The United States cannot turn the page after what happened with the government’s great reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That’s Tuesday’s message at a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee hearing titled “Freedom, Tyranny and Accountability: COVID-19 and the Constitution. “
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said the government’s reaction to the pandemic has triggered “some of the greatest competitive encroachments on freedom [that] Americans have experienced. “
The Texas Republican, who chairs the Constitution and Limited Government subcommittee, laid out a long list of repercussions of the official reaction to the pandemic, adding up to trillions of dollars spent, losses of tasks and business, loss of acceptance in public fitness. civil servants and general damage to society.
An “apology” from institutions that have failed American society is enough and will replace the irreparable damage done to the country, Roy said.
“Our rights deserve not to be negotiated. No matter how hard they try to replace the theme or rewrite history, we will never have to do what they did to us,” he said. “We will never have to fall victim to another government science experiment again. “
Harmeet Dhillon, a constitutional lawyer and founder and executive director of the Center for American Freedom, explained to lawmakers how the guardrails of the U. S. Constitution were damaged in the pandemic’s call for protection, which originated in China.
He said the greatest risk to American civil rights in his lifetime resulted from the “use of the so-called COVID emergency to eviscerate America’s highest constitutional and beloved freedoms. “
Under the guise of a public health emergency, government officials have resorted to unlimited executive decisions to “govern and limit each and every facet of our lives,” Dhillon said.
He said those moves were not strictly tailored or based on credible science.
“The government closed our schools, closed our places of worship, destroyed our small businesses, criminalized our free speech, banned travel, kept us away from our loved ones in the most desperate hours, and even shut down Orange County’s beaches and skate parks. Dhillon said, referring to California’s jurisdiction.
He said elected officials from both parties have engaged in an unprecedented restriction of freedoms in the United States. Congress will now have to read up on what happened during the pandemic and make sure history doesn’t repeat itself, Dhillon added.
Beanie Geoghegan, co-founder of the organization Freedom in Education and a visiting scholar at the Independent Women’s Forum, explained how the lockdowns have derailed the schooling of countless young Americans, adding that of her son.
Geoghegan explained how K-12 students have suffered loss and other social ills due to the prolonged closures imposed on schools.
“Public schools have sent many functionally illiterate young people into the workforce or the world of higher education, woefully ill-prepared to thrive or flourish,” he said in a written statement. “Today, too many young people, especially young people, do not feel in a position to take on the day-to-day jobs of adults or the demanding situations of university life. “
Geoghegan also said the way forward is to praise schools that have failed, but offer parents other features to educate their children.
“The solution to this challenge was and continues to be to allow families, not the government, to decide what the most productive learning environment is for their children,” she said in her written testimony. “Families who had this choice during the COVID-19 pandemic most commonly immune to those consequences, as their schools remained open or reopened much faster than public schools. “
This segment has been corrected to reflect the subcommittee that organized the hearing and is chaired by Rep. Chip Roy.
Jarrett Stepman is a columnist for The Daily Signal and is also the author of the e-book “The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past. “Envoyer un email à Jarrett
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