SALLY MORRIS: A CHRISTMAS STORY
Another Christmas . . . another Christmas story.
Some of you remember last winter, where almost every business was shutdown in Minneosta. Minnesota residents were warned not to even spend time with their friends or families over the holidays. “Covid”, you know. The flu.
Many businesses simply folded under the weight of these shutdowns. I was deeply saddened to see two restaurants which had supported me financially close forever. One of them, where I played my last gig prior to the so-called “pandemic”, on Valentine’s Day of 2020, in Thief River Falls closed and will never reopen. Another here in East Grand Forks, where I had played professionally for eight consecutive years every holiday and every weekend also closed. For a time it looked like a pet business might open in the location but as of today, nothing ever has. Many restaurants closed.
I don’t know about you, but I have had enough of the distinction of “essential” businesses vs other businesses. Every business is “essential” to the people who own it and operate it, to the people who work there and we might as well throw in their customers. If there weren’t a need for a business it wouldn’t be there in the first place. To consider one business “essential” while another is not just makes no sense and it is not legal either. We can’t be doing this. It leaves our society at risk of some sort of “Sheriff of Nottingham” type of selective prosecution.
One such instance from last year finally made its way through court. Lisa Hanson, owner of a small business in southern Minnesota, refused to shut down her restaurant. Remember that in Minnesota, as in most – if not all – states the governor is not a law-making body. Our laws must be made by our state legislature. Governor Walz, however, under the delusion that he could simply send forth decrees as though he were Richard III, announced that people’s freedom to operate or visit a restaurant in Minnesota was to be “illegal”. On his say-so. Ms Hanson and a few others did not recognize this aberration of Walz’s as a “law”. The upshot was that AG Keith Ellison decided she was being uppity and threw the book at her.
Apparently, Hanson, the small business owner, represented herself in court. A jury of six found her guilty of “breaking the law”. The judge, Joseph Bueltel, scolded her, saying that she put “making money” ahead of “public safety”. How much more of this are we going to be willing to listen to? Since when is earning a living and employing people some sort of crime? Since when is “public safety” served by isolating people in their homes – away from family and friends, held hostage to the whims of a lawless governor? No lives were saved by shutting down businesses. On the contrary, lives have been harmed and some destroyed by these senseless shutdowns. No one should have complied with them. If we stopped complying they would stop inventing them. They would be unable to prosecute them if we stopped bowing to them.
In Hanson’s case, the tiny-minded, self-satisfied six who convicted her of whatever it was, are sending this small-town entrepreneur, this grandmother, to prison for 90 days, where she can spend Christmas and New Year’s figuring out how to pay off her legal bills. We shall see whether her business even survives – it survived “covid”. Now, will it survive the legal system?
If anyone ever stops to wonder why Minnesota is deteriorating, you can point to this type of “leadership”. Currently, Minnesota ranks 46th in terms of economic outlook, according to “Rich States, Poor States”. One would think with the natural and human resources available in this state that we would find Minnesota nearer the top than the bottom, but this is why politics and policy matter.
If the people of Minnesota do not buck up and kick this government out pretty soon we will look like Minneapolis throughout the state. Minnesota is developing a lousy reputation, let’s face it. We are known in this state for tolerating, no, encouraging violence in our metro areas, for a deranged governor and other top state officials, for an absolute disconnect with anything or anyone who is in the least productive, for pioneering CRT in our public schools (Edina was one of the notable firsts in this) and for shutting down peaceful business owners, accusing them of “wanting to make money”. Shocking. Imagine a business “wanting to make money” - in this case purveying food and wine to paying customers.
Well, last year, Walz did his best to out-do the Grinch. This year he is upping his game with the help of a lazy legislature that would rather someone else just do the dirty work rather than risk being accused of sacrificing “public safety”, and a criminal class running the Attorney General’s office here. Let us get the word out far and wide that this needs to stop – it needs to be stopped by the people.
Look at it this way. We have a Constitution. It was hard won and it has been defended with the blood, sweat and tears of generations of American heroes. It guarantees our freedom – our freedom to pursue our goals, to earn a living, to enjoy the fruits of our labor, to speak freely, to assemble. It is never “okay” to suspend our Constitutional rights – not for anything. We have come to accept the word “emergency” to cover just about anything some authoritarian wants it to. There could be rare times when it might be legitimate to interrupt these freedoms on a very strictly temporary basis. Let’s say an invasion of our northern border by Chinese soldiers (they do train there, you know), until we figure out where they are and what they are doing so we can stop them. Another might be a natural disaster such as a major flood or wildfire. None of the possible reasons may be used to occasion more than a very, very short and temporary suspension of these normal rights. Any other construction of this doctrine would result in permanent cancellation of our rights, our Constitution. This was never the intent and we must not accept it.
In the case of Minnesota’s constitution, there is no right established for the governor to make laws. None of these shutdowns could possibly be considered to be for an “emergency”. It was laughable. I saw a local restaurant featured on a national outlet – its customers were huddled inside of little camping tents that resembled igloos (in more ways than one), breathing on each other in a confined space, trying to keep warm. But it was “legal” because they were outside. Inside it was warm and people could have sat at tables at normal distances from one another, but no. In Minnesota over the winter holidays, customers were sitting cramped around a tiny heater with a tiny light, in order to support such businesses as tried to even be open to this extent. Shame on the state government, the police who enforce this nonsense, the businesses which “comply”. I think the word of the year should be “comply” and that is not a compliment to the year.
We absolutely need to stop complying. We need to stand up and defend the rights that were won and passed on to us by our betters. We need to change this picture in the coming year. We can start with replacing Ellison as AG. Doug Wardlow is running for Minnesota Attorney General and deserves our support.
https://www.action4liberty.com/judge_sentences_lisa_hanson?utm_campaign=lisa_hanson_is_in_jail&utm_medium=email&utm_source=action4liberty
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