You Do Not Have the “Right” to Infect Others

From Cherokee County, NC:

Here is a sample of the 4’x8’ signs with reflective letters that will be going up at Cherokee County’s main entrances alerting part time residents of the 14 day self quarantine and notification to the Health Department. Part time residents are expected to bring 14 days of supplies with them if planning on coming into county.

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Jefferson’s Definition of Rightful Liberty:

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

HB-19’s Definition of Righful Liberty as it pertains to a quarantine:

You have a right to your opinion and actions concerning your personal response to the HB-19 epidemic in this state according to the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others not to be infected by your dumbassery.

Concerning the above sign.

The sign and text come from a Facebook post on April 3, 2020 on WKRK. You can imagine the divisive comments for the post.

  1. For those who believe this violates the Constitution, I can only say that you have no understanding of State’s right.
  2. For those who believe that people should not have to undergo a quarantine as the county requires, you represent the epitome of selfishness. You do not have a “right” to come for a vacation, visit or infect people as you like. You do have a duty to prove that you are not contagious in the midst of an epidemic here which is a worldwide pandemic. Again see the definition of HB-19 rightful liberty above.
  3. The true quarantine period should be 21 days at a minimum. This virus have been shown to be contagious on surfaces for up to 27 days.
  4. For those who are presenting an argument that this is illegal, please explain why. Since when does acting responsibly at any time constitute an illegal act? Since this request is not an actual law, how is it illegal?
  5. For those who are presenting strawman arguments to make a point, you are just showing your ignorance.

Context:

The 10 people (8 officially, 1 dead) people infected in Cherokee County come from a New York resident who went to a large gathering for a contra dance at the John C. Campbell Folk School. If this is incorrect, let me know. The New York and Illinois residents infected here are not included in our NC state total.

What should be done? All roads into the county should have roadblocks or manned checkpoints. Cherokee County does not have the medical resources to address an outbreak. We do not want to be in the same situation as another small town outside of Charlotte which as of 4/3/20 has 18 cases of HB-19 with 2 in ICU. They are looking for space to put portable morgues. Does anyone really want to justify having relatives “visit” for Easter and taking a weekend trip to the mountains in these times?

Based on the comments in the WKRK post, what now has become the “other side” believe they are the entitled class. Their perceived “rights” supersede states’ request to voluntarily self-quarantine. The county’s request is not based in law and involves no fines. They are hopeful that people will respect the impact of possibly infecting their neighbors.

I am using this time to evaluate people’s character in the future. Why? The answer is your greatest fear: loss of the rule of law leading to civil unrest. I pray to God for people to understand the severity of this plague. I pray to God for people to respect the lives of their fellow countrymen.

David DeGerolamo

    
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Andy
Andy
4 years ago

Well, not much I can add to that, except that this absolutely demonstrates the importance of states’ rights, and even the rights of individual counties… this will indeed give our full-time and our part-time neighbors the opportunity to show their true colors. We are doing everything possible to not be part of the problem (not going out except for the pharmacy), not seeing anyone, wearing a mask in the pharmacy drive-through, etc. We PLANNED for something like this. It is not OUR fault that so few others did, which is really astonishing since 2008 was not that long ago. Thanks for posting David.

papa
papa
4 years ago

LARP’ing and cognitive disodence come to mind after reading this post.

John Alward
John Alward
4 years ago

Since we don’t have the right to infect anybody, I guess there needs to be a lock-down every time somebody gets a cold or the flu. Please don’t discuss the seriousness of the China virus because in terms of death colds and flu kill people even more. It simply goes back to what Benjamin Franklin said about trading liberty for safety and security.

John Alward
John Alward
4 years ago
Reply to  DRenegade

You see the number of current dead is the number you gave and then you said it’s actually a lot higher. Talk about flawed logic. If it’s higher than what is it? You do realize that even if the unfortunate happen and 300,000 people died as a result of China virus, that would still be one tenth of 1% of the population. While my heart would break and bleed for those who lost family members, it’s still does not constitute a crisis in terms of the population. It is painfully obvious you just like quote statistics and be critical of people’s comments because you like to read what you wrote.

John Alward
John Alward
4 years ago
Reply to  DRenegade

You’ve taken 6 Masters level biology courses? So what? I’m a truck driver with 142 IQ. So what does that prove? Nothing. But I can tell you is the Draconian levels of quarantine that have been taken are absurd. There’s nothing constitutional about it. End of story. The best thing the government could have done is require the wearing of masks and let life go on. Keeping people in their homes at the risk of trashing the economy is a total knee jerk reaction fomented by the mainstream media and its hatred of President Trump. That, coupled with the lies from the stinking filthy rotten maggot-infested Chinese Communist propaganda arm, here we are….