Tim Eyman tries to defend his irresponsible behavior during coronavirus pandemic

Scam­mer and dis­graced ini­tia­tive pur­vey­or Tim Eyman has jus­ti­fi­ably been tak­ing a lot of flak dur­ing the past thir­ty-six hours for mak­ing irre­spon­si­ble jokes about the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic and urg­ing his fol­low­ers to join him in dis­re­gard­ing Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s recent pro­hi­bi­tion on large pub­lic gath­er­ings.

“Let’s stick our fin­ger in the eye of Jay Inslee: 251 is the # of patri­ots I hope will join me @ Oak Har­bor today. I’m bring­ing a six-pack of Coro­na!” Eyman blus­tered in an email sent Sat­ur­day morn­ing to his net­work of Repub­li­can PCO backers.

After I denounced Eyman’s mis­sive here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate, it caught the atten­tion of The Seat­tle Times, The Seat­tle Post-Intel­li­gencer, and The Stranger. The Stranger’s Christo­pher Frizzelle kind­ly both linked to and excerpt­ed the post.

It appears that Eyman also took some flak from peo­ple with­in his own par­ty, because last night he sent out anoth­er email that attempt­ed to explain and jus­ti­fy his irre­spon­si­ble behav­ior and ter­ri­ble comments.

That email — very dif­fer­ent in tone from the email that Eyman sent on Sat­ur­day morn­ing — con­tained the fol­low­ing com­men­tary. Here it is in full:

We’re fac­ing 2 crises: 1. the Coro­n­avirus & 2. the gov­ern­men­t’s reac­tion to it. 

Sat­ur­day’s update and meet-and-greet in Oak Har­bor were intend­ed to pro­voke a need­ed debate.

I am very concerned.

All of us — includ­ing myself — are scram­bling to keep track of the fed­er­al, state, and local gov­ern­ments’ list of can’s and cannot’s.

They keep chang­ing on an almost hourly basis.

Any­time so many gov­ern­ments are man­dat­ing so many con­stant­ly evolv­ing restric­tions, cit­i­zens need to be espe­cial­ly vig­i­lant so the gov­ern­ment does­n’t make a bad sit­u­a­tion worse.

“The price of free­dom is eter­nal vig­i­lence.” That sure fits this.

Coro­n­avirus is some­thing we’re all very con­cerned about — there are peo­ple who have died from it and will die from it and all of us mourn for them and their fam­i­lies. And we’re grate­ful to those hero­ic peo­ple in the health care field who are doing their absolute best. Coro­n­avirus is right­ful­ly get­ting a lot of attention.

But what’s not get­ting the atten­tion it deserves is the gov­ern­men­t’s reac­tion to it. It’s some­thing all of us need to rec­og­nize: there are legions of exam­ples in our nation’s his­to­ry where the gov­ern­ment — fed­er­al, state, and local — made a bad sit­u­a­tion worse and basic con­sti­tu­tion­al rights are trampled.

Dur­ing World War II, Japan­ese Amer­i­cans were put in intern­ment camps. Dur­ing the late 60’s, there was the House Com­mit­tee on Un-Amer­i­can Activ­i­ties and Hol­ly­wood’s “black list”.

After 9–11, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment imposed restric­tions that were not con­sis­tent with our US Constitution.

There are innu­mer­able examples.

At the meet-and-greet in Oak Har­bor yes­ter­day, I talked about this and it was very well received.

I high­light­ed my own per­son­al his­to­ry that influ­ences my con­vic­tions: when we were doing our local ini­tia­tives to let the vot­ers decide on red-light tick­et­ing cam­eras in 2010 and 2011 — the vot­ers sided with us every time. The gov­ern­ment always said it was about safe­ty, but vot­ers rec­og­nized it was also a loss of their liberty.

Dur­ing those cam­paigns, I often cit­ed the famous quote by Ben­jamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essen­tial Lib­er­ty, to pur­chase a lit­tle tem­po­rary Safe­ty, deserve nei­ther Lib­er­ty nor Safety.”

The First Amend­ment guar­an­tees the cit­i­zen­ry the right to peace­ably assem­ble. I am very con­cerned that dur­ing fear-inten­sive sit­u­a­tions like this that the gov­ern­ment infringes on basic con­sti­tu­tion­al rights with­out suf­fi­cient questioning.

And when that hap­pens, I’ve seen the media is often silent or even com­plic­it. It’s impor­tant that when the gov­ern­ment infringes on basic con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and the press falls down on the job, there needs to be peo­ple with the courage to ques­tion it, chal­lenge it, debate it. Jay Inslee did not “sug­gest” the sus­pen­sion of the First Amend­ment, he ordered it. That is deeply dis­turb­ing to me.

Noth­ing wrong with the gov­ern­ment say­ing — we strong­ly urge cit­i­zens to do the fol­low­ing — that’s fine.

But using the full weight and author­i­ty and pow­er of the gov­ern­ment to order the end of polit­i­cal dis­course, the sus­pen­sion of wor­ship, these are basic rights that do not need to be and should not be sac­ri­ficed with­out greater dis­cus­sion and debate.

I firm­ly believe we can have a soci­ety that val­ues both safe­ty and lib­er­ty but only if you elect peo­ple who are com­mit­ted to both.

My update on Sat­ur­day and the meet-and-greet in Oak Har­bor were intend­ed — and they’ve suc­ceed­ed — in pro­vok­ing a need­ed debate.

“No man is enti­tled to the bless­ings of free­dom unless he be vig­i­lant in its preser­va­tion.” Dou­glas MacArthur.

Peo­ple need to be con­cerned, not just about COVID-19, but also the gov­ern­men­t’s con­tin­ued esca­la­tion of restrictions.

It’s a seri­ous ques­tion: what’s next?

These are very try­ing times that we are fac­ing right now. I ask you to join me in prayer. I ask you to join me in ask­ing ques­tions that aren’t being asked. I am very con­cerned, but I am also very cer­tain that togeth­er, we can over­come these chal­lenges with­out sac­ri­fic­ing what makes Amer­i­ca so special.

My best to you and your families.

Tim

I do under­stand the con­cern expressed in this com­men­tary, but it was wrong and extreme­ly irre­spon­si­ble of Eyman to attempt to insti­gate a debate by putting lives at risk. Eyman should have can­celed his meet and greet and offered to engage with his fol­low­ers online, which is actu­al­ly some­thing he already does.

(Once upon a time, Eyman used to avoid social media; say­ing it just was­n’t for him; but now he can bare­ly stay off of Facebook.)

If Eyman had can­celed his Whid­bey Island meet and greet and instead post­ed a Face­book video out­lin­ing his con­cerns about Gov­er­nor Inslee’s exec­u­tive orders, he would have been mod­el­ing respon­si­ble behav­ior for his followers.

Eyman chose instead to con­vey the impres­sion that he con­sid­ers the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic a hoax and encour­aged peo­ple to engage in unsafe, risky behav­ior. That’s inex­cus­able. A per­son seek­ing high office should know better. 

Sad­ly, Eyman does not care about the well-being of oth­ers as he claimed in the mes­sage above. What he does care about is get­ting pub­lic­i­ty and mak­ing a prof­it, and his long track record of lying and law­break­ing proves it.

It is rare — exceed­ing­ly rare — that Tim Eyman ever offers a thought­ful com­men­tary on any­thing. Most of what comes out of his mouth and email account are lies and fab­ri­ca­tions. So it’s good to see that he is at least capa­ble of con­tribut­ing a more con­tem­pla­tive take on an issue of pub­lic concern.

If Eyman had led with this, he would have got­ten a very dif­fer­ent response. Con­trary to what he seems to think, it is not nec­es­sary to behave bad­ly and engage in juve­nile name call­ing and taunts to attract attention.

With regards to Gov­er­nor Inslee’s exec­u­tive orders, I emphat­i­cal­ly dis­agree with Eyman that the Gov­er­nor is sus­pend­ing the First Amendment.

Inslee is using his law­ful author­i­ty (see RCW 43.06.220) to pro­tect peo­ple — and specif­i­cal­ly, his con­stituents — dur­ing a pub­lic health crisis.

It was nec­es­sary for Inslee to issue the orders because mere­ly “sug­gest­ing” best prac­tices would not have been suf­fi­cient to save lives. Time was, and remains, of the essence. Act­ing on the advice of sci­en­tists, Inslee moved to ensure that social dis­tanc­ing best prac­tices would not be imple­ment­ed in a patch­work man­ner, but instead uni­form­ly, because that is the only approach that yields results.

None of Inslee’s orders sus­pends the First Amend­ment, as Eyman argues. Pub­lic gath­er­ings haven’t been out­lawed, but rather cur­tailed. It is still law­ful for peo­ple to peace­ably assem­ble to address their gov­ern­ment for a redress of grievances.

And in fact, there are tech­no­log­i­cal ways of assem­bling in large groups that do not involve being in close phys­i­cal prox­im­i­ty to lots of oth­er peo­ple. Such activ­i­ties are not restrict­ed in any way by Gov­er­nor Inslee’s orders. The Gov­er­nor’s aim is to ensure that as few peo­ple as pos­si­ble will get sick and die from coronavirus.

If you con­tract the virus and lose your life, you will not be able to enjoy any of the lib­er­ties that the First Amend­ment affords you, because you won’t be alive.

Life, lib­er­ty, and the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness. Those are the most impor­tant of the inalien­able rights guar­an­teed to all by the Cre­ator, accord­ing to our nation’s Founders, who explic­it­ly men­tioned them in the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence. (The Dec­la­ra­tion pre­ced­ed the Con­sti­tu­tion by over a decade.)

Life comes first!

It is cer­tain­ly true, as Eyman stat­ed in his com­men­tary, that there have been times in our his­to­ry when peo­ple’s civ­il lib­er­ties were infringed upon in the name of safe­ty. This isn’t one of those times… at least not yet.

Thus far, the orders that have been issued by Inslee and oth­er gov­er­nors around the coun­try are sen­si­ble and designed to pro­tect peo­ple’s lib­er­ties by ensur­ing they don’t get sick and die wait­ing for med­ical care in over­loaded hospitals.

Impor­tant­ly, Gov­er­nor Inslee has repeat­ed­ly stat­ed that he expects vol­un­tary com­pli­ance with his orders, and that there will not be a puni­tive enforce­ment effort intend­ed to round up and penal­ize peo­ple who dis­re­gard the orders.

Sher­iffs and police depart­ments, for their part, have explic­it­ly advised peo­ple not to call 911 or even the non­emer­gency line to report indi­vid­u­als like Eyman who attempt to orga­nize pub­lic gath­er­ings exceed­ing two hun­dred and fifty people.

Our state gov­ern­men­t’s focus is pro­tec­tion and edu­ca­tion, just as it should be. Past gen­er­a­tions antic­i­pat­ed that there might be times of emer­gency when reg­u­lar order would need to be inter­rupt­ed to ensure the well-being of the people.

This is such a time of emer­gency and the Gov­er­nor is wield­ing his emer­gency pow­ers appro­pri­ate­ly. If he had­n’t issued the orders he did, he’d be get­ting crit­i­cized for fail­ing to act dur­ing a rapid­ly unfold­ing pandemic.

I also under­stand that as a lib­er­tar­i­an, Eyman is dis­trust­ful of author­i­ty and not enam­ored with the idea of gov­ern­ments mak­ing deci­sions on the basis of val­ues like pro­tec­tion and mutu­al respon­si­bil­i­ty, since those are not his values.

But they are the val­ues Wash­ing­ton State was found­ed upon.

As I not­ed above, there have def­i­nite­ly been oth­er times when emer­gen­cies have been used to jus­ti­fy actions that were not in Amer­i­cans’ best interest.

For exam­ple, I hap­pen to agree with Eyman that after Sep­tem­ber 11th, Con­gress and Pres­i­dent Bush enact­ed laws that were sup­pos­ed­ly aimed at pro­tect­ing the Unit­ed States, but in real­i­ty under­mined our civ­il lib­er­ties. My team and I at NPI oppose the Patri­ot Act, for exam­ple, and we do not think it should be reau­tho­rized, unlike the major­i­ty in the House that vot­ed to extend it this week.

I was sur­prised that Eyman brought up the intern­ment of Japan­ese-Amer­i­cans (insti­gat­ed by an exec­u­tive order), as that is not a trav­es­ty that we usu­al­ly hear many in right wing cir­cles express any sor­row or con­cern over.

What we typ­i­cal­ly hear instead from the right wing is that Amer­i­ca is an excep­tion­al, great coun­try that is always right and free of blemish.

Which is a fic­tion. That is not the sto­ry of our country.

Many of the shame­ful civ­il lib­er­ties abus­es in our coun­try’s his­to­ry were per­pe­trat­ed fol­low­ing attacks on Amer­i­ca, such as in the exam­ples above.

If our state and coun­try had just been attacked, I would share Eyman’s stat­ed con­cern (which, unfor­tu­nate­ly, I can’t be sure is tru­ly sin­cere, as Eyman lies so effort­less­ly) about the poten­tial for infringe­ment of our rights and free­doms, because we’ve com­mon­ly seen that dur­ing our history.

But the emer­gency we’re in now is a pub­lic health cri­sis and the ene­my is not a nation state or a shad­owy ter­ror­ist group, but rather a virus.

To beat the virus — SARS-CoV­‑2 — we have to come togeth­er by agree­ing to stay apart. Gov­er­nor Inslee is using his author­i­ty to gal­va­nize the behav­ioral changes need­ed to ensure that the pan­dem­ic does not get expo­nen­tial­ly worse.

That’s lead­er­ship.

Tim Eyman is free to dis­agree and tell us how he thinks he could do the job bet­ter. The First Amend­ment gives him the free­dom to be an arm­chair quar­ter­back. But as I said above, it’s unac­cept­able that he is urg­ing peo­ple to put their and oth­ers’ lives at risk by open­ly flout­ing Gov­er­nor Inslee’s direc­tives, which are based on sound sci­ence and mir­ror direc­tives being issued by oth­er governors.

I think it’s telling that Eyman did not explain how he’d go about respond­ing to this coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic in his lengthy mes­sage from last night.

Instead, he talked about prayer, and he asked his fol­low­ers to pray with him.

Prayer is won­der­ful, but it’s not a sub­sti­tute for pub­lic policy.