Ebola, Natural Rights, and National Defense

by Dr. Gerard Emershaw

The United States has its first diagnosed case of Ebola—Thomas Eric Duncan, a visitor to Dallas from Liberia. At least 12–18 people may have come into contact with Duncan, including five children. The incubation period for the disease is 21 days, so anyone exposed must be monitored for this amount of time. A second possible case of Ebola infection—related to the first—is now being investigated.

Ebola is “transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.” The disease is spread “through human-to-human transmission via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids.” Symptoms include fever, severe headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and unexplained bleeding or bruising. On the average, it is fatal in 50% of cases, ranging from 25% to 90% in previous outbreaks. While there is no cure, there are currently at least two vaccines and several other potential treatments are being tested. In addition, rehydration of the patient improves survival of those infected.

In a previous post on Typhoid Mary, it was argued that persons with serious infectious diseases may be detained against their will by the government as part of the state’s national defense function:

There does seem to be some justifiable point at which an infectious individual can be quarantined against his or her will when the infectious disease is serious enough. Even though the person is innocent, he or she can be detained in the way that a person who is acting violently and who has become a danger to others as a result of some force beyond his or her control—mental illness, brain tumor, brainwashing, hypnotism, etc.—can be detained.  

Apparently preparing for the worst, the federal government recently ordered 160,000 hazmat suits specifically designed against Ebola. While this should be lauded, what is unacceptable is the fact that the Obama administration has done nothing to halt flights into the country from the Ebola “hot zone” of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Add to that the poor performance of the administration on protecting the borders, and it appears that instead of actively defending the nation against Ebola, it is doing nothing more than resigning itself to performing damage control when the outbreak inevitably becomes serious.

President Obama’s friend and former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel infamously stated: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” The Bush administration did not let 9/11 “go to waste.” It shepherded the PATRIOT Act through Congress and turned the nation into a police state. If the current Ebola outbreak becomes serious, it is likely that President Obama will use it as an excuse to unnecessarily crack down on civil liberties. Anytime the government declares a “war”—whether against a foreign enemy, drugs, poverty, terror, gold, etc.—it invariably winds up fighting a parallel war against the natural rights of the people. A War on Ebola would be no different.

During the 1918 flu pandemic, laws were passed requiring Americans to wear masks in public. In Washington, D.C., all public gatherings were banned, the sick were quarantined, and the city’s schools, theaters, and bars were closed. With modern technology and the Police State infrastructure from the PATRIOT Act in place, today the federal government could do much more in the face of a virulent outbreak. The question is how far it would go and how zealous it would be in ensuring that Constitutional rights would not be unnecessarily violated in the process.

Executive Order 13295, signed by President Bush in 2003, allows the government to forcibly quarantine individuals infected with Ebola. As previously stated, it is reasonable to allow this in order for the federal government to exercise its national defense function. But can the President go further? Under American law, the President has the power to declare martial law, “the suspension of civil authority and the imposition of military authority.” The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the President to take such measures in the following circumstances:

The President, by using the militia or the armed forces, or both, or by any other means, shall take such measures as he considers necessary to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy, if it—(1) so hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and of the United States within the State, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or

(2) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.

Under such conditions the President may declare martial law:

Whenever the President considers it necessary to use the militia or the armed forces under this chapter, he shall, by proclamation, immediately order the insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their abodes within a limited time.

While an outbreak of a virus such as Ebola does not constitute an insurrection, the Obama administration’s reckless unwillingness to control the nation’s borders makes it more likely that the outbreak will be worse than it needs to be. This will likely cause panic, which can lead to domestic violence. The questions that each American must ask is whether he or she trusts the federal government to defend the nation from Ebola and whether he or she trusts the federal government to defend Constitutional rights in the face of an Ebola outbreak.

(For a much more detailed discussion of natural rights, read my new book The Real Culture War: Individualism vs. Collectivism & How Bill O’Reilly Got It All Wrong. Available now on Amazon in both print and Kindle.)