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| Photo credit: Associated Press |
"The highest form of intelligence… is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.” -Bill Bullard
It should be clear to anyone who's been paying attention that individuals such as the ones pictured above have either a total misunderstanding of or a profound lack of regard for the above quote. These are, simply put, people whose time spent reveling in juvenalia never ended and has now manifested itself as something well beyond tragic or even amusing.
The concept of freedom to the protestors of mild inconvenience, the weak-willed sadsacks who shamelessly moan about their First World problems, is one of doing whatever the hell one wants without regard for or responsibility to anyone else. Coupled with good old-fashioned doses of racism, sexism, religious fundamentalism, anti-science rhetoric, and impotent rage, mild inconvenience becomes
raison d'etre.
The irony that most of these Michigan marches against safety from a currently incurable virus have been rained out is not lost on me. While not a believer, I am certainly open to the possibility that the God they claim supports every moronic utterance from their misinformed mouths has had enough. I mean, what God worth its long white beard would find so-called "
haircut protests" in the midst of a global pandemic worthy? I'll tell ya what kind: One that understands how much it sucks to not be able to get your roots done!
Praise the Lawd and pass the hair dye!
Will these people, assuming they survive all the interacting with potentially infected like-minded types, ever have the presence of mind to look back on their actions and realize how stupidly they were acting? Let's not hold our breath...unless they're walking past us, because those idiots are walking petrie dishes.
On the Western side of Michigan, where I'm convinced there must be some type of radiation leak or brainwashing facility, the virus spread has increased because, surprise-surprise, that's where a lot of the protestors live! Can you imagine if something like this catches on? Protest an unstoppable virus by congregating with people and then going home. Why, with that type of dedication, we could wipe out half of humanity in a matter of years.
But let's not dwell on the people who are upset because they can't get haircuts and eat inside restaurants that are still providing curbside carryout. We're in Idiocracy Phase Two now. Governor Whitmer is slowly reopening the state, a move no doubt brought on by pressures from the militia-minded Northern Michiganders who refused to accept her authority because she's an uppity female Democrat. The places that have remained opened all along, the essential stores, are requiring that their customers wear masks, so naturally these Nobel Laureates have taken that little factoid and turned it into some demented crusade against fear and being told what to do.
Apparently there's no braver way to stand up for one's freedumbs than to square off against a virus (it helps if you believe it's a conspiracy to keep Donald Trump from getting reelected even though Trump himself admits the virus is real) by telling it you ain't a'scared of nothin'. I remember once when a tornado ripped through Michigan, I stood on a rooftop and said, "Bitch, please." You best believe it backed off!
So now these would be Rosa Parks's are
attacking store employees for enforcing the "mask it or casket" rule. In the interest of fairness, it isn't just steretypical flag-waving so-called "Rednecks" acting this way either. Take a look at what happened in Flint. But that incident, repugant as it was, seems to be an outlier. Most of the perpetators are white males and females with grossly exaggerrated senses of their importance.
It isn't always resulting in violence, however. Take "
Flat-Earther Karen" as an example. Her clearly rehearsed, sad gambit to strike a blow for the unmasked is just one example. Another is
this jerk.
What's fascinating about this situation is how these same people, drooling along with Rush Limbaugh and the Fox News pundits, supported the Citizens United Supreme Court Decisin to grant corporatins personhood. That makes them private, sovereign citizens with rights equal to (although any thinking person knows they're more equal than we are) any walking, talking, gun-totin' 'Murican. Private entities can require us to do whatever they deem necessary. They're not infringing on our rights, they're exercising theirs. I would urge all of the protestors to think long and hard about that.
And next time we'll deal with the dual issues of you believing nobody is an expert while accepting anecdotal evidence and how you keep confusing illegality with executive orders. In the meantime, I'd tell you to be safe but you won't, so stay the hell away from those of us who are~
