This is something that seems to confuse a lot of people. Before COVID19 was released on our shores, most Americans didn’t really ever give this a second thought. Yet, here in New York, when King Cuomo (as many common-sense New Yorkers dubbed him) forced everyone into lockdown in March of 2020, with the distinctly propagandized cry of “just for 2 weeks… 2 weeks to flatten the curve”, the difference between a law and a mandate became the difference between feast or famine for most. Literally. As the King (totally illegally) cherry picked who was allowed to leave their homes, go to work, earn a living, move about freely, versus who had to lockdown for months on end and painfully watch their life’s work slip through their fingers, we witnessed the birth of a monarchy here in New York, which has continued to this day some 2.5 years later. Did you know that in just the first few months of the pandemic, bankruptcy filings in NYS surged 40%!?! And in NY and NJ alone, nearly 1/3 of small businesses went out of business in that same time period?!
Let me first say that Cuomo lacked the authority to single-handedly lockdown millions of New Yorkers. Despite Cuomo’s (and now Hochul’s) misplaced fantasies, I mean notions, to the contrary, New Yorkers need to understand that this is not a monarchy, and one man/woman does not get to decide who is “essential” and who is not! Cuomo’s false justification was that it was done in the name of public health and safety. Newsflash… the Constitution is not suspended during times of emergency! The United States Supreme Court has consistently held this time and again. And it makes sense from a logical standpoint. Think about it, during an emergency, when there is fear and confusion, it is a prime opportunity for the government to step in and infringe upon the rights of the people. It’s their age-old battle cry, “Oh no! There’s an emergency. Give us your power and we will protect you!”
If you take nothing else from this article, take this… In the history of mankind, no government has ever taken power from the people and voluntarily given it back. The people have to demand it back!
And that’s exactly what we just did with my quarantine camp lawsuit against Governor Hochul and her Department of Health. We saw the government grossly step out of line, and we demanded they get back in their lane. And we won! You can check out my prior Substack for more details on that: HERE or you can check out our lawsuit web page HERE.
Mandates vs. Laws
So let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this post. What’s the difference between a mandate and a law? To put it bluntly, the difference is tremendous.