While there are politicians and leaders on both sides of the aisle behaving badly during the Chinese virus pandemic, Democrat leaders are taking advantage of the Chinese virus to impose martial law and unnecessarily restrict the movement and association of individuals at sometimes alarming levels.

In the nation’s capitol, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser recently threatened to arrest residents who leave their homes while simultaneously  working to release prisoners in the District.

Also in the swamp, rather than assisting the nation during an emergency crisis, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi felt it was more important to form a committee to investigate Trump’s response to the virus.

We have seen Democrats outlaw the sale of guns and ammunition during a national emergency, ban the gathering of private parties, block possible life-saving drugs in certain states, arrest pastors, block public fishing access, set up roadblocks at state borders, close public beaches, basketball courts, public parks and other ridiculous and totalitarian edicts.

It is important that we avoid crowds and isolate ourselves if the data being reported on the virus is true, which, as it turns out, is a lot harder than it ought to be. However, stripping the Constitutional rights of Americans and treating citizens like toddlers is not the answer.

If individual adults believe—for whatever reason—that they want to attend a church service or a private party, they have the individual right to do so, even if it puts them in danger. It’s called individual sovereignty. After all, there isn’t an American anywhere who has not been schooled on the dangers of the man-made virus.

Although most of us concur that it is prudent to wear a seat belt and not engage in other risky behaviors, the nanny state refuses to cut the apron strings and allow people in a free country to act according to the law and as they see fit.

I don’t want or need governors or mayors making decisions I should be making for myself. The argument from the left to those who don’t comply with their orders is that noncompliance endangers others.

But barring those who are acting maliciously, like intentionally coughing and spitting on others, this is rather a weak argument.

For example, you aren’t endangering others on a beach if the other individuals on the beach also decided, after weighing the risk of being infected with the Chinese virus, chose to come anyway. Same for private gatherings on private property.

I can understand the temporary closing of state government offices, schools and other public institutions and even densely packed cities with a high number of cases, but banning people from all public spaces while allowing mega-stores such as Walmart to remain open as a living, breathing Petri dish defies logic.

Also defying logic is New York Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Caroline Maloney, who thought it was a wonderful idea to overturn decades-old legislation restricting gay and bisexual men from donating blood during a pandemic.

Meanwhile, in New York as in other liberal cities, dangerous prisoners are being released from jail, such as rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine who plead guilty to nine charges, including conspiracy to murder and armed robbery.

This upstanding citizen will not be serving the rest of his prison sentence behind bars after requesting to be released to home to avoid contracting the Chinese virus because he is classed as a vulnerable inmate.

While law abiding citizens can be arrested and fined for leaving their homes, criminals are set free, and in Seattle they are making sure you know that they will investigate every instance of a possible hate crime even as they decline to prosecute some criminals.

But it isn’t just Democrats behaving poorly. Some Republican senators dumped their stock after attending closed intelligent briefings on the Chinese virus.

North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr and Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler sold a combined $2 million to $4 million in stock after attending closed briefings about the Chinese virus while publicly proclaiming the virus did not pose a major threat to public health or the economy.

In Maryland, RINO Governor Larry Hogan issued a total state lock down, citing the states proximity to Washington, D.C. as the main reason for the new order. As of 7:00 pm local time March 31, D.C. reported 586 confirmed cases of the Chinese virus and 11 deaths associated with it. That seems dranconian, if not unsurprising, to me.

And never letting a crisis go to waste, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) said during a March 19 conference call of more than 200 members of the House Democratic caucus that the negotiations for the stimulus bill represented “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.

Most recently, California Gov. Newsom said, “Coronavirus [is] an opportunity to create a new “progressive era.”

Perhaps most egregious was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s attempt to force Green New Deal energy and equity measure initiatives, among others, into to the bill.

I am not a purist. I understand the urgent need to warn citizens to shelter at home in certain cities and shut down institutions like the school system during a pandemic, but we must remain vigilant against political leaders that seek to harm our rights as Americans, such as tracking apps, interstate border checks, and prosecuting people for “misinformation” about the virus.

Reason reported on a survey completed at the University of Chicago by Adam Chilton and three other law professors who concluded, “Sizable majorities of both Democrats and Republicans favored confining people to their homes, detaining sick people in government facilities, banning U.S. citizens from entering the country, government takeovers of businesses, conscription of health care workers, suspension of religious services, and even criminalizing the spread of ‘misinformation’ about the virus.

“Even when we explicitly told half of our sample that the policies may violate the Constitution,” Chilton et al. report, ‘the majority supported all eight of them,’ including the speech restrictions.“ After the threat has subsided, the law professors conclude, ‘Americans must recognize any constitutional violations for what they were, lest they become the new normal.’ By then, it may be too late.”