When all this started, my county's lockdown edicts were clearly given as recommendations, on a colorful graphic. I tried explaining this to a friend who was treating it as if she'd be arrested if she left her home.
Gradually everyone went along with the ever-increasing restrictions as if they were the law, succumbing to the intimidation tactics by police and politicians.
There's a reason we have a legislature on every level of government. No leader can lawfully issue edicts of this magnitude. These are all suggestions. As soon as they threaten to arrest people or pull a business license, people cower. They don't question it. They're so terrified of the mere threat of getting punished that they have no balls to stand up, call the bluff, and threaten right back if their rights are being violated.
I don't see how they can lawfully do anything they're doing and force citizens to comply, even under a state of emergency. They can't close off taxpayer-funded parks or playgrounds, shut down businesses, none of this.
Am I wrong? What is going on here legally?
Use Japanese internment as example.
I think the number of people arrested or punished over this has been very small. Maybe every instance gets publicized and blown out of proportion, by the Nazis as an example of what happens if you don't follow their edicts, and by citizens out of anger of what the Nazis are doing. It might be that only 0.1% of people face that, while everyone else gets merely a warning from cops to practice social distancing. It's impossible to know.