letter to city council 8-19-2020 Public Comment from Daniel Manson8-17-2020 386
Vlt
Thank you Mayor and city council members for the opportunity to address you here tonight. I
would like to talk a little bit about civil liberties and the state of emergency we are under,
state, county, city. Will this ever end? What is the criteria for lifting the emergency status?
Remember we were told, give us 15 days? What is it now, 150 plus? I don't see the mask going
away, Joe Bidden wants a Federal mandate for mask wearing to last 3 months. I won't comply,
I don't now.
Don't let the mask become a muzzle.
Did any of you get the chance to read Julie Martins write-up in the Daily Interlake? Wow -what
a well written op-ed. I'm personally sick and tired of being demonized because I stand on
principle. When will this City Council or the County Commissioners stand on the principles of
Liberty and rescind the emergency declaration? There is plenty of data available now to prove
the lockdowns and mask wearing are not effective.
How many businesses have to go belly -up, some of them generational?
How many suicides, elderly folks dying alone in nursing home -including my father, before we
realize that a magnitude of deaths greater than the virus are not worth it?
The UN is warning that 265 million people may starve to death by the end of this year, not
from Covid-19, from governments shutting down the whole worlds' economies.
Civil liberties are guarantees that governments commit not to abridge, either by legislation or
judicial interpretation, without due process. Civil liberties may include the freedom of
conscience, freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of
assembly, freedom of speech, right to privacy, right to equal treatment under the law. The
right to a fair trial, the right to life, the right to own property, the right to defend oneself, and
the right to bodily integrity.
As I speak, we are bumping up against the next flu season, and this scares me. Where are the
men and women of conviction that will stand on the principles of liberty? Because there is a
City -County Health Officer that wields dictatorial power given to them by Montana Code
Annotated 50-2-118, we basically have none of the rights I listed. While the MCA 50-2-118
may have been on the books since 1967, the full force and effect wasn't known until this year.
As George Washington said "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is FORCE; like
fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to
irresponsible action."