<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal>> <b>On Behalf Of </b>SR Ballard via extropy-chat<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] you'll never see this again<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>My state, Texas, a “red” state, has just mandated masks outdoors for everyone who lives in a county with more than 20 active cases. So basically everything except for west texas, if we’re not counting El Paso.<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>With enough pressure, even the most Republican governors will do what it takes to get re-elected. They just have to be pushed. That’s politics as it currently is in the States, like it or not. <o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>SR Ballard<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><br><br><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>Hi SR, you as a citizen are not legally obligated to follow the governor’s orders. See Amendment 10, Bill of Rights. What the TX governor did is recommend or suggest the wearing of masks. Business owners may refuse to allow entry to those not wearing masks. The governor may not demand wearing masks, for the constitution does not reserve that right to state governors.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>There is a reason why I am watching these kinds of stories very carefully. It is astonishing to me when I hear how many Californians ask if there isn’t a law requiring me to wear a mask outdoors. I must remind them that only the state legislature can pass laws, and ours didn’t, nor did the Texas legislature.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>A crisis is not an opportunity for a government to seize powers it does not have. Orwell pointed out so very well in his classic Nineteen Eighty Four that if government can seize power during a crisis, it will arrange for a crisis and seize power.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>I love Texas. You Texans have the best food in the entire world. It must be illegal to have a restaurant with bad food there, for I never found one the whole time I was on business trips there. I discovered there is no need to ask colleagues for good restaurants: that’s the only kind you have there.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>spike<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>