Michael Brown Unplugged

This is a discussion with Weston Distance Learning in Fort Collins, Colorado. Weston Distance has decades doing distance learning. While this is focused on what my company, The Blue Cell, is doing with Weston Distance, it's also a great example of how you can do distance learning in the age of COVID-19

In 2009, Dr. Fauci gave an interview about how to deal with H1N1 influenza. It is eerily similar to the same advice he gives today, but without the social distancing, closing of businesses and destruction of the U.S. and world economies. Is this overreaction driven by media hype? Will it lead to the Great Depression 2.0? We need to learn to think for ourselves, study the experts with differing opinions, and not fall mindlessly into believing everything the media says about the novel coronavirus or COVID-19.

Home schooling. What makes a business exempt to statewide stay-at-home order. Reactions to pandemic are based on politics, not the Constitution. Mayor DeBlasio discusses closing down streets and other mayors considering the same. Supplies chains would be interrupted road closures. Why congress should repeal the Jones Act and trade should continue during pandemic. What laws need to change in the new normal. What we can do to change the culture of the country for the economy.

Measles, rubella, mumps, chickenpox, polio, all diseases from decades ago that we can’t even imagine today. So we’ve become so risk averse that COVID-19 scares us into destroying our economy? And what’s really happening in Italy and why? Coronavirus is a disease that might destroy the US economy if we’re not careful.

The law of quarantines is quite broad. However, there are some Constitutional limitations, which is why most shelter-in-place orders are very broad with many exceptions. Michael describes the law, the exceptions, and the latitude people have to travel and do necessary things.

Why is the FDA and the CDC dragging their feet on off-label use when clinical trials in four countries, and patient usage in Kansas, already shows efficacy in treatment of COVID-19?

Vinal Technical High School in Connecticut is offering an emergency management block for high schoolers enrolled in technical/trade classes. This unique program offers a full emergency operations center and gives students real life experiences in responding to natural and manmade disasters. This is a great example of what high schools could be doing to train future emergency managers, police officers, firefighters and others. Other high schools with technical/trade programs should emulate this kind of program for students who want a practical, trade/technical based education.

The EU decides that climate change is not about saving the planet, but about saving people. It just doesn’t make any sense. And, a couple of cases provide a good take on the law of self defense and the stealth attacks on the Second Amendment.

Michael explains the legalities about the government mandating business closures and social distancing. What the new guidelines President Trump issued means and eating out at restaurants.

COVID-19 has now reached a tipping point, with massive closures of sporting events, public gatherings. Panic buying, stock market collapse. And, public health authorities with their states of emergency are beginning to get awfully close to the limits of constitutionality. At what point does the public begin, if ever, to push back?