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Attorney General William Barr, perhaps emboldened by the hackneyed views of President Donald Trump and his followers, made a most egregious comparison recently. During an event to recognize the constitution, Barr compared suggestions of a national lockdown due to the pandemic to slavery.
CNN has more:
Addressing a Constitution Day celebration hosted by Hillsdale College, the event’s host asked Barr to explain the “constitutional hurdles for forbidding a church from meeting during Covid-19.”
The question lead Barr into a four-minute response where he said state governors were using their executive powers to stifle citizens and businesses from going back to work.
“You know, putting a national lockdown, stay at home orders, is like house arrest. Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history,” Barr said as a round of applause came from the crowd.
Of course, Barr’s response leans into the right-leaning ideologies of some Americans who believe that the nation’s tanking economy can no longer suffer at the expense of improving the public health status of all in the nation.
Further, it cements a long-running stance from Trump and other conservatives that the pandemic spread is under control despite a number of experts with no political affiliation or aspiration stating otherwise.
If that isn’t enough to rankle, Barr took a swipe at the Black Lives Matter movement ar the same event.
“They’re not interested in Black lives,” Barr said. “They’re interested in props, a small number of Blacks who are killed by police during conflicts with police, usually less than a dozen a year, who they can use as props.”
Yeah.
While Barr may have thought his comparison of a national mandate to help protect the lives of citizens to the most atrocious human rights violation in history was a clever way to get a rise out of sycophants hoping America keeps up its MAGA-like ways, Barr’s statement proves that the value of life means nothing to those who thirst and wish to remain in power.
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