I cleared a copse of bamboo from my backyard this week, and when I tried to drop it off at the county dump, I was told I wasn’t allowed to thanks to Maryland’s stay-at-home rules. I have much more bamboo than I can fit in all my bins/baskets/buckets, so I wanted to do a dump run today and use curbside pickup for the rest tomorrow. Not allowed.
Here’s the thing: Driving bamboo stalks from my house to Rockville and dumping it at a very, very spaced transfer station poses no possible risk of spreading the coronavirus. When I pressed the governor’s spokesman on this yesterday, he pointed to Gov. Larry Hogan’s stay-at-home order and its exemptions for “essential” activities.
(Had I instead hired a crew of gardeners to clear my bamboo, the state would have allowed them to dump it. I doubt this is safer.)
It’s great that Maryland's stay-at-home order exempts essential activities. Why doesn’t it exempt perfectly safe activities?
When trying to minimize the odds of spreading the coronavirus, policymakers should think of a balancing scale with two sides.
On one side is the essentialness of the activity. Now, there’s plenty to argue about here. Maryland, for instance, considered physical health and thus allows outside exercise. Maryland, however, didn't consider mental health by allowing other recreational activities such as fishing. But set aside the debate over what’s essential — that shouldn’t be the only question.
The other side of the scale should be: How likely is the activity to spread the virus if one of the participants is infected?
So a very dangerous activity (grocery shopping is pretty dangerous for the clerks) ought to be allowed only if it is very “essential.”
On the flip side, a less “essential” activity ought to be allowed as long as it is not really dangerous. And if a state thinks attending church on Easter is trivial, it ought to at least grant that a bunch of people worshiping in their cars poses a threat of infection so small as to be trivial.
State governments are currently restricting our freedom for the supposed goal of stopping the spread of the virus. I’m fine with that. My family hasn’t been within 6 feet of any other family in over a month. This is a deadly and highly contagious virus, and I’m trying to do my part to not spread it.
But when the government prohibits me from partaking in activities that cannot spread the virus, then it looks like it's restricting my freedom for the sake of exercising power. These restrictions are more about making me stay at home than they are about keeping me away from other people.
In California, a paddleboarder was busted for breaking the rules. A solo guy reading on a bench was busted in D.C.
And now in Ohio and Michigan, protests against these restrictions are getting heated. In Michigan, the governor is trying to keep her citizens from retreating to their country homes.
Detroit News columnist Nolan Finley put it this way:
"Whitmer had the support of the people of Michigan when her orders were perceived as rational and necessary to prevent the rapid spread of COVID-19. Michigan is one of the hardest hit states, and most of us are willing to accept very painful measures to defeat the virus.
"But when the lockdown became arbitrary and capricious, when the edicts began to feel punitive and vindictive, when they took on the aura of a police state, the people dug in. If they're going to give up their paychecks and stay locked in their homes, they want the restrictions to make sense.
"They understand the difference between reasonable precautions and control for control's sake.
"Too much of what Whitmer is doing is indefensible. You can ride in a rowboat, but if you attach a motor to it, you're subject to a $1,000 fine. You can stop at Home Depot for a can of Lysol, but if you swing by the garden department for a potted plant, you're breaking the law."
"But when the lockdown became arbitrary and capricious, when the edicts began to feel punitive and vindictive, when they took on the aura of a police state, the people dug in. If they're going to give up their paychecks and stay locked in their homes, they want the restrictions to make sense.
"They understand the difference between reasonable precautions and control for control's sake.
"Too much of what Whitmer is doing is indefensible. You can ride in a rowboat, but if you attach a motor to it, you're subject to a $1,000 fine. You can stop at Home Depot for a can of Lysol, but if you swing by the garden department for a potted plant, you're breaking the law."
And the governor’s liberal defenders responded by saying, in effect, “What you want to do is trivial, so I don’t care about your arguments that it is safe.”
But people don’t think of liberty as trivial. If our liberty is taken away, even the liberty to do something Barb McQuade or Gov. Gretchen Whitmer might think isn’t important, we want a very good reason.
There’s a very good reason to shut down men’s basketball leagues. There’s a very good reason to bar in-person, indoor church services. Both of these activities can very easily spread the virus.
But fishing on a bank or taking out your motorboat? Those are perfectly safe — if what you’re worried about is actually the virus.
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