Simon Says You May Take Off Your Mask

U.S. district judge’s ruling finally catches the CDC on its political gamesmanship.

Americans spent the last two years losing at Simon Says. A federal judge in Florida won the game by correctly recognizing nobody said “Simon says” before telling us all to mask up before boarding planes, trains, and Uber-mobiles. U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle ruled earlier this week that “the mask mandate exceeds the CDC’s statutory authority.” She did not ask, “Who elected these faceless bureaucrats?” But in calling the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s imposition of rules on transportation “arbitrary” and “capricious,” and highlighting its failure to properly promulgate and explain the rules, Judge Mizelle essentially ruled, “Never said ‘Simon Says.’” When legislatures duly elected by the people pass laws signed by, or overriding the veto of, an executive, laws exist that citizens must follow under penalty — just as a player must touch his nose when Simon says or face the consequences. When an elected executive, an official appointed by an elected executive, or a bureaucrat who merely passed a civil service examination declares an activity illegal, one should behave as though nobody said, “Simon Says.” To do otherwise encourages unfair play, which in real life off the playground amounts to usurpation. Power-hungry people in government imagined that the spread of a disease meant the rules of a republic no longer applied. Throughout the pandemic, the president, governors, mayors, the CDC, and public health commissioners issued decrees as though carrying the force of law. Law comes from the consent of the governed through majorities in legislative bodies. Some guy saying something somewhere does not make a law. Did coronavirus kill our understanding of grade-school civics, too? Federal, state, and local government took their cues from that Brooklyn subway rider who, weeks before the U.S. reached 100 COVID deaths, sprayed an Asian straphanger with Febreze on the N-train. In other words, they acted dictatorially and irrationally in response to ...