A.G. Gancarski
Gov. Ron DeSantis has committed to a phased reopening of the state, but the Speaker of the House demands quicker action, in a continued tweet onslaught railing government overreach.
Rep. Jose Oliva, a Miami Lakes Republican, tweeted Wednesday that “we are past the limit of acceptable government intervention in a free society.”
“We measure Covid cases but who is measuring the wide spread destruction of people’s personal and financial lives? We must understand this response will not be available to leaders next year. What then?”
Worth noting are the myriad ways government does measure economic impacts including job and earnings reports as well as unemployment claims tracking.
The latest blast from Oliva is well-timed, just before the Governor and other leaders plan another COVID-19 press conference, this one at the Miami Dolphins’ stadium.
Speaker Oliva, more so than any other state leader, has rallied against overly intrusive government in the coronavirus sphere for a number of weeks now.
A daily email from the Speaker’s Office often has included links to published pieces that have excoriated governmental responses to coronavirus.
In late April, he included an editorial from the conservative religious journal First Things.
“Our entire ruling class, which united behind catastrophism and the untested methods of mass shutdown, is implicated in the unfolding fiasco,” the editorial contended.
“We’ve been stampeded into a regime of social control that is unprecedented in our history. Our economy has been shattered. Ordinary people have been terrorized by death-infused propaganda designed to motivate obedience to the limits on free movement. We have been reduced to life as medical subjects in our condition of self-quarantine.”
The Speaker included a link to a Washington Times piece with similar sentiments in Wednesday’s missive.
“What is not seen are all the lives lost to the restrictions being placed on the people — the careers destroyed, the damage from students not being in school, the damage to people who have spent decades building businesses that are now being destroyed by government mandate, the psychological damage from people being cooped up and unable to have normal human interactions with friends, family, business colleagues or even dating, etc. What price do we put on the loss of freedom?”
The Speaker, in comments to media during Session and before the coronavirus restrictions that happened just after Sine Die, often expressed concern over outsized governmental response.
He clearly has not seen anything in the last two months to change his mind.
4 comments
DisplacedCTYankee
May 6, 2020 at 9:52 am
Yes, government is “over intrusive.” All those danged libraries and interstate highways and Social Security and Medicare for old farts and public schools that don’t teach that the Earth is 6,000 years old. And so on.
Fuck you, Oliva.
Ed
May 6, 2020 at 10:08 am
Go back to CT and take your stupid political ideas back up there with you. It is idiots like you that have ruined this state by moving here and still voting for socialist policies that ruined CT. just leave Florida idiot.
DisplacedCTYankee
May 6, 2020 at 10:25 am
OK, Ed, and I’ll take the concept of “air conditioning” back with me. Let’s see how long you patriots live without a.c.
Glenn Reihing
May 6, 2020 at 10:43 am
As a 30 yr. ER nurse, I see the “tail wagging the dog” on this fiasco.
First, the crack ““we are past the limit of acceptable government intervention in a free society.” by the Speaker. I would like to remind him that one of the State and Federal Government’s responsibilities is to provide for the general welfare of its citizens. This includes public health.
Remember you can’t spend money if you’re dead. What’s worst is that sooner or later all those hospital bills are going to come due. Now if you’re unemployed and there is no job on the horizon because businesses have folded, who is going to pay the bill?? That is what they are contemplating as well.
Those quotes that Speaker Olivia pointed to like ““Our entire ruling class, which united behind catastrophism and the untested methods of mass shutdown, is implicated in the unfolding fiasco,” was interesting.
The untested methods of mass shutdown was probably pointed at the self-quarantining provision. What the author fails to mention is that IT WORKS. Take a look at how New York was able to flatten the curve. Remember we self-quarantine not to eradicate the disease, but to slow the spread in order not to overwhelm our hospital system.
If you don’t think that is true, then keep an eye on the system now that we are opening up.
To call these people “our ruling class” mocks the fact that these people are our ELECTED leaders (we’ll talk about gerrymandering another day, ok??).
One last thing. We have no control over a highly contagious virus that has the ability to mutate into something more powerful (which it is doing) or change its symptomology in order to attack in other ways (like the Kawasaki’s-like symptoms showing up in children). It is going to affect all of us at one time or another in some form.
We DO have control over the health and financial aspects that this disease may bring. We can monitor it through transparent reporting of the health statistics, accurate and accessible disease testing, and public health involvement to those affected.
We can control the financial aspects through smart and pragmatic legislative decisions on the economics facing us. Even if this means that some of us are going to have to put our ideology to the side in order to work for the greater good.
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