Where Are the Lawsuits Against Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti?

“Much of the security of person and property in modern nations is the effect of manners and opinion rather than law.” – John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy

 In 2002 smoking was banned inside New York City restaurants and bars. Wise minds can dispute whether or not the ban made sense, and whether or not Mayor Bloomberg violated property rights, but for at least one NYC restaurant mogul, the ban was superfluous. Danny Meyer had banned smoking in his restaurants twelve years earlier.

Meyer did so for a variety of reasons, including his belief that wafting smoke ruined the dining experiences for non-smokers. As he explained it in his very excellent 2008 book Setting the Table, “It’s my opinion that you can do anything you want in your own place of business. I didn’t need a law.” Amen!

It’s all a reminder that most laws are excess. We adults are free to eat candy and ice cream to our heart’s content, but most of us don’t for a variety of reasons; many of them health and wellness related. The lethal drug PCP is illegal, but even if it weren’t, it’s safe to say that usage wouldn’t increase on account of jail not being a consequence of possession or usage. Even though theft of a neighbor’s property would have us in jail, fear of jail isn’t what keeps most of us from thieving. It’s just not what good people do.

Which brings us to the Coronavirus discussion, and the tragically aggressive, arguably unconstitutional response to the virus by politicians on the local, state and national level that has revealed itself in the shutdown of major parts of the U.S. economy. Why isn’t there more outrage about this?

Worse is that even those who think it crucial that Americans be allowed to get back to work, like the usually excellent John Cochrane, have made allowances for a response by politicians that made millions redundant, will destroy untold amounts of businesses, and will drive poverty up in ways that will almost certainly be much more detrimental to individual health than the virus itself. In Cochrane’s own words, “governors had to call a sudden economic stop to get a handle on an out-of-control situation.” Really? Why?

If we ignore endless amounts of analysis like that of Stanford professors Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya, which indicates that “estimates about the coronavirus fatality rate may be too high by orders of magnitude,” why are free thinkers like Cochrane so willing to forgive forceful actions from politicians that brutalize the economic present and future of so many? Interesting is that even Bendavid and Bhattacharya feel these actions by politicians would have been justified if what they don’t believe to be true were in fact true: “that the novel coronavirus would kill millions without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines.” Really? And once again, why do the professors along with Cochrane believe as they do?

Would they need a law, or a decree from a politician, to keep them from doing that which could kill them? Absent Governor Newsom’s shelter-in-place policies in California where Cochrane, Bendavid and Bhattacharya reside, would the three scholars have been out and about, utterly uncaring about a virus that threatened their lives? The question answers itself.

So with it fairly certain that Cochrane et al would have responded to the virus threat with a fair bit of caution, is their point that others not part of the brilliant Stanford/Hoover Institution ecosystem lack their life-elongating couth such that they need their hands held? Is it laws that keep America’s most populous state largely death free, or do people broadly get it?

To which they may reply that the novel coronavirus is different, that it’s invisible, that the invisibility of it represents a threat unlike others on a day-to-day basis. To which some might respond, precisely. And precisely because the virus brought and brings with it invisible qualities, those who would prefer to live would be extra careful. And assuming Cochrane et al don’t trust those outside their world to take extra care, the scholars might individually exceed any “shelter-in-place” rules given their fear about what the others would do.

Of course, some, as Cochrane et al seem to allude, would ignore all decrees from scientists, Stanford professors, and politicians no matter what. True, but then these things happen every day as evidenced by how individuals make all manner of poor choices when it comes to their health, well-being and future. Applied to the coronavirus, those who ignore all reason would perhaps contract the virus, or perhaps they wouldn’t, they would perhaps die or perhaps they would just go mildly ill, but even those who turn their nose up to what the scholars and politicians deem reason would, by acting freely, provide crucial, health enhancing information useful to us all.

All of which brings us to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s decision to shut off water and power to all “nonessential” businesses in Los Angeles that haven’t closed. Well, of course. This is what politicians always do. They always overreach, only to turn a problem into an economy-crushing crisis. Though one would guess Cochrane, Bendavid and Bhattacharya wouldn’t countenance Garcetti’s sick-inducing actions, these are the kinds of tragedies that present themselves any time the prominent in our midst accept political overreach for “others” seemingly not as wise as them. It manifests itself in what’s happening in Los Angeles whereby a mere politician, allegedly a servant to Los Angelenos, can strip away their livelihoods and life’s work in the most ghoulish of ways. Where’s the outrage?

Better yet, why isn’t an allegedly pro-business Trump administration throwing every kind of Fifth Amendment “takings clause” lawsuit its DOJ can imagine at Garcetti, and every other politician so ghastly as to trash the ability of the “others” to make a living? Do they, and do the academics who support their enforcement of a “sudden economic stop,” really think so little of the others that they need to be watched like children so that they don’t harm themselves?

Oh well, here’s your chance Mr. Trump. With your re-election chances perhaps compromised by a contraction foisted on the American people care of a political class you’re broadly part of, here’s your chance to take a stand for reason, property rights, economic freedom, and the obvious truth that we don’t need a law. Garcetti’s actions require shaming in the most vivid and public of ways. Better yet, stopping Eric Garcetti might save you.