GOV. Tom Wolfe and his henchman, Health Secretary Dr. Richard Levine (aka “Rachel”), have apparently pushed their luck. Forcing many businesses to shut down just days before Christmas, when they were already crippled by months of closure, is not being accepted with the same passivity as their previous unconstitutional actions.

Dr. Richard Levine

Dozens of restaurants and gyms, more joining every day, are defying their latest orders to close down to all indoor business. A Facebook group Pennsylvania Opening Businesses/Defying Governor’s Orders has 50,000 members. As Natalie Wilhelm, owner of Jean Louis Bistro in Lebanon, wrote:

We shut down the first time but we simply cannot shut down a second time due to the huge hit it’s taken on our restaurant and staff who need to provide for their families as well. So happy to see so many others standing up and fighting back as well.

Wolf’s orders came months after a federal court declared his previous restrictions unconstitutional. Judge William Stickman IV’s decision is currently being appealed, but it was emphatic in its denunciation of the government’s actions. Stickman wrote:

[G]ood intentions toward a laudable end are not alone enough to uphold governmental action against a constitutional challenge. Indeed, the greatest threats to our system of constitutional liberties may arise when the ends are laudable, and the intent is good—especially in a time of emergency. In an emergency, even a vigilant public may let down its guard over its constitutional liberties only to find that liberties, once relinquished, are hard to recoup and that restrictions—while expedient in the face of an emergency situation—may persist long after immediate danger has passed.

Restaurant lives matter.

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