https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-texas-salon-owner-shelley-luther-released-from-prison

400K? Nice. Good for her.

The advice to comply with the judge’s order is interesting. In the normal course of events, when various natural rights haven’t been suspended, it’s probably the best advice.

But how do you fight when you can’t support your family and your only “crime” is violating an order that is likely unlawful. Judges like to think they’re a variation on the French King’s old quote:

“The Law, it’s me.” (Actual quote: L’Etat, C’est moi. The State, it’s me)

Sooner or later, people will have to decide what side they’re going to settle on: Rule of Law or Rule of Men. And siding with the Rule of Law may necessitate breaking caprice and unconstitutional “laws”, i.e. orders and decrees. Submission to tyrants, petty and large, is no virtue. I’m very proud of this woman and proud she is my countryman.

Movies and stories, oft written by Leftists, tell of noble people standing up to The Man and The Powers That Be. In these tales, the “heroes” are most usually journalists. Sometimes they’re lawyers or politicians.

In real life, the hero is a hairdresser. Think we’ll ever get a movie about her someday? An honest one?

Andrés Correa, a Dallas civil lawyer, said Moyé was justified in his ruling because Luther violated a judge’s order. Luther could have argued against the constitutionality of the stay-at-home orders at the May 11 hearing, but instead she chose to stay open, Correa said.

It’s “the same thing I would tell a client: Comply with a judge’s orders, and let’s change his mind,” Correa said. “Let’s present additional arguments and witnesses, but let’s start by complying with his orders. Otherwise you could end up in jail.”

The punishment could be eased with compliance.

“If you show contrition and you promise that you’re going to comply, then you can get out of jail,” Correa said. “It’s in your control.”

That may be the proper advice for actual criminals (see Napolitano’s opinion above; he’s not alone in his viewpoint that there was not lawful order that had to be obeyed in the first place), but it’s out of place in this one.

The judge’s stance is also kind of at odds with his history.
https://www.dallascounty.org/government/courts/civil_district/14th/bio.php

J.D., Harvard Law School, 1979
Dallas Civil Liberties Union, 1987-94

This is a classic Civil Liberties case, except the Democrats are on the other side now.

I’m not just guessing at Moye’s party affiliation, btw; this is his own re-election campaign blurb (judges are elected in Texas; it’s often a pro forma affair, but I suspect his next campaign might be contested).
http://judgemoye.com/
“A lifelong Democrat, Judge Moyé is a dedicated public servant who is passionate about justice …”

“She was not convicted of violating Governor [Greg] Abbott’s guidelines because the guidelines are just guidelines,” Napolitano said. “They don’t have the force of law. She was convicted of violating a [county] judicial order to shut her salon. The judge who issued that order has no more authority to shut the salon than does the governor, who didn’t exercise any authority to shut the salon.”
…
“Being selfish is not a crime. This sort of ‘Say what I want you to say and I won’t send you to jail’ violates her right to remain silent. This case is a mess,” Napolitano said.

“The judge wanted her to apologize for in his words being ‘selfish’ and she rejected that description and stood by her principles and was willing to pay the price.” – Griffin

Most of the videos circulating are of Luther’s response, but if you haven’t done so already, listen to the judge’s conditions.

“If you would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge that your own actions were selfish, putting your own interest ahead of those in the community in which you live,” Moye said, offering her a chance to avoid jail time. He said he would consider only giving her a fine, if she apologized, acknowledged she was wrong, and agreed to keep her business closed until Friday, when the governor has announced all salons may open.

He droned on for far longer than that (video linked below), a veritable sermon from the bench.
I kept visualizing him in a red robe with a curled wig, lecturing a pre-independence American about his duty to obey the Orders of the King and the Laws of Parliament — where he was not represented.

Or a southern judge haranguing Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King about the importance of obeying Jim Crow laws.
Or a Catholic court condemning the original Luther for defying Church edicts.

“If you would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge that your own actions were selfish, putting your own interest ahead of those in the community in which you live,”

All rebellions have been characterized this way by the ruling establishment.

Somebody has finally taken the step of defying unConstitutional executive orders (NO state has yet enacted LAWS about the lockdowns, AFAIK), and it’s hard to demonize a working woman with kids — a hairstylist no less!

She’s not a Black Panther or a Weatherman or an Antifa thug or a #BLM activist or even a college student grabbing microphones, stealing signs, and shouting down invited guests; yet she was given a stern lecture, fine, and jail sentence for doing something that doesn’t even approach within light years of what the Democrats routinely justify for THEIR rebellion.

I wonder what the judge’s responses have been to defendants who have protested or rioted in support of causes that the judge believes to be “unselfish” opposition to somehow “unjust” laws, and if he was worried that they endangered the welfare of the community by vandalizing businesses, beating by-standers or journalists, torching cars, and the rest of the litany of literal crimes that constitute the left’s repertoire of “civil disobedience.”

Ben Franklin (as quoted in “1776”) reminds us that “A rebellion is always legal in the first person – our rebellion; it is only in the third person — their rebellion — that it is illegal.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/texas_created_a_wuhan_virus_martyr_by_imprisoning_shelley_luther.html?utm_source=vuukle&utm_medium=newsfeed
“The judge, it should be noted, continues to work and draw a paycheck — as does every government employee in America.”

But really, just don’t mess with Texans.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/tx-lt-gov-dan-patrick-to-pay-7k-fine-of-arrested-salon-owner-offers-to-serve-her-jail-sentence-so-she-can-work

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/this-is-nuts-ted-cruz-defends-salon-owner-sentenced-to-week-in-jail-for-violating-texas-shut-down-order

https://www.dailywire.com/news/dan-crenshaw-small-minded-officials-who-arrested-texas-salon-owner-are-drunk-with-power

BTW, when I started reading this morning, her GoFundMe was only at $75,000 of the $100K target; it’s now north of $400,000 — including our 2-cents-worth — and climbing.
GFM is starting to serve as the peons’ popular poll – putting their money where their mouths would be if the Social Media (how is that not an oxymoron now?) would allow it.

“You may go to the ball if you finish all your chores AND have a proper dress to wear, Cinderella.”
Step-mother and step-sisters tear up the beautiful dress.
“Oh dear, now you have to stay home.”