Left's Complaints Against Gorsuch Proves They're Anti-Liberty

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch made a rare statement last week scorching local and federal government overreach in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic, calling it perhaps our "greatest intrusions on civil liberties."

But the left’s response to Gorsuch, if anything, makes his case for him.

On Thursday the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in Arizona v. Mayorkas, a case that challenged the Biden administration’s decision to end Title 42 restrictions on migrants attempting to enter the United States.

Title 42 was but one of a plethora of responses coming from the White House and state executive mansions, rather than from Congress and state legislatures, where they should have begun.

"Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country. Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale," Gorsuch said, and then listed a number of draconian measures.

At the federal level, for example, agencies:

• Regulated landlord-tenant relations nationwide
• Issued a vaccination mandate for most working Americans
• Threatened to fire noncompliant employees
• Warned that service members who refused to vaccinate might face dishonorable discharge and confinement

"Along the way, it seems federal officials may have pressured social-media companies to suppress information about pandemic policies with which they disagreed," Gorsuch added.

But state and local measures were even more restrictive, including:

• Imposing lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes
• Shuttering businesses and schools, public and private
• Closing churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to operate
• Threatening violators with civil and criminal sanctions
• Surveilling church parking lots, recording license plates, and issuing notices warning that attendance at even outdoor services meeting all state social-distancing and hygiene requirements could amount to criminal conduct

Gorsuch cautioned that "rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving all of us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow."

And when government discovers it can violate civil liberties for a brief period, it’ll be more inclined to do so the next time, and the next. And eventually "Liberty, once lost, is lost forever," as John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail.

Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser believed the COVID restrictions were minor when compared to slavery and Jim Crow laws, and asked, "Could someone please give this profoundly ignorant man one (1) book on slavery or Jim Crow?"

But that doesn’t bode well for Democrats; both policies were confined to southern, Democratic-held states.

Then Millhiser brought up a more recent example.

“My hot take for today is that rounding up Japanese Americans and sending them to concentration camps was actually a much worse intrusion on civil liberties than telling people to mitigate the spread of the deadliest disease to emerge in the last century,” he argued.

But Gorsuch clearly referred to peacetime restrictions; this occurred during World War II. And it was a program promoted by President Franklin Roosevelt, another Democrat.

Then he threw in the Trail of Tears, an ethnic cleansing program directed at five Native American tribes. It was begun in 1830 during the administration of Andrew Jackson, yet another Democrat.

But in addition to being Democratic policies, they all affected a relatively small percentage of the population. COVID policies affected everyone except one class: politicians and their staff.

That’s not to say that the COVID lockdowns and mandates didn’t accomplish anything.

Reading and math skills plummeted while teen suicide attempts surged.

Cancer cases went undiagnosed, and we saw delays and disruptions in the treatment of diagnosed cancer cases. Half of infant immunizations were missed.

An estimated quarter million child abuse cases went unreported, and we saw a rise in fentynal overdoses.

Now for some recent history:

In 2016 former President Obama nominated then-U.S. Circuit Judge Merrick Garland to fill the Supreme Court seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

But because it was the last year of Obama’s term and the Senate and White House were controlled by different parties, the Senate declined to confirm the appointment per Senate tradition.

The following year Donald Trump was sworn into office, and he appointed Gorsuch to fill that seat.

Since then Garland, now as Biden’s attorney general, has promoted many of the administration’s restrictions on liberty — especially First Amendment freedom of expression.

Garland has also targeted Catholics, those who are anti-abortion, and moms speaking out at school board meetings.

And the FBI, which works under the jurisdiction of Garland’s Justice Department, was recently busted for abusing the rights of Americans more than 278,000 times — Americans who were simply exercising their First Amendment liberties.

Once government finds it can restrict liberty to address an emergency, it will always find an emergency to restrict a liberty.

And it’s not just Americans who take a hit. America suffers as well.

Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.