Bill allows cops warrantless entry, detention

If mrs.hogdogs can't detain me nor force a vaccine in me... no sorry health official that ain't cooking my meals has a chance...:D
Brent
 
The eternal dilemma

Public safety vs. personal rights.

It is scary, reading the proposed law, for the potential civil rights abuses it contains. But, understand that if we have a major outbreak of a deadly disease (read pandemic, as the word plague is no longer in vogue), these kinds of measures will be taken. And they will be justified, and legal. Abuses will happen. People will suffer needlessly. Don't kid yourself. It can happen here.

And the justification is actually rational. The Constitution, and the laws of our land are not a suicide pact. Individual rights will be trampled and ignored by frightened people in and out of goverment. Expect it, if we have an actual plague.

The thing we need to guard against, is the overzealous declaration of plague/pandemic, by the health community, triggering the extreme reaction of govenment, for the public good.

Too many people will be too quick to claim the end is here, and these measures must be taken. And, while, if the projected scenario does occur, these measures will need to be taken, we must determine, in advance where the trigger level is.

A few deaths? A few hundred? Or do we wait for a few thousand? Knowing that a few thousand can turn into a few hundred thousand nearly overnight, if extreme measures are not taken in time?

We are a nation of over 300 million people. What level of infection, what level of mortailty should be the limit where we push the panic button?

And, are doctors, or medical bureaucrats the ones to decide? Or political appointees? No easy answers, but the time to ask the questions is now, not when response is needed. If we wait till then, it will be too late.
 
It's important that we put these things in context. We need to recognize that regular flu kill 36,000/year. If this law applies to an outbreak that has the potential to kill 36,000/year or less, then the 4th Amendment had just been repealed because the regular flu virus does that already.

I agree with 44 AMP that the Constitution is not a suicide pact and that suitable precautions should be taken. At the same time, we should be careful not to be easily panicked by exaggerated news reports that we give up our 4th Amendment rights.
 
Some have the fear that the swine flu will be a reenactment of the Spanish flu of 1918. There are similarities. Read about it here.

http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/

So they want to be prepared this time.

However, the potential for abuse and the state overreaching its power is very worrisome also. I wonder if they're exploiting the potential epidemic as an excuse to make a power grab. (Not that Massachusetts would exercise too much power over its citizens. :rolleyes:)
 
Where's the ACLU when legislation like this is written?? They strongly protest anything that might infringe on civil liberties. Certainly this does.
 
I agree with 44 AMP that the government can, in the event of some catastrophic plague, take some actions that may later be called unconstitutional. The difference, of course, is that the Constitution does not take into account the extraordinary circumstances of a fast moving disease.

With that said... the H1N1 "swine flu" virus ain't it. The latest info I heard on the 1918 "spanish flue" outbreak is that a good many of "healthy young men" who died also had early stages of Turberculosis (TB) - probably exposed here or abroad during WW-I.¹ TB was more common at that time.

The hard question will be deciding when such actions are truely warranted.

People worried about the spread of the H1N1 in Mexico. But it turned out to be relatively harmless. The other danger is a deliberate infection with a virus used as a pretext for seizing more control. That may sound a little far fetched, but it's less wild than the Bush/WTC implosion theories.


¹ A study in the last 10 years revealed the presence of TB in a high percentage of cases, using samples of lung tissues taken from bodies exhumed with family or military permission.
 
I could only get through a moment or two of the original video...

Sorry for Massachusetts problems.

VOTE THEM ALL OUT!

If it looks like a ****...
If it smellls like a ****...
If it tastes like a ****...
Your FAULT!
 
I don't think the "swine flu" will be as much of a problem as the media has painted it out to be. A friend's kid had a confirmed case (confirmed by local physician after fever onset), and it didn't look that bad even in a 12 year old kid. She had some fever with some brief HIGH fever and the other usual flu symptoms; in a week she was fine. She did take the medication prescribed by the diagnosing physician. What surprised me was that nobody else in the house contracted it, not her mother, not her brother, nobody. They didn't isolate the kid in a bubble or anything either. Honestly, i was almost hoping i did catch it from my friend or her house, just to avoid having it in the winter season.

I have wondered if there was some reason the media was making it sound so horrible, other than ratings.

It would be a mistake to surrender our rights in the face of a bad national cold, IMO.
 
It looks like H1N1 is contagious as all get out.
But try getting an answer of what happens if you get it.
The worst scenario I heard was it was like getting anyother strain of flu and make less intense.

Will it kill some people, sure.
But so does the common cold.

I have very deep suspicions about all the "sky is falling" talk.

AFS
 
I think we should all be very concerned about this flu.If it is as bad as the experts say,I truly believe that the government should be able to quarantine a person that has it.I don't like my rights infringed upon,but I would rather have my rights temporarily stepped upon than have some asshat running around infecting everyone.I am glad at least there is some kind of plan if things get nasty.
Now that I have said this,I am now prepared for the flames and what ifs.The Spanish Flu in 1918 killed millions world wide including out fighting men.I read that the flu killed more soldiers than bullets did.
 
We aren't declaring a crisis over the number of traffic deaths per year.

We aren't declaring a crisis over the number of regular flu deaths per year.

We aren't declaring a crisis over the number of drownings per year.

I don't see a reason to declare a crisis for H1N1, when its mortality rate is estimated to be so low. 2.3% of people who contract it, die from it, in India. Dirty, filthy, bathe in cow poop stagnant Ganges water... India.

The mortality rate in the western world is below 0.5%.

Eat your vitamins. Wash your hands.

Even if EVERYBODY in my neighborhood caught H1N1, only 1 person would actually die from it.

Not worth quarantines, martial law, loss of civil liberties, travel restrictions and all the other stuff.
 
pbear...
This strain of flu is far less harmful to the populace as the regular flu we see every year. Yet millions of infected folks go to work and school knowing they carry a potentially lethal infection that kills 36,000 per year!
I stand by my initial post on this topic!
My wife works for the Florida dept. of health and the suggested precautions are minor compared to so many other infections... HECK, try to find out how many of cases of TB has been treated around these parts spread by illegal immigrants working in restaurants...
Brent
 
I'm really torn on this one. If we look back on the history of HIV/AIDS we see what happens when government put a right to mingle with the uninfected and to continue to have sex with the uninfected over public safety. Let's avoid any bashing here, the gay community has been the primary victim of this policy. If you look back at the history the original carrier that brought it to the US was identified before he had ever had a chance to spread the disease in this country. The decision was made to let him go about his business. In this case it was a bad move and he made a conscious decision to spread the disease as far and wide as possible (later admitted). The result was an epidemic. States made a further decision to loosen laws requiring reporting of STDs and made it illegal for health professionals to report and trace the source of the disease the way other STDs were traced. It became the first disease in US history who's spread was protected by law. My point is that this is PC gone wild and I'd hate to protect the spread of a 1918 like flu in the same way that our government has protected the spread of HIV. I think that there is a need to remand anyone infected with a deadly disease to their home, and into custody if they refuse to remain home. There have to be safeguards but the power needs to be there. But that does not mean enter a home without a warrant.
 
My dad's oldest brother died in the 1918 pandemic. What killed him was not the flu, but pneumonia following the flu. I would remind everybody that pneumonia is much more treatable now than in 1918, and one must wonder how many folks died in that pandemic of secondary infections. My dad and one of his brothers recovered from it. So, some died and some didn't. Also, we don't know how many of the deaths were from secondary infections like the one that killed my uncle.
 
I think that there is a need to remand anyone infected with a deadly disease to their home, and into custody if they refuse to remain home. There have to be safeguards but the power needs to be there. But that does not mean enter a home without a warrant.
Click to expand...

Ahh, I see, so, no entering a home without a warrant, just simply arrest, and incarcerate them without the benefit of due process, well, that seems much more sensible :rolleyes:

WAKE UP !

Exploiting the Swine Flu hype seems to be a trend now.
Click to expand...

And that is exactly what this is, the exploitation of a relatively minor infection, that can be prevented by washing your hands more often, the panic is amusingly ridiculous, kinda makes you forget all the other issues we face at the moment eh !?
 
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Ahh, I see, so, no entering a home without a warrant, just simply arrest, and incarcerate them without the benefit of due process, well, that seems much more sensible
Click to expand...
So if someone is firing wildly into a school would you say don't stop him until after the grand jury comes back with an indictment or the police get a court order for him to stop? Wait for due process?

If someone is sick and isolates themselves that's a good thing and in most cases should be left alone. However if someone has a deadly and easily communicable disease and insists on spreading it then they are at least as deadly as the nut taking target practice at a school because each person that they infect will infect others and so on and so on. In my opinion anyone with a deadly communicable disease should be isolated immediately and if the isolation is involuntary then a court hearing should be held within 3 business days to order the infected person isolated until safe.

However the current flu does not fall into that category.
 
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