>> The illegal act is arbitrarily shutting down the ability to earn a livelihood.

That would be illegal, but isn't what is happening. An outright ban on all work would certainly be unconstitutional (life liberty, pursuit of happiness etc). But temporarily shutting down a business because of a virus, safety issues, lack of insurance, pollution worries, failure to pay taxes, inadequate lighting in the parking lots, to preserve a crime scene, or because the road out front needs work ... local governments close businesses all the time. So long as the reason is reasonable and the shutdown is temporary the courts will find it acceptable.

If you want to win in court, disobeying a law is generally not the best path. Musk isn't Rosa Parks. Musk doesn't have to be arrested before he can challenge the law in court. By acting like this he isn't helping his case(s). I'm sure his lawyers are pulling their hair out.

Politically, Musk is shooting himself in the foot. What if the local health department says that automotive factory workers must stay 10feet away from each other, all get respirators, get tested twice a day, and must take a month of covid safety training? Those will all be "reasonable" in the eyes of any court. That they would also kill any chance of Tesla turning a profit is political consequence of disobeying previous health orders.

> An outright ban on all work would certainly be unconstitutional (life liberty, pursuit of happiness etc).

One of those isn't in the Constitution, the other two are only protected against deprivation without due process.

> If you want to win in court, disobeying a law is generally not the best path. Musk isn't Rosa Parks. Musk doesn't have to be arrested before he can challenge the law in court. By acting like this he isn't helping his case(s).

Justice delayed is justice denied. When the courts themselves are grinding to a halt with the lockdown who knows when injunctive relief would arrive?

> I'm sure his lawyers are pulling their hair out.

Ha! With the rest of his shenanigans I’d be impressed if they have any left. The “pedo guy” episode must have caused a few Rogaine scrips.

> Politically, Musk is shooting himself in the foot. What if the local health department says that automotive factory workers must stay 10feet away from each other, all get respirators, get tested twice a day, and must take a month of covid safety training? Those will all be "reasonable" in the eyes of any court. That they would also kill any chance of Tesla turning a profit is political consequence of disobeying previous health orders.

If they target specifically Tesla with rules like that it’d be thrown out for being vindictive and targeted.

If they try to impose those type of rules on the entire State they’ll have a class action of businesses challenging them.

If rules are going to be imposed they need to be debated on facts, written by a legislative body, and signed into law. Not shot from the hip on a daily basis on the current executive’s whims.

It's uncertain whether the CA laws / orders are themselves illegal or unconstitutional. In an emergency setting like this, you have both new "rules" that are illegal, and some legal rules that are just being violated without prosecution.

I would hardly call it an arbitrary shutdown. Pandemic, ya know.

Shutting any specific sector down is pretty arbitrary. Sure Tesla brands themselves as 'luxury' but at the end of the day the people who own cars generally own them because they are essential. Every car produced is one more car on the road, no matter how much the owner pays.

Constitutional rights, ya know.

> Constitutional rights, ya know.

There is no general Constitutional right to commercial activity.

Is this a constitutional right, or just a matter of general individual liberty? Because if it's a matter of individual liberty, I think we can sacrifice some of those for the time being for the greater good of society.

I would say locking down the country violates our rights to liberty and also the pursuit of happiness.

Being dead violates our right to life.

What a ridiculous statement. You cannot enforce the Constitution on edit: acts of nature.

Exaggerated maybe but not ridiculous.

A persons right to pursue happiness does not trump other people's rights to do the same.

Willing spreading an infectious virus is not an act of nature.

Your wording of "willingly spread" is also exaggerated, and I fail to see how you equate that to a person taking the generally accepted measures to prevent the spread while in public.

Event still, this isn't HIV we're talking about here, and it will presumably be seasonal going forward. Most people who even contract this will walk away perfectly fine.

There are currently 36 million jobless claims from the shutdowns. How long be before streets everywhere become inundated with freshly homeless people? How long until people riot? When does the shutdown outweigh people's livelihood and freedom?

That's the point isn't it? Until individuals take the necessary precautions and businesses provide their employees with safe working conditions the only reasonable course of action is to limit social interaction.

The shutdown isn't a solution, it's a way to buy time and prevent things from getting worse while we adapt and find solutions.

If you want to shift the debate from whether the shutdown has merit to how long it should last then it's a matter of judging the progress being made.

As for the nature of the virus, it's certainly not as deadly as HIV but it's a lot more infectious. Most people would be fine but if half the population is infected the resulting death toll will be enormous. I wouldn't presume it will be season either, from what I can tell the consensus is that we will be dealing with this until vaccination is widespread.

> You cannot enforce the Constitution on edit: acts of nature.

You can enforce it on how a government responds to natural events, however.

That doesn't make sense. When we enforce the Constitution on the government we are demanding they recognize our rights and the structure we prescribe. "enforce it on how a government responds to natural events" doesn't change that. You're trying to pretend there's some kind of loophole where there isn't.

Liberty (as well as life and property) can be denied by a State under the Constitution if it is not done without due process (see the 14th Amendment); pursuit of happiness isn't a Constitutional right at all.

Do I have the right to not be killed by people who are illegally disregarding stay-at-home orders? Doesn't someone killing me violate my right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

I think it violates the right to liberty and pursuit of happiness in the same way forbidding the possession of nuclear warheads violates the 2nd amendment: kinda, but for the greater good.

You'd be surprised the number of people who believe nuclear warheads are protected by the second amendment. Either way, that's a fair compromise and this is not.

Would you consider it a fair compromise to require anyone within 10ft of anyone else to wear a mask?

If your answer is no, please make the same argument but replace the word 'mask' with 'pants'.

So it's okay in your opinion to curtail some constitutional rights when it makes sense to you, but not others? That's a pretty inconsistent position.

The argument being made for warheads is the same as that for staying inside: not doing so would pose an outsize danger to others. Whether I agree or disagree isn't the point personally, I'm arguing that the curtailments follow from the same basic premise and are likely legal. We'll see how it plays out.

California unemployment benefits are generous; in fact, likely more generous than wages from risking your family’s health on the factory floor.

Why shut down jobs if they can be safely done with social distancing? Preventing someone from being to exercise their freedoms and feed their family when they aren't harming others is just illogical panic.

The factory was scheduled to reopen in a week, but Elon had to start earlier, before negotiations had completed. I suspect there was a requirement or two by the county he didn’t like.

Nobody is arguing against feeding families.

Business taking insufficient safety measures pose a risk to their employees and the wider community. Due to the broad and delayed nature of the risk and the effort required to deal with it, it's not clear that business will voluntarily take the best course of action.

For the sake of protecting employees from unsafe conditions and protecting the wider community from secondary effects in a timely manner it's better to implement broad measures first and deal with the details later.

The cost of temporary unemployment is nothing compared to the cost of surpassing the capacity of healthcare services.