In a case of the pygmies feeling free to pass judgment on the giants, we have White House spokesman Josh Earnest weighing in on White House efforts to replace states' "patchwork of Ebola quarantine laws" with a one-size-fits-all national policy:
“We are seeing this administration put in place the policies that we believe are necessary to protect the American people and to protect the American troops,” he said. “And we’re going to let science drive that process, and as soon as we have a policy to announce on this we’ll let you know.
[. . .]
His comments came as New Jersey announced it would allow a returning health care worker, Kaci Hickox, to return to her home in Maine and finish out a 21-day quarantine.
New York, Illinois and Florida also have announced special quarantine or monitoring measures for their states, raising concerns that the U.S. approach to fighting Ebola is too fragmented.
“In some ways you can kind of take this up with James Madison,” Mr. Earnest said, referring to the American balance of federal and state powers.
Yeah, what the hell did the Father of the Constitution know about how to run a republic? Sure, he set up all these checks and balances to help diffuse power because he knew the government would not always be run by angels, and, OK, he understood that freedom has to be acdcompanied by responsibility, and well, yes, maybe he understood the role of public opinion in a free society, but, dammit, he just did not understand that a bunch of super smart people like us would come along who could just fix everything if only we weren't tied to all those silly rules.
Oh, by the way, Josh, Madison was one of the voices for a strong central government to avoid the kinds of problems we had under the Articles of Confederation. You could look it up.
