Citizenry First, Courts Second
The outcome of one legal case should not overshadow the monumental fight that marches on outside the courtroom
There were so many names in the document, the server crashed.
That’s what the Clerk of the Macoupin County Court, Lee Ross, told me Wednesday afternoon.
I had asked Ms. Ross for a copy of the amended complaint, filed in the Macoupin County Courthouse, that named Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker as a defendant in a massive legal action the likes never seen before in this state during this Age of Covid.
“It is currently in our Court System but it is having a hard time processing it,” Ross said via email. “It has crashed four times thus far because of the volume….our Court System IT Staff is working on how to successfully process.”
The Macoupin County Geek Squad eventually figured it out and got the 359 pages inputted into the system. What was on those pages is stunning to see - names and names of plaintiffs, regular people from all across the state. And the defendants? Pritzker, the state agencies he controls (Illinois Department of Public Health, Illinois State Board of Education) the leaders he appointed (Dr. Ezike, Dr. Ayala) and well over 100 school district boards of education.
The document is truly a behemoth one, although almost half of the bulk comes from the accumulation of signature pages from the plaintiffs (145 pages in all).
There are 11 counts of injunction requested in the legal action. But what the hundreds of plaintiffs will be asking their attorney, Tom DeVore, to argue on their behalf in front of Seventh Circuit Judge April Troemper at 1:30 pm on Nov. 5 basically comes down to this:
Masking is wrong.
Quarantines are wrong.
It’s wrong for the governor to use his power to force children to mask and be excluded from school.
Sure, there will be more sophisticated legalese spoken during the hearing about these truths. But the plaintiffs named in the suit are tired of the governor’s abuse of power, tired of his administrative lackeys using their position to enforce tyrannical guidelines and tired of foot soldiering board of educations and superintendents rubber stamping the nonsensical policies.
That’s it.
Now will the judge agree with these arguments? Anyone’s guess. Other judges in other counties have agreed with the same legal theories that will be presented at the Nov. 5 hearing. Precedence matters in a court of law and why DeVore felt confident in opening up the size and scope of this case. He told me Wednesday he believed at first a few dozen groups would sign on but never could have predicted the final amount.
“There were 145 groups of parents but I could have kept going,” DeVore said. “I could have added another 100. I don’t think there was an limit.”
Because time is of the essence in cases such as this one, the number of groups were capped and the action had to move forward. In two weeks, or soon after, we will have a ruling from a judge.
But regardless of what decision the judge makes, it would be foolish to wait on the legal system to solve our problems. How we come out of Covid has always been about human behavior and remains so.
Once the news broke of the legal action, first reported by The Kerr Report, my Twitter feed blew up Wednesday night.
Predictably, there were a few dissenters. I’ve had to block the more profane but in general, I don’t mind hearing from opposing views.
Make your good argument. I’ll make mine. Let’s debate. That’s patriotism in its purist form.
But my enthusiasm (or idealism considering the platform) for intellectual give and take gets the best of me.
Because what happens in these situations often starts with a healthy exchange of ideas but then descends into emotion-driven ideology.
Here’s a small portion of the thread I’m talking about from Wednesday night:
The exchange went on from there and there’s no reason to share more in this article.
(I will say that it concluded in typical fashion. When presented with a question that requires data, not anecdotes, the debater retreats and the thread ends. Always happens. 10 out of 10 times.)
I wanted to show this because the tweeter, Dick Quagliano, represents the larger cultural issue In Illinois made malignant by Covid.
How, in this state, we have an uninformed, complacent, lethargic citizenry.
Everything that’s happened since March 2020 can be reduced down to that labeling.
I could address the absurd claims made by the tweeter Quagliano, but does it really matter? It’s Temple of Fauci-preaching nonsensical gibberish.
But people think that way. Millions of them do. Still.
So what do we do about it? We have faith in our personal agency and continue to push back. We fight. We don’t wear masks. We object to vaccine coercion. We question state-ordered mandates. We are vocal about those beliefs and hold others accountable who remain silent, especially those in positions of authority.
And when those in charge abuse their authority, take them to court.
What a judge rules in two weeks could be a game-changer in this state and across the country. The masks could come off, the kids freed from reckless quarantines.
But the symbolism around the legal case, the energy generated by almost 700 citizens storming the castle, not with slings and arrows but bulldozers and cannon fire, with almost 1 million students in Illinois potentially freed by their actions, that’s the ultimate victory here. It’s what an informed, functioning, engaged and ultimately free, citizenry looks like. Because the sharpening of swords can never cease; the enemy of awake, the sleepy that surround us, never stop being thirsty for more propaganda-laced Kool Aid.
The outcome from a Macoupin County courthouse on Nov. 5 doesn’t change any of that.
For story ideas, article comments/feedback, media inquiries and more, drop note to jon@jonjkerr.com, or @jonjkerr on Twitter.
We the people must stand up for we see that the court system doesn't always back us up. And if most are asleep, apathetic, or going along to get along, then tyrrany will continue and accelerate. Another great write-up Jon!