“The biggest mistake now would be letting the Covidiots off the hook for the lives they are endangering by deciding to be open outside the governor’s order.”
“Yeah, well, some goober with a homemade sign told me we need ‘herd immunity,’ so we should reopen now. He was also waving the American flag, so he must be right.”
“I just don’t know who to believe on this issue. The heads of the major attorney associations in Illinois? Or my classmate who barely graduated from high school, but says he did some searching on the internet and determined that the governor’s orders are unconstitutional?”
Those are three of the reader responses to an article on CapitolFax.com entitled “Bar leaders issue warning about legal consequences,” attributed to “the Clifford Law Offices, one of the most successful trial lawyer firms in the country.”
“The heads of the major attorney associations in Illinois,” quoted in the article, all seem to recommend blind obedience to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s dictates – or slow, expensive legal challenges to them. Attorney Antonio Romanucci, head of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, says the “prudent course” for business owners is to stay closed.
The “legal consequences” ominously referenced in the article’s title would be those associated with reopening our businesses – i.e., taking responsibility for our own lives again – before the governor gives us permission to do so.
You know, the businesses that offer goods and services desired and needed by our fellow citizens, the businesses that generate income for owners and employees who have bills to pay and families to support?
The condescension is palpable. Are we, the citizens of Illinois, supposed to run the real risk of losing our livelihoods and even our lives because of the unreal risk of contracting a virus that nearly 100 percent of victims without comorbidities recover from?
Apparently, we are. That’s what the experts advise: the experts who aren’t really experts, but attorneys and politicians no smarter or better informed than the rest of us. Maybe we should stop listening to them.