“Mandate”, “Guideline”, “Requirement”, “Directive”, “Restriction“
These are some of the more common labels applied to the COVID-19 policies that state authorities define and then attempt to enforce against private citizens and businesses. What people fail to realize is that since these policies have no legal (statutory) basis, they are in fact entirely unenforceable. Unless and until a given state legislature actually passes laws backstopping these policies, private citizens and businesses are not obligated to honor them. So the Governors and their state agencies are simply bluffing, using weasel words like “mandate” in order to threaten and intimidate. Don’t fall for the bluff; these folks didn’t:
