This country was founded on the opposite of that; there's a lot of people who live here who identify with that spirit. There's also a litany of unjust laws in the past that were enforced regularly that we look very much down on today. Whether that happens in the future with COVID-19 regulations, who knows, but blind respect of the law is not really something Americans are known for.
I agree that blind respect of the law is not inline with American culture, but petulant disrespect of the law should not be encouraged either. The way Musk has been conducting himself lately strikes me less as someone who is pushing back against irrational dogma, and more like someone who's throwing a tantrum because he's unhappy that a pandemic is hindering his ability to run his business.
> his recent Joe Rogan interview shows the contrary
I listened to the interview and found Elon ridiculously dismissive of the risks and when he started arguing Shanghai's gigafactory not having any employees die of COVID-19 was proof of the shutdown being unnecessary, it became hard to continue listening at all. How many of those workers got infected and went on the increase community spread to non-employees? Why are we only considering employee deaths? It's as willfully ignorant as people saying things like "I don't wear a mask because I don't have any symptoms."
You can also consider the effects of reopening factories (like Tesla's Shanghai) on the spread of C19 and view the manufacturers' sanitary policies as successful (in avoiding a rapid 2nd wave). I guess Musk talks about deaths (over thousands of employees) because it's the most reliable indicator, one that does not depend on, say, testing policies.
Blind respect of the law is looked down upon - but there are proper channels to change the law as defined in our constitution and proper protest.
Read the federalist papers and the actual writings of our forefathers. You will be quite surprised. The constitution was framed to prevent the people from being stupid and killing the nation just as much as it was to prevent a monarchy.
> unjust laws in the past that were enforced regularly that we look very much down on today
What else would they be referring to, besides perhaps the internment of Japanese Americans, Jim Crow, or other laws that have absurdly little in common with the shelter in place ordinance that's keeping Tesla's factory temporarily closed?
> There is no law being broken here, it's local county orders with (currently debated) legal authority by a single official.
The fact that someone has questioned legal authority does not mean there is no law being broken. The existence of “freemen of the land”-style tax objectors doesn't mean no law is broken when you fail to pay federal income tax.
It is a federal and state public health order. They've since changed those orders. The county has even less authority, especially by a single individual and in contrast to the state.
Also laws only work as long as the citizens believe in them and civil obedience is a thing. There needs to be good reason for the shutdown and its effects, and many do not agree with the county.
There has been no federal public health order (there's been a federal national defense order to keep meat plans open to promote the spread of the virus, but that's the opposite of a public health order), there are, relevant to the case at hand, state and county orders.
> They've since changed those orders.
Yes, both the state and county orders have been updated over time. What's your point?
> The county has even less authority, especially by a single individual and in contrast to the state.
No, actually, state law makes county public health officers the main authority to issue orders for the control of communicable disease.
> Also laws only work as long as the citizens believe in them and civil obedience is a thing.
Shutdown orders have overwhelming majority support; there is a very loud (predominantly elite) but small minority opposed.
They've changed those orders to be more open. That's the point. This single county is disagreeing on flimsy reasoning. You're free to follow whatever law you think exists. Others have the right to counter orders they feel are unjust.
Where do you see this overwhelming majority support? If that were true, there wouldn't be any news about so many violations of these lock-down orders. They would just be arrested and shutdown. But that's not happening is it?
Many other companies and factories are open, workers are not required to show up, and if they do they're following guidelines developed from the factory presence in China with thousands of unharmed employees. This is on top of most of the state being effectively open for weeks already.
"Is wrong." OK, and just by force of personality Elon establishes that? Since when is Elon an epidemiologist? Sounds like about as much as he's a underwater rescue expert and ventilator manufacturer.
Take a step back, he's a troll juicing his stock price 80% of the time. Read elsewhere where he has a $700B bonus hanging in the balance here, and so how is that not the simplest explanation? There's your "good reason."
I believe the people who say it's still unsafe. If you don't and want or need the work, I think they're hiring in Fremont, or will be soon.
The TSLA bonus is $700 million, not billion. That's less than 2% of his current net worth and changes nothing in his life. It seems the simplest explanation is that he really does care about the company and the people as evidenced by his continual investment into his ventures at the risk of bankrupting himself several times.
And Elon is not alone in this, he's joined by millions across the state and country that want - and need - to open up to counter the economic disaster that will create far more suffering and chaos. It's an absolute fact that this virus is nowhere near as fatal as first thought in March. Everything has a cost and risks must be weighed. The 3rd leading cause of death in the US is medical errors, but we don't shut down hospitals because of it, do we?
You're free to believe whoever you want and stay inside for your safety, but not everyone has that luxury as they face hunger, suicide, depression, overdoses, diseases, surgeries, domestic abuse and violence, and other life-altering stress that has nothing to do with covid19 and hasn't conveniently stopped because this virus came around. The people want choice, and I believe their freedom to make that choice is of utmost importance.
It seems the simplest explanation is that he really does care about the company and the people as evidenced by his continual investment into his ventures at the risk of bankrupting himself several times.
His care "about the people" is belied by his inability or unwillingness to care for "the people" as the union he is fighting so bitterly would do. Perhaps he really dislikes unions because they take too good of care for their members? Not to put too fine a point on it, but I can think of another prominent American who is proudly waving their negligence at the nation.
he's joined by millions across the state and country that want - and need - to open up to counter the economic disaster that will create far more suffering and chaos
"Want" doesn't protect people against viruses. "Should Elon incur liability for this?" is a question I want to see discussed. To be sure, there is chatter in DC about giving employers immunity for this, but nobody other than the Chamber of Commerce will associate their name with it, so I assume politicians know it might be a damaging issue to get behind.
But the virus is here, and again by force of personality this can't be changed. What people are clamoring for is some kind of a safety net, and they've been inculcated with the idea that a job is the only safety net they have, or can control. This is not the be-all end-all, because this is all the government's job, another aspect of the crisis in which they are being negligent (certainly the corporate 'stimulus' didn't involve complicated forms and crashing websites and time limits).
Yes, hunger, suicide, depression, and all the rest are due to the hopelessness that an ineffectual government, what some are calling a failed state, is declining to provide in an emergency. $1200 is a pittance.
The people want choice
There is no "choice" in virus exposure, it is not available. It is not subject to politics nor policies. That people believe that it is, is a travesty and I'd say a crime against humanity for convincing people to act against their own interests where their life hangs in the balance. In the service of capitalism, all because people in power don't want to use the tax dollars we pay to provide a less suicidal environment for us with our own money, within which to endure an extended quarantine. So we can stay alive.
Do you really think this should be portrayed as a luxury?
You meant "it's legal". Then you would have to concede that people should be able to do legal, unethical things. You may think Elon is a jackass, that does not mean he has to close his factory.
There's no such thing as "unethical." Everybody has values and reasons why they do stuff. Other than that I don't understand your first two sentences.
You're right that Elon being a jackass doesn't mean he has to close his factory, but at the same time it can be the reason why he wants to contravene public orders and policy to reopen it.
> There's no such thing as "unethical." Everybody has values and reasons why they do stuff.
I have values and reasons that guide my own actions. There’s a much larger space of values and reasoning that I personally don’t adhere to, but consider valid for other people to choose for themselves. Anyone acting according to values or reasoning that falls outside this space is behaving unethically in my view. Whether or not something is ethical depends both on the internal motivation of the actor and the beliefs of the observer, but it’s still a useful concept as long as the relevant people in this formulation are properly udentified.
This variation makes it a shaky basis for law, which is a somewhat blunt instrument. It will inevitably allow some acts that some people view as unethical to go unpunished by the courts, and will probably disallow some acts that some people consider morally required: There’s too much variation in the personal beliefs of the populace for there to be a frontier that neatly encompasses all the guiding principles for their personal actions and also stays within the bounds of what people consider acceptable behavior from others.
You're simply using the wrong (though popular) word. The "un" in unethical" means "without," not "different."[1] This is basic English (and Old High German, and Manx, and...). However, if your goal is to disregard and negate the basic intelligence and/or humanity of another person or group, then it might be the right word, but this path leads to some very bad places.
>Whether or not something is ethical
You eating a hamburger when I think meat is murder doesn't mean you don't have any ethics.
>There’s too much variation in the personal beliefs of the populace for there to be a frontier that neatly encompasses all the guiding principles for their personal actions and also stays within the bounds of what people consider acceptable behavior from others.
You're describing morality, AKA a shared set of ethics, and people have been fighting to establish their preferred morality on other people (AKA "stop doing that thing I don't want you to do") for as long as people have had shared identities. Everybody who had participated in that history has acted according to a set of ethics, but the way you use the word, whether one of those people has any ethics depends on what side you're on. Not true.
I know I'm pissing in the wind here, but it's simply the wrong word to use.
The “un-“ prefix in “unethical” means “violative of; contrary to”, and the word as a whole refers to something that is in violation of an ethical standard. It is generally used discursively, to refer to the speaker’s ethics rather than those of the actor performong the action being discussed.
I know how you're trying to use it, I brought up the etymology. Your usage isn't new, I'm just adding rigor. Even "violative of; contrary to" categorically negates the validity of the actor's reasoning. Taking the descriptive position is your option, but I hope we can agree that that would be "literally"-ing the word, given the science.
I’m fundamentally a descriptivist when it comes to language: words mean what people use them to mean, not what they “should” mean based on etymological history. Negating the validity of the actor’s reasoning is generally what people who call things unethical intend to do, and I see no evidence that usage has changed significantly in recent years. As their intentions are clear, I see no benefit in claiming the concept is nonexistent.
In fact, deigning to judge an act as either ethical or unethical is implicitly admitting that the actor has agency and therefore reasoning powers: someone’s reasoning cannot be invalid unless it exists.
Not OP, but I think Musk should definitely respect the law. I also think he should leave the state if they're jerking him around--he'll get far better treatment elsewhere.
California at the state, county and city levels routinely flouts federal laws that they vehemently oppose. I think many of those decisions make sense and act as a catalyst for change. I also think Tesla's stance makes sense and is a catalyst for change.
Tesla's whole legal case revolves around the argument that the county is not respecting the law. This isn't really about respecting the law it is about a disagreement between the county and Tesla about what the law is.
>disagreement between the county and Tesla about what the law is
and that's perfectly fine, however, those disagreements happen in a court. I don't think disagreeing with a county order gives you the right to simply ignore it. If Tesla thinks this is wrong they can sue, which they did, and that should be it.
Serious question. How did you feel about Uber/Airbnb, all the scooter companies, all the e-commerce companies that were/are ignoring local laws to operate?
I feel the exact same way about it. They shouldn't be ignoring local laws, companies don't stand above appointed and elected officials. They don't get to make the rules.
And appointed/elected officials don’t have unlimited power to pass whatever laws they want, regardless of the will of the local people. Two sides to the same coin.
Historically, the process has been to break the law you consider invalid, be charged with violating the law, and then make your defense in court. Courts generally rule on situations, not laws, and dislike being asked about hypothetical situations rather than actual events.
There is a state level order and a county level order the state level order says to open the county says stay closed. They can't do both. They consulted a lawyer, chose to follow the higher authority, and asked a court to confirm they are in the right. What they are doing is entirely reasonable.
This is straight-up false. The state-level order delegates final decision-making authority to counties. Stop spreading misinformation.
> California Governor Gavin Newsom said Thursday that state-level guidance allowing manufacturing to resume some production didn’t supersede county-level restrictions. The company had unsucessfully tried to argue that Tesla’s production should be considered critical infrastructure.[1]
You might be the one who is spreading false info. I clicked your link and its reference to Newsom's statement is a linked CNBC article. In that article there is no such quote from the governor only a reference to the county's website claiming that their order takes precedent over the state which is the whole dispute here.
In other words that Vox article falsely attributes a quote to Newsom which he didn't say or at least their source doesn't support their claim.
> Nothing in this Order shall be construed to limit the existing authority of local health officers to establish and implement public health measures within their respective jurisdictions that are more restrictive than, or that otherwise exist in addition to, the public health measures imposed on a statewide basis pursuant to the statewide directives of the State Public Health Officer.
Tesla has simply had their lawyers argue nonsense in their filing. It’s a PR move to fool people into believing that they have any semblance of a case.
I think what I'd tell her, honestly, is that it really sucks that our legal system has no way to challenge bad laws in court without getting arrested for them first, and we should fix that. It shouldn't have required her getting arrested to have a court case of the form "If she does this, she's clearly going to get arrested, let's have a judge review that law." And it really sucks that it wasn't her case that decided that the Montgomery bus discrimination laws were unconstitutional, it was the cases of Claudette Colvin and four others (Browder v. Gayle), and really at most one ought to be enough.
(And, in turn, if a judge reviews the lockdown order and finds that in fact it is a legitimate exercise of government power, then we're in a very different situation from the one she was in.)
Rosa Parks and a billionaire defying an order to put production on hold because the county feels it isn't safe for his workers to return to work makes for a hell of a comparison.
I don't think it was meant to be a comparison between the two, I think it was meant to be a counterexample to the notion that we should always follow the law.
Note that enforcing the law was crucial to Rosa Parks achieving her aims. Had the officer said "it's a stupid law and I won't enforce it", it would have foiled the test case that was planned with the aim of overthrowing the law. She's a poor example of your point.
Which features of Rosa Park's successful fight for civil rights do you feel map on to a misguided attempt by the billionaire scion of a pre-apartheid South African mining family to send his employees back to work during a global pandemic?
While it is fallacy of herd mentality, the safest speed nonetheless tends to be the speed of the other vehicles around you. Speed deltas are the real danger—not failure to adhere to a specific, oft-arbitrary number.
I hope however you do support respecting the law even in cases where you disagree with a decision.