Freedom to travel, Maskachusetts $500/day edition

The latest from our governor: a $500/day fine for anyone returning or traveling to Maskachusetts who does not either (a) quarantine for 14 days, or (b) produce a negative Covid-19 test result from within the preceding 72 hours. (But it is now taking a week or more to get a test done in most parts of the U.S.? So prong (b) has no practical effect?)

The new restrictions are effective on August 1.

From our airport management: “Please find below and attached new directives from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Please post these new directives within your leased area and to ensure visibility and cooperation.”

More: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-travel-order and also https://www.mass.gov/forms/massachusetts-travel-form (we welcome undocumented migrants, but the friendly government demands contact information, a precise address within Massachusetts, the ages of any migrant’s child, etc.)

(My Dutch friend: “All of the rights that Americans fought and died in multiple wars to defend, they gave up in one governor’s press conference.”)

Related:

10 thoughts on “Freedom to travel, Maskachusetts $500/day edition

  1. House arrest didn’t work so now we are under state arrest. Been saying for years eliminating interstate migration is a dream of our tyrants. They finally have their excuse, sort of, if people listen. What are all the non-remoteable employees who live in NH going to do? And where are we going to buy our liquor and fireworks?

  2. Pretty sure the restrictions only apply to certain skin colors & genders. Just wait a few weeks & it won’t be a right someone fought & died in multiple wars to defend anymore. It’ll just be the way it always was, like Mass’s mandatory health insurance law.

  3. Wait, this is a joke, right? How exactly will the Commonwealth check the validity of negative COVID-19 test results submitted by travelers?

    How long before a lawsuit forces a stay of the order?

  4. I didn’t catch the exemptions at first. Does this foretell the breakup of the Union? Maskachusetts will be part of the country of New America Northeast. If PA was smart they would start building a wall.
    Ask your Dutch friend what wars after the revolution increased or at least maintained America’s freedoms. Maybe some of the short wars keeping the Canadians in their place.

  5. Reactions to this type of stuff are always interesting. Same people who object now that Mass is doing this didn’t seem to have an issue when FL wanted to keep New Yorkers out earlier in the COVID season… Back when COVID was a scourge on the Democratic States, there was uproar about bailing states out financially. Now that red states are in the same situation? Hmm.

    Not sure the breakup of the Union is in play but splitting along the “makers” vs “takers” states is an interesting thought experiment.

    • LinePilot: Maskachusetts is the ultimate “taker” state! Pharma, health care, and higher education are our dominant industries. All of these exist primarily to harvest Federal tax dollars (Medicaid, Medicare, Obamacare-mandated health insurance, student loans and grants from Department of Education). Look at the price of a drug sold to Medicare or Medicaid in the U.S. compared to what the market price of that drug anywhere else in the world. Canada and the UK, for example, are not going to pay $500,000/year for a drug that American taxpayers happily buy at that price. When a medevac helicopter brings a Medicare patient from a community hospital in Maine to MGH or the Brigham for a $1 million Hail Mary procedure, that’s Federal $$ coming to Maskachusetts (also, since it may take several weeks for the hospital in MA to kill the patient, the family shows up from Maine and pays for hotel rooms).

    • LinePilot,

      I may be wrong but do not recall any red state governor being as hysterical about covid Federal help as the infamous nursing home reaper was in May about bailing out the NYS. The very same reaper threatened to sue Rhode Island for instituting a 14 day quarantine in March, though, while doing exactly the same today.

      So, I am not sure why you have this false blue red counterpoint story — progs apparently hate each other as much as their red neighbors.

      https://abcnews.go.com/US/rhode-island-reverses-order-make-york-visitors-quarantine/story?id=69862605

  6. What about those who arrive to Massachusetts via cars over interstate highway? Buses? Trains? Is our governor going to put road blocks to ask them to fill a form and comply with the 14 days isolation? What a joke.

    If you haven’t figured it out by now, then let me help you. The governor and the state officers are doing this to simply show that they care (but they don’t) and that they are doing everything in their power to keep us safe (at the cost of ruining the lives of millions). Why? So they won’t take blames down the road and have a list of talking points to campaign on so they can keep their jobs.

Comments are closed.