On September 14, the little guy won and the new normal lost. Federal judge, William S. Stickman IV, ruled that lockdowns and other restrictions of small businesses in the State of Pennsylvania were unlawful and a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

His ruling states that the Governor of Pennsylvania was “well-intentioned” yet warns: “Indeed the greatest threat to our system of constitutional liberties may arise when the ends are laudable and the intent is good… In an emergency even a vigilant public may let down its guard over its constitutional liberties only to find that liberties, once relinquished, are hard to recoup and that restrictions… may persist long after immediate danger has passed.”

While the judge may have confided that the state had been “well-intentioned” it all points out how it had been illogical. The ruling specifically refers to how the method the Pennsylvania government used to separate “life-sustaining” businesses from “non-life-sustaining” was “an arbitrary, ad hoc, process that they were never able to reduce to a set, objective and measurable definition.”

The judge also exposed that allowing large retailers to stay open, while closing smaller businesses, did not “rationally relate to [the Governor’s] goals” of avoiding large gatherings. Large stores, attract large crowds. “Closing R.W. McDonald & Sons did not keep home a consumer looking to buy a new chair or lamp, it just sent him to Walmart.”

Essentially, the judge ruled that government was deciding “who would earn a pay check and who would be unemployed—and for some—which businesses would live and which would die.”

In a moving conclusion the ruling states: “Even in an emergency, the authority of the government is not unfettered. The liberties protected by the Constitution are not fair-weather freedoms – in place when times are good but able to be cast aside in times of trouble….

“The Constitution cannot accept the concept of a ‘new normal’ where the basic liberties of the people can be subordinated to open-ended emergency mitigation measures. Rather, the Constitution sets certain lines that may not be crossed, even in an emergency. Action taken by the [the Governor] crossed those lines.”