So it appears that the fine folks running the state of Rhode Island have decided to pull over cars with NY plates and go house-to-house searching for NY residents. No word if they have boxcars waiting at the railyard for any New Yorkers they find.
I can’t recall ever hearing of such actions happening previously. And I can’t imagine the joy of a traffic stop where every. single. person. you pull over is from NY and you have to give them bad news. If you thought New Yorkers were jerks to each other, this will be a whole new level.
But.. this is one of dozens of things that I’m betting many of us never thought about in regards to our ideas about how to prepare for the end of the world. I suppose the savvy survivalist might pull the plates off of abandoned out-of-state cars and keep them handy for this sort of event. Certainly, my plans never included leaving the great state of Montana (we have plenty of room to social distance) so it never occurred to me that ID, WY, ND, and SD, might have folks at their borders saying ‘Yankee Montanan Go Home’. This region is also rather porous in terms of logging roads crisscrossing the hills…you might very well be able to cross into other states without ever having to have your tires hit the pavement.
On the other hand, there is a nationwide groupthink that places like MT and ID are ‘safe havens’ and people with resources are making open-ended vacations to our sleepy little region of the country. It will not end well.
I suppose that as we try to take in lessons from this whole pandemic thing, one of them will be wargaming the possibility of statewide enforced-at-the-border ‘quarantines’. Who knew? But thats really the biggest takeaway from this pandemic experience – the real-world stress-testing of our various preparations/systems/supplies/networks. Certainly, I am finding things that I need to do differently. I’ve no doubt you are as well. But, honestly, the notion of states dropping into a Balkanization mode never occurred to me. Race riots? Sure. Class warfare? Possible. State-on-state violence? Never occurred to me. Although there is a precedence about a hundred and sixty years ago with the War Of Southern Overconfidence..
I suspect in an all-out state-.gov-sponsored shooting war the guys in NY would come out on top. The NYPD alone is something like 40,000 armed guys. Factor in all the other armed city/state agencies and you’d probably be around 100,000 troops. To put that in perspective, Rhode Islands largest city is the capital, Providence, with a population of less than 180,000. Using the ratio of officers:population, NYC’s 40,000 cops for 8,000,000 people is one cop per 200 people. If Providence has that same ratio, that means their department is about 900 men. Being outgunned almost 40:1 would be rather entertaining to watch.
But, obviously that ain’t gonna happen. What will happen, no doubt, is that someone in Rhode Island is going to realize that their grocery stores, gas stations, and businesses get a lot of stuff delivered ‘just in time’ from NY and maybe it might be a good idea to consider ‘message delivered’ and rescind their order.
In survivalist fiction there is almost always that scene where some town or county establishes roadblocks ‘for protection’ to keep the non-residents out. I find it fascinating that it’s happening in real life. I guess its only a few weeks until this:
Not really new – remember the incident a few years back where the Maryland Transportation Authority copper pulled over a car with Florida plates – after following it for at least 10 minutes – with no stated traffic violation and without consent searched the car and detained the family for something like an hour – because he was ‘sure’ there had to be a gun because well Florida. The driver is a licensed concealed carrier who left his gun at home because he knew he had to travel through MD and was taking no chances with getting targeted by coppers there. Not sure how it ended up. I think he got an ‘apology’ from the state.
Florida is cracking down as well.
I can understand Rhode Island wanting to have their own Wall to keep infected New Yorkers out, but … I’m certainly not a lawyer but isn’t this unconstitutional? I murkily recall part of the Constitution including things like states can’t declare war on each other, impose tariffs on each other, etc. I thought that being a citizen of one state gave you US citizen rights in all of the others too.
Of course “emergency” so sod your Constitution…
Nobody wants papers. They’ll be putting up barricades.
Also, this will never be cop v. cop.
It’s going to be NG M240 or M2 BMG v. civilian Corolla.
Game over.
One smoking Corolla, and the whole line of cars unasses the interstate in seconds, not hours.
Also, nobody in uniform in NY is going to go to war to defend the “right” of New Yawkers to invade and infect R.I., CT, Massholia.
And those local folks will fight that horde off to the last round of ammo, and then start using fire axes and machetes.
But it’ll never get that far.
Instead, NYPD and NYSP will man barricades on their own side, and turn their own people back themselves.
That they haven’t already is an oversight soon to be corrected.
You’re worried about borders being closed and how Covid-19 is affecting people’s rights? 🤣 Give it a week and I suspect the object of your worry will have changed.
https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-MAP/0100B59S39E/index.html
The virus will eventually die out, the damage to the constitution and rights will probably last forever.
eventually die out, either below 100k deaths, below a million deaths, or above a million deaths. “We The People” could not do the right thing in order to protect “We the People”. We get what we get based on our actions. Do not blame the government, blame the people who could not get their collective heads out of their ass. “its just the flu, Bro”….yeah not really.
Mike,
Your premise is flawed in that you think China has been truthful about their response to the virus. I guess only history will tell who was right.
China locked down 70 million people and let the virus do its thing. They stopped testing everyone and just let the people die inside of the zone. There is no way a nation of 1.4 billion only had 81,000 cases and nation of 66 millions has 92,000 to date. Spain and Germany will pass “China” numbers this week.
You question the motives of the U.S. government, which you should always as a citizen, but you take what the Chinese Communist are saying as gospel!!!!
IF the refugees from New York weren’t acting terminally stupid, it wouldn’t be an issue. But when you’re running around like it’s just another holiday vs self-quarantining yourselves, you’re asking for trouble.
That said, this isn’t something that I had expected either.
On a different note, I’m waiting to see how long until there are curfews or checkpoints being discussed here in Minnesota due to too many people ignoring the isolation directives. You’re allowed to do physical activity (hiking, running etc.) as long as you maintain social distancing.
Plus there are quite a few companies classified as essential. Smart companies are already giving their employees letters to show if questioned. I’m probably responsible for my company doing the letters, lol.
On a general note, when we did some needed shopping Saturday morning we noticed that most people were keeping to themselves. Not many people smiling or chatting. Usually people around here will at least smile back at the friendlier stores like Sam’s Club. Not lately.
With all this going on, it IS definitely comforting to be able to look at a packed freezer & pantry areas. We’re still not where I’d like us to be but we’re still in much better shape then most people around us.
Steelheart
I haven’t heard of companies issuing letters, but it doesn’t surprise me.
As a federal employee, I have a copy of AG Barr’s letter to law enforcement that federal employees on official business are exempt from local restrictions. Will it be necessary? I doubt it, but who knows…
The fact that we DO still have stocked stores tells me this situation isn’t as dire as some people claim it is… when there are widespread shortages, then I’ll believe the doom and gloomers…
take it a step further to forced quarantine, and not at home where you might dash out for a six pack, too risky, they will put you in a lock down area.
Your neighbor/co-worker/fellow student/family member, etc. tested positive so we (armed agents) are taking you to a quarantine ‘camp’ on a non-voluntary basis.
Perhaps fast rate lead poisoning will be the new threat.
2 weeks ago in Kentucky, a Covid positive man refused to stay home, so they posted officers outside his house to keep him there… there are not enough officers to do that widely, so it is more likely that they’ll put people in easy to secure locations.
We’ve finally gotten 3 cases in my town over the last 2 days and true to thickheaded denial at its finest our 4 page local rag refuses to report on it because, reportedly, it “reflects negatively on the town, would hurt businesses (most have so far ignored the governor’s shutdown order), and might incite panic”… LORD save us from politically correct idiots, morons, fools, and lemmings…
Rant Off. Stay Healthy
Like every scifi story I have ever read. This never ends well.
Come ON people. THINK!
LOL CZ! Good tip on the spare plates!
As much as we might like to think we’re “prepared for anything”…..
You’re NEVER really prepared for anything because you just don’t really know what that means. Sure we are prepared for many things, beyond that do the best we can. It reminds me of Heartbreak Ridge – “…adapt and overcome.” At one point in the movie the company steals all of Gunnies shirts so he HAS TO WEAR the same one his company is wearing – they adapted and overcame his constant workout trickery.
Are you adaptable and able to deal with “fluid” situations? Or does the slighted change in the normal function of society give you ulcers and make you want to pull the covers over your head?
Persevere.
This discussion reminds me of Tom Clancy’s Executive Orders where Iran uses Ebola to attack the US – all state borders are closed with the National Guard.
It is later declared unconstitutional but also works to stop the spread…
I hate actions in the name of expediency…
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves” (William Pitt).
The reality is they are finding NYers in RI and telling them to self quarantine, which still means they can go out for basic necessities. They are also turning away people trying to rent vacation rental property quite a few places on the east coast. That has been done by the beach resorts, not by govt order. We’re not to doomer fiction yet with the blue helmet UN troops taking over.
No disrespect to nu yawkers & the peeps of Rhode island but if the rest of the states just sort of encourage it a bit they’ll escalate this into an all out confrontation with all the illegal guns, if they tried hard enough maybe they could include merryland and cornicutt maybe even get mass-ah-chu-shits involved…. Wipe each other out for once and for all, good riddance, I see it as a win win for the rest of the country……It’s all right we’ll survive……… no worries !!
I work at Lowes in Western NC, and my employer gave all the employees a printout-for-to-give-the-polizei-if-stopped to show along with our employee cards to prove we have a legitimate reason for being on the road.
OTOH, I notice that our supposed shutdown doesn’t actually stop people from getting their essential flowers and mulch when the weather is good, so I expect that the police are not actually doing much to stop people what doing what they want.
Home Depot here in Louisiana, I work part time in the hardware department, business still steady.