NY Gov. Cuomo Wants 4,000 'Social Distancing' Police Force Invading NYC Restaurants

P. Gardner Goldsmith | September 4, 2020
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Somewhere in a small, colonial-era village in New York State, there’s a rarely-trod section of town, and in it, lies a tiny, cobblestone alley. On that alley, hidden in perpetual shadow as if behind a curtain of London fog, is a small, rarely visited, poorly lit antique shop. And in that shop, stashed in a distant, dusty corner, on a 19th Century roll-top desk, and among yellowed copies of “The Old Farmer’s Almanac,” is a once-understood, long-disregarded, document called “the US Constitution."

Within that are all the so-called “powers” claimed by the feds, and the Amendments, including the Bill of Rights, which James Madison and others insisted be included due to their worry that federal monsters and state politicians might try to claim even more “power” over people.

Someone might want to buy that long-abused, oft-forgotten document and give it to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

As Reason’s Christian Britschgi explains, High Lord Andrew swept into a press call yesterday to tell reporters that, though the he’s graciously allowed restaurants in the rest of the state to admit patrons inside at “half-capacity” and anti-socially seated six-feet apart, he won’t allow it in New York City until he sees 4,000 more police officers shifted from other roles or added to the public employee roster (and to that completely a-political police union in NY state) in order to enforce his capacity and “distancing” mandates.

Isn’t that nice?

Writes Britschgi:

’We're going to contact the Speaker today and say if New York City can say this many police, NYPD, can be put on a task force to monitor the compliance, that is something we can discuss,’ Cuomo said during his press call today, suggesting that 4,000 officers would be needed to police indoor dining establishments.

All of which brings a few thoughts to mind.

First, one wonders if Mr. Cuomo will direct some criticism at his friend, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for her evident, flagrantly elitist, breach of San Francisco “pandemic” rules when she got her hair styled on August 31, or her vile subsequent claim of her diktat-breach being a “set up” by the salon owner. How dare she risk the health of the planet by engaging in voluntary contact and voluntary contract with others?!

On a deeper level, one wonders if Commander Cuomo will bother thinking about the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits police – or “inspectors” – from entering private property unless they have obtained warrants from judges. These would be warrants citing the person to be searched, and the item or items sought by the agents of the state – warrants required by the Founders in their “rule book” as a direct result of their anger over the British government breaching their private property rights in the 1760s and 1770s.

The superficial side of the “controversy” stems from Cuomo “allowing” dining in New York city as long as it’s outside, spaced the way he likes… Notes Britschgi:

Restaurants are allowed to open for outdoor dining in New York City, but can only serve alcohol to seated patrons who've also ordered a meal, per a July executive order from Cuomo.

And, of course, Cuomo won’t budge unless he sees more cops shifted from possible crime prevention and moved to the Bib-Brigade, invading private dining establishments no one is forced to enter and the safety levels of which people can adjudge for themselves.

And those cops will be paid, in part, through taxes extracted from the owners of those restaurants.

Is this the plot of a “Godfather” film? The violence inherent in Cuomo’s expressed desire to tell private business owners, voluntary clients, and employees how they will live is not just as bad as the old Sicilian Mafia, it’s worse. At least the mob doesn’t strut around claiming moral superiority.

Cuomo’s supercilious moralizing and screeching screeds about federal funds and the need for more tax cash to pamper him and his political parasites is a dish too rich to touch. His self-congratulatory appearances, his thuggish threats directed at peaceful business owners, offered even as he assigns COVID19-positive New Yorkers to NURSING HOMES, have become too much to handle.

It would be beneficial to everyone alive today, and to future generations in NY state and elsewhere, if he got away from the public limelight, sat down beside that dusty copy of the Constitution, and read it.

His dictates and directives indicate that he’s woefully unfamiliar with its supposed rules.

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