From the right: ‘Authoritarian’ Corona Rules
The coronavirus pandemic is “an urgent public-health concern,” but it doesn’t excuse “stay-at-home orders enforceable by criminal law,” which DC, Virginia and Maryland issued Monday, following other states — and which, The Washington Examiner’s Tom Rogan writes, are “patently authoritarian.” While it’s “appropriate” for governments to “advise their citizens strongly to remain at home,” “enforce bans on large gatherings” and “use mandatory stay-at-home orders” in “the worst-hit areas such as New York,” strident “stay-at-home orders bound to criminal sanction should not stand.” Fighting the crisis “cannot come at the expense of the most basic constitutional rights,” including “the right to assemble peacefully.”
Urban beat: Time To Rethink Closing Rikers
New York City released some inmates “at high risk of serious complications associated with COVID-19” and is debating whether to discharge more — a choice, City Journal’s Rafael Mangual observes, that “exposes” a problem city leaders “contributed to by shrinking jail capacity so drastically over the last several years.” Even while “the jail population” has decreased, “detainees are still sleeping 40 to a room.” That’s dangerous: Studies show overcrowding “presents a host of challenges in correctional settings beyond disease control,” including higher assault and recidivism rates and increased violence and suicide. So, policymakers: “Rather than proceed with the current ‘Close Rikers’ plan,” which “will surely result not only in more dangerous criminals on the street but also more crowded jails,” let’s “change course — and give city inmates more breathing room.”
Conservative jurist: Beyond Originalism
It’s become “all but mandatory” for legal conservatives to support the theory of originalism — but, Harvard Law prof Adrian Vermeule dissents at The Atlantic, that theory has prevented “the development of a robust, substantively conservative approach to constitutional law and interpretation.” Instead of originalism, conservatives should “imagine a substantive moral constitutionalism,” in which judges read “moral principles” that benefit “the common good” out of the “majestic generalities and ambiguities of the written Constitution.” Judges need “a candid willingness to ‘legislate morality,’ ” letting go of “libertarian assumptions” on everything from abortion to “free-speech ideology.” Originalism has “done useful work,” Vermeule concedes, but it should “give way to a new confidence in authoritative rule for the common good.”
Pandemic watch: Trump’s Sixth Sense
President Trump’s “idiosyncratic sixth sense has come in handy” during the coronavirus crisis, especially his “strident distrust of China,” Victor Davis Hanson argues at American Greatness. “The country is united in its furor at China — even if it is giving no credit to Trump for being years ahead of where it is now,” he notes. There’s no longer a “debate over the evils of ‘protectionism’ and ‘nationalism,’ but rather over how quickly and effectively the US can return the manufacturing of key medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, strategically vital technologies and rare-earth metals to American shores.” Trump’s “suspicions about China and globalization,” “distrust of bureaucratic regulations” and “promotion of the interests of farmers and frackers” have “eased the implementation of many of his most effective orders during this crisis.”
Political scientist: Time for Virtual Conventions
While many businesses “may be open and operating by July,” the political parties probably won’t be able to host “massive” conventions, Lara Brown notes at The Hill. Instead of fretting about these political events, which “aren’t that interesting to most Americans” anyway, parties should use the opportunity to start “streaming programming of politicians and party delegates convening online” and “interactive conversations with the party’s rising stars,” engaging more Americans. “They could even schedule live musical acts to join in the online festivities from empty concert halls.” If they’re “successful at energizing more of the public this summer,” we could ditch traditional conventions for good. “Whichever party best adapts to this fraught environment will win in November.”
— Compiled by Karl Salzmann & Kelly Jane Torrance