Only COVID-19 will win if Cameron is successful in fight to eliminate regulations
Earlier this month, Attorney General Daniel Cameron brought a motion before Boone Circuit Court to end every COVID-19 rule and restriction put in place by Governor Andy Beshear and prevent the governor from issuing new rules. This action is a disgrace to health experts and everyday Kentuckians, and it will almost certainly hurt everyone if he is successful.
One particular law the attorney general seems to take issue with is the governor’s recent mask mandate, which would require Kentuckians to wear a mask in public places. The debate over masks is downright ridiculous. Masks have been shown to decrease the transmission of COVID-19, but it will only work if most people are wearing them in public. The attorney general would like to make this a constitutional issue, claiming that requiring people to wear masks is a violation of their rights. Our rights are not so absolute that we can put others in danger. You cannot shout “fire” in a crowded theater as that expression of your freedom of speech would put others in danger. Similarly, we are required to wear our seatbelts when we drive, not just for our own safety but for the safety of others as well. Would the attorney general be willing to argue that seatbelts are unconstitutional and a violation of our rights? Masks are a collective action that we take to protect each other. If one person fails to wear a mask during this pandemic, they put others at a higher risk. By mandating masks, the governor was creating a safety requirement to protect everyone. To assert that requiring mask usage is just too much to ask in the middle of a pandemic is a slap in the face of reason.
The attorney general would also like to stop restrictions on businesses, churches, and gatherings. No one will deny that small businesses in particular have been hit hard by this pandemic, but do not expect the situation to improve by removing all rules. By blocking the rules, the Kentucky outbreak will likely be prolonged, dealing more damage to these businesses in the long run. On Twitter, the attorney general insisted that the governor should be “collaborating with elected leaders from both parties to make sure that COVID-19 restrictions balance public health with the law,” but has the governor really violated that balance? The current rules allow most businesses to operate at 50 percent capacity provided that social distancing is enforced; they also allowed houses of worship to operate at 50 percent capacity. The governor has even allowed for resuming visitation to nursing homes, a source of a large proportion of the deaths in Kentucky. Do these actions sound like those of an overreaching tyrant?
The fact that the attorney general is so willing to gamble the lives of Kentuckians as a political stunt should be disturbing to everyone, regardless of political ideology. It is frankly astonishing that after seeing the results of having no rules in Florida, the attorney general has decided that this is the path on which we should be traveling. If he is successful, the only beneficiary will be COVID-19.
Aidan O’Brien is a UK political science student.