How do we end the lockdown? It’s obvious that the powers that be are more than happy with “the new normal” as the media continues to fear monger and corporations prepare for years of quarantine.
How do we fight them? By electing the right president? Not when our own government has no regard for the rule of law and politicians on both sides support unelected lifetime bureaucrats dictating “rules” without due process.
So how does the lockdown end? And could it be that the end has already started?
On 8/17/2020’s show David Knight reports, “I interviewed Jon Rappoport at the very beginning of all this, in the interview he said, ‘Here’s what needs to happen, you have to have pastors across the country call their churches together and say we are not going to follow this anymore.’ That was months ago and it didn’t happen. Churches stayed closed through Easter.”
“Easter was a month after we were told that ‘this has landed on our shores’ and so forth. It was already clear that it wasn’t a threat based on the public health data coming out of Italy, but I realize a lot of pastors didn’t understand that. Some of them did, I talked to some pastors of small churches because they were the ones with the most courage about this, but most pastors were gaslighted by the media and didn’t really understand what was going on. Yet we had one pastor in Ventura County who was on the city council, when they started the draconian lockdown rules he resigned from city council and continued to open his church. The health bureaucrats in Ventura County were demanding that the sheriff arrest him because they’d gone to a judge and gotten a restraining order, they don’t have a law but they got an order from a judge. When the sheriff said ‘no, I’m not going to do that’ the judge backed off.The judge said he wanted the sheriff to be seen in a neutral role, as someone who keeps the peace — because there isn’t ANY law, only a bureaucratic order.”
Knight continued “The case that most people are looking at is a very well known pastor, John MacArthur, who at the beginning of this said ‘we’re going to cooperate with the government if they’re concerned about health issues but we’re not relinquishing our independence. We have a God-given right that is expressly recognized in the constitution.’”
MacArthur had initially closed Grace Community Church but on July 26th they held their first in-person service since the start of the lockdown.
Three days later, on the 29th, the L.A. City Council sent MacArthur a letter saying “If you or Grace Community Church continue to hold indoor services in violation of the law, you are subject to criminal and civil liability.” The letter goes on to say, “Violating these orders is a crime punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and imprisonment of up to 90 days. Each day that you conduct indoor services is a separate offense.” And concludes with “the county looks forward to your immediate cooperation and compliance.”
But the county did not receive “immediate cooperation and compliance” from MacArthur, who not only continued to hold services but also sued the State of California.
The lawsuit states, “California has no such power to determine whether churches are “essential,” as the federal and state constitutions have already done so.” And also notes that,”The California State Constitution, mirroring the United States Constitution, specifically protects the individual right to free exercise of religion.”
The Thomas More Society, a pro-bono law firm assisting Grace Community Church, stated in a press release, “Hours after Grace Community Church filed suit to invalidate Los Angeles County’s unconstitutional restrictions on churches, the county filed for a temporary restraining order to force the church to stop holding indoor services and comply with unreasonable and over-broad demands. Judge James Chalfant denied almost all of the county’s requests at the August 14 Los Angeles Superior Court hearing, agreeing with MacArthur and the church that it is the county’s burden to show why they should be permitted to infringe on the constitutionally protected rights of churches to freely exercise religion.”
Immediately following the victory in court, MacArthur said as he took the pulpit, “We’re having church. It’s hard to figure out exactly what the city is trying to do with us and to us but we know they don’t want us to do exactly what we’re doing right now. We’re not meeting because we want to be rebellious, we’re meeting because our Lord has commanded us to come together and worship him… They don’t want us to meet, that’s obvious, they’re not willing to work with us, they just want to shut us down.”
Knight commented “Their attorney said exactly the right thing, she said that ‘true authority is with the Constitution, we are not the ones rebelling against authority, they are the ones rebelling.’ Absolutely! It’s what I’ve been saying for months. I’m so happy to see lawyers and pastors standing up and saying ‘if you are not obeying authority [Constitution they swore to and that gives them authority], you don’t have any authority’.They do have force, and it may come to that, but they don’t have any lawful authority and we do not have any legal requirement to obey them.
“This is the way we get out of lockdown, principled people making principled arguments and standing in civil disobedience to those who defy true authority. The health bureaucrats, the governors, the presidents, anyone who defies authority”, concluded Knight.
