I will admit my discomfort with the equivalation of physical law with culture.  
 Our laws are a mechanism for maintaining stability.  When everything is 
collapsing then our laws have limited utility.  Physical laws trump human law.
There’s no great foresight in, say, predicting a Trump win or some cynical 
resolution of the pandemic.   I sent all the money I could to Hillary Clinton 
precisely because I could see the menacing possibility of a Trump win.   Anyone 
that’s been in this country, and not been wearing rose-colored glasses can see 
there many people that are disgusting and shortsighted.  Stopping them is an 
ongoing struggle.  Accommodating them is exactly the wrong thing to do.  
There’s no NP-hard problem to sort out to reach this conclusion.
Marcus
From: Friam <[email protected]> on behalf of "[email protected]" 
<[email protected]>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 9:21 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Wisconsin stay-at-home (safer at home) order overturned

Interesting, EricC.

Maddow had the governor on last night and he treated it as a complete 
renunciation of his authority.  “It’s the Wild West out there”, he said.  As he 
presented it, the only resolution was for him to agree with the legislature on 
laws to govern the situation.

Hmmmmm!

N

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/


From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2020 10:14 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Wisconsin stay-at-home (safer at home) order overturned

The news coverage of this has been odd. The order is definitely not countering 
a "governor's stay-at-home order", which is what I see most people saying. The 
governor took emergency powers, made a few orders directly, and then instructed 
the Health Secretary to take the lead on state-wide response. The Health 
Secretary then issued several orders under her own signatory authority, only 
one of which was challenged (Order 28). The ruling is that that particular 
order was so broad and general as to count as executive branch rule making, 
which has its own set of rules, including a period of time for review by the 
legislature.

Full decision:
https://evers.wi.gov/Documents/COVID19/EMO28-SaferAtHome.pdf

From the opinion of the court, paragraph 1:
This case is about the assertion of power by one unelected official, Andrea 
Palm, and her order to all people within Wisconsin to remain in their homes, 
not to travel and to close all businesses that she declares are not "essential" 
in Emergency Order 28. Palm says that failure to obey Order 28 subjects the 
transgressor to imprisonment for 30 days, a $250 fine or both. This case is not 
about Governor Tony Evers' Emergency Order or the powers of the Governor.

From paragraph 7:
On April 16, 2020, Palm issued Emergency Order 28, also titled "Safer at Home 
Order." This order was not issued by the Governor, nor did it rely on the 
Governor's emergency declaration. Rather, it relied solely on "the authority 
vested in [Andrea Palm, Department of Health Services Secretary-designee] by 
the Laws of the State, including but not limited to [Wis. Stat. §] 252.02(3), 
(4), and (6)." Emergency Order 28 commands all individuals in Wisconsin "to 
stay at home or at their place of residence" with certain limited exceptions 
approved by Palm or risk punishment "by up to 30 days imprisonment, or up to 
$250 fine, or both." 8 Order 28 also:
* Prohibits "[a]ll forms of travel" except what Palm deems essential.
* Orders "[a]ll for-profit and non-profit businesses" to "cease all activities" 
except for minimum operations that Palm deemed basic.
* Prohibits "[a]ll public and private gatherings of any number" "not part of a 
single household."
* Declares that all public and private K-12 schools "shall remain closed" for 
the remainder of the year.
* Declares that libraries shall remain closed for "all inperson services."
* Declares all "public amusement and activity" places closed regardless of 
whether "indoors or outdoors" except golf courses (with restrictions). The 
order says "Driving ranges and miniature golf must remain closed."
* Continues the ordered closure of all salons and spas.
* Continues the closure of every restaurant and bar except for take-out or 
delivery service.
* Orders religious groups to limit gatherings to "fewer than 10 people in a 
room" including weddings and funerals.
* Imposes a six-foot social distancing requirement for any person not "residing 
in a single living unit or household."





On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 10:55 AM Steven A Smith 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

Friammers -

Mary's daughter, who lives in Wisconsin alerted us to the big court-decision 
overturning the governor's stay-at-home order:

https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/wisconsin-supreme-court-strikes-down-stay-at-home-order/article_fd2be344-666f-5437-8955-f5cd9ae17a50.html

In a concurring opinion, Kelly said the court’s decision hinged on determining 
the extent of Palm’s authority, not whether her emergency order was a good idea.

“The order may be a brilliantly conceived and executed response to COVID-19,” 
Kelly said. “Either way, that is not the question before the court.”
I'm (nicely?) split on issues like this and I think this last quote really says 
a lot.   I understand that 2 or more counties immediately issued their own 
"safer at home" order matching the one repealed at the state level.   I'm not 
clear on whether a similar "overreach of authority" will ultimately be decided 
against those.

Anecdotally, in the meantime, many bars have opened and apparently many patrons 
have returned (without masks and not observing social distancing guidelines).

This seems like a good test bed of some of the assumptions behind Dave's 
"prophecy".   Will the (if we believe in the germ theory and network 
transmission) uptick in cases resulting from this lead to a continuation of the 
pandemic (or "pandemic" if we prefer to believe the only uncontrolled growth is 
in hysterical media coverage and hypochondria).   The best case (and one I 
mostly hope for) might be if the subset of the WI population who now disregard 
the (former) rules is small enough and insular (only infecting one another) 
enough and/or the herd immunity has grown enough (highest estimates in places 
like NYC I think are still down as low as 20% out of the believed 70% required 
to bring R0 below 1.0 w/o masks/social-distance measures?).

Given that the courts may well be accurate in their interpretation of the 
limits to the governor's powers, I would expect a domino of challenges across 
republican-majority courts in other states, and a subsequent surge in the 
unrestricted opening of businesses and events.

I find a bit of cognitive/emotional/spiritual dissonance in trying to hold all 
three of the following in my head/heart/soul at the same time:

  1.  The rule of law is important in our society and if a governor does not 
have the right to shut down as hard as some have, then that needs to be 
acknowledged and reversed.
  2.  There is a lot of evidence suggesting that like Kelly above is quoted 
that "the order may be a brilliantly conceived and executed response... " and 
that reversing it in fact as well as in law may well yield a significant 
increase in R0 in those states (and among states who have significant mixing 
*with* those states), possibly putting us back close to where we were in late 
March.
  3.  I don't like the idea of telling others what to do (wholesale), nor being 
told what to do (specifically), but I also recognize that we do not live 
isolated, solitary lives, and "what we do matters".  My threshold on accepting 
secondary and tertiary consequences may be above "helmet and seatbelt laws" but 
below "measures to suppress epidemic spread of deadly disease".   But how does 
that jive with my threshold for accepting "limits to personal agency and 
volition"?

These are indeed, interesting times, and as with the basis of Dave's prophecy, 
"only time will tell"...  and with Glen's "put a pin in it", I just hope we 
keep track and pay attention to how well our prophecies/projections/forecasts 
play out.

- Steve
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