had struggles and misfortunes or that we've always been treated fairly. Privilege in this sense doesn't mean any of those things. Some in the media purposely confuse privilege to mean you haven't worked hard or earned the accomplishments you've made. They use privilege to mean that everything's come easy to you. I have struggled with my health - I get CT scans for cancer every several months. I have

struggled economically - due to health reasons I lost my business, laid off my employees and had to declare bankruptcy. I have struggled socially with personal relationships - I am divorced. Many Whites in my boat would probably say, "Hell man, if there's one thing my life ain't - it's privileged." And they'd be right. But I still benefit from white privilege. I don't feel guilty for being White. I also don't feel guilty for benefiting from white privilege and neither should you. I'm not here to race shame you. My goal is to help you understand, as I have understood, some ways that I have it easier because of the color of my skin. For those of you who are still feeling defensive, how about instead of acting like we gain a privilege for being White, let's frame the argument in a different way — Blacks lose privileges for being Black. In this way we avoid discussing it as…

Constitution, Law, Politics, Religion

Who says the government can infringe upon your rights? The Constitution.

adraper

Recently, I've been reading about people who say it's unconstitutional for the government to infringe upon their rights. I'm nearing the end of my third year of law school and am in my Constitutional Law class right now preparing for an upcoming final. The cases that form the precedent for how we evaluate when and how the federal and state government can infringe upon our rights are fascinating and a great read. But the facts are that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and the Supreme Court is tasked with interpreting the Constitution. Nobody else. This is why their case law is so important - it's how you learn how they interpret the Constitution. In an analysis to determine if the government (here the State government) can infringe upon a right, you must first determine what kind of right is being infringed upon. (We'll leave religion out of this analysis because the Free Exercise of Religion and

the Establishment Clause have another type of analysis.) The right that is being infringed upon is the right to work, to go outside, to hang out with family and friends in gatherings, etc. This is a liberty right and it is considered a fundamental right. A fundamental right is one that is deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty such that neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed. This is important because in order to infringe upon a fundamental right, the government must pass the highest and most stringent standard of judicial review. This standard is called strict scrutiny. In order for a government to infringe upon the rights stated above, they must meet ALL of the following elements:1. The ordinance or law is necessary in order to achieve a "compelling state interest";2. The law or ordinance is "narrowly tailored" to achieving this compelling purpose; and3. That the…