Nullify

"Jury nullification" happens when a jury finds "not guilty" someone who clearly is, because jury members believe the law under which that person is convicted is somehow unjust. In general, "nullifcation" happens when someone in authority acts the same way about an enforcement of the law. If a sheriff's deputy sees me at midnight driving on a county road faster than the posted speed limit but he does not stop me because he believes that the posted limit ought to be raised during times when traffic is almost non-existent, that's nullifcation. If he doesn't stop me because it's cold and rainy and he doesn't want to get out of the cruiser, that's common sense.

I use the example of sheriff's deputies because four sheriffs in the state of Michigan believe their governor overstepped her authority when she extended her state's lockdown rules to prevent people from buying more things and engaging in more activities. Governor Gretchen Whitmer labeled products such as paint, flooring, and furniture "non-essential," so stores can't sell them. Gardening supplies are out, but legal pot is in -- as Michigan State Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey said, "You can buy weed but not seeds." You can also buy lottery tickets.

But you can't drive to a second home within the state of Michigan. Unless of course you are not a resident of Michigan and you are driving to it from your home outside the state. This makes the stated rationale a little hard to understand -- if the measure is truly meant to prevent people from COVID-19 hotspot areas from exposing people in more rural upstate areas to the virus, why would out-of-state residents be OK while in-state ones were not? Unless perhaps we remember that while out-of-state residents might bring the virus with them, they will definitely bring out-of-state dollars.

In any event, the four sheriffs say that the Governor has claimed authority she does not have under the law to do these things, so they will not enforce some of the new rules.

Which highlights the problem of politicians who move from difficult yet understandable restrictions on movement and commerce to onerous and stupid ones. People get that since the virus is mostly commonly spread through micro-droplets expelled during sneezing, speaking or coughing, they are wise to stay about six feet away from someone so the droplets will be much less likely to reach them. So they will stand behind the taped boundary at the supermarket and greet each other from a distance. But not buying garden seeds? Being allowed onto a lake or river in an unpowered boat but not in one with a motor?

Even when the creator of such restrictions explains them no one buys it and that makes it less likely that they will be followed. Which in turn makes it less likely that the more sensible ones will be followed as well. Right now in Michigan it's just four sheriffs, but it could easily grow. If forty thousand people decide Saturday they're going to drive to a vacation home -- a number I just plucked from the air, by the way; I have no idea how many people in Michigan own vacation homes -- then the roughly 1,900 Michigan state troopers will have no practical way to stop them, even if they're all on patrol at the same time.

People may be dumb panicky dangerous animals, but they most often react to a dumb rule the same way -- they either ignore it or obey it only when someone is watching. And their confidence in the rule-makers erodes -- if they think I can't be trusted to buy begonia seeds when I know darn well I am the safest begonia gardener in the neighborhood, then they're probably wrong about that hand-washing thing or that six-foot thing or that whatever. Stupidity may be widespread but it's generally only dangerous to us when we're engaging in it.

Unless we get elected to office. Then it gets worse, and it's waaaay more dangerous to others.