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Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Jo Jorgensen on lockdowns

Jo Jorgensen was the 2000 Libertarian Party candidate for VPOTUS, and the 2020 Libertarian Party candidate for POTUS. The following is from her 2020 campaign website:

Dr. Jo Jorgensen pledges to sue states for unconstitutional lockdowns that harm low and middle-income families | Jo20.com

"Democrats like Joe Biden constantly promise to harm the wealthy for the benefit of low and middle-income families. But so-called income inequality was actually falling between 2016 and 2019, according to a report by the Federal Reserve. In fact, low-income families gained the most, and high-income families gained the least. But now this progress has stalled. Why? Because of the COVID-19 shutdowns, most of which were illegal.

"As President, I would use the Attorney General’s office to sue state and local officials who impose COVID-19 mandates. Such mandates violate the 14th Amendment, which says 'nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”'The shutdowns were dictated by governors without due process. That makes them unconstitutional acts of aggression. Some court rulings have already confirmed those, others have disagreed, and some are still pending. I would add the weight of the federal Executive Branch to these cases."

https://jo20.com/dr-jo-jorgensen-pledges-to-sue-states-for-unconstitutional-lockdowns-that-harm-low-and-middle-income-families/

UPDATE, January 3 - I have expanded the page by adding part of an interview NPR did with Jorgensen in May.

Libertarians Name 2020 Candidate: Meet Jo Jorgensen | NPR

May 30, 2020 - "After four days of online campaigning and speechmaking, the Libertarian Party has selected its nominee. NPR's Scott Simon speaks to Jorgensen, an activist who teaches psychology at Clemson University....

SCOTT SIMON, HOST: The Libertarian Party has nominated their candidates for president and vice president online. Jo Jorgensen, a party activist who teaches psychology at Clemson University, is the 2020 Libertarian candidate for president. She joins us now from Greenville, S.C. Dr. Jorgensen, thanks so much for being with us.... You've been critical of the federal government's response to the coronavirus crisis. What would a Libertarian administration do?

JORGENSEN: Well, the Libertarian administration first wouldn't have put everybody under house arrest. We believe in individual freedom and that people should be able to go about their lives as they choose. And I'd like to point out that part of the problem that we had is that people weren't tested to know if they were contagious or not, if they had the virus or not. If people who had the virus knew they had the virus, then they would have been able to know to stay home or not go about their daily lives. But the people who are healthy or who have already had the flu let the economy go on and don't destroy the economy in the process.

SIMON: I want to follow up on your use of the phrase house arrest. I doubt any governor or mayor who declared that people should stay at home would consider that to be house arrest.

JORGENSEN: People who want to go out and go about their daily business felt like it. And in fact, I know here in South Carolina, I was told I could only leave the house to go to work, medical emergencies and other things. And within my city, if there were more than three people outside, then there was a possibility that we would either be fined $100 or that we would go to jail.

SIMON: But isn't - in the middle of a pandemic, isn't that just wise?

JORGENSEN: Of course, it's wise to stay at home during a pandemic, especially if you've got other conditions. My problem, though, is that the government is the one who decided it and not the individual person. And in fact, when they did a survey - what? - maybe about a month ago and they asked people, should we be opening up the economy, something like 60 to 80% of the people said no, it's too soon. We should still stay at home. OK, so that just shows that people have enough common sense to stay at home without the government telling them to.

SIMON: There are now more than 40 million unemployed people in the United States. You have opposed, I gather, the stimulus bills that have been passed to provide unemployment benefits and other forms of relief. Why?

JORGENSEN: Because what we're doing is we're letting the bureaucrats spend the money how they want to. And it's going to the large corporations and not often to the people who need it. So I say that private charity always works best. What happens when you give money to the government, and let's say they don't spend it wisely? Nothing happens. Taxes get raised, but it's not like people get fired. There is absolutely no accountability. And one of the things that brought me into the Libertarian Party is the idea of voluntary cooperation, of how people working together can do a better job.

SIMON: But when 40 million people are unemployed virtually at once, I mean, how can you begin to raise the amount of charitable capital? Particularly, by the way, I believe one of the stories we keep doing is that individual donations are way down because 40 million people are out of work.

JORGENSEN: Right. Well, don't forget, if the government hadn't shut down the economy, people wouldn't have lost their jobs in the first place. So this is typical where the government breaks your leg and then thinks that you should be grateful that you're getting a crutch from them. If the government doesn't break your leg to begin with, you don't need the crutch.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2020/05/30/866059206/libertarians-name-2020-candidate-meet-jo-jorgensen

Also read: Libertarians oppose all the mandates

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