“Welp, Florida opened back up & my ass should’ve stayed tf home this past weekend cause I just tested positive for the damn COVID,” Erika Crisp wrote on Facebook June 10th. “#IKnowBetter #MyFault #WearYourMasksPeople”.
One night out at a Jacksonville bar was enough exposure for Crisp and 15 friends to contract the coronavirus. Crisp told a local TV station she and her friends had been “doing everything the right way,” but went out that night not wearing masks. That one night was the common denominator between them.
Crisp, 40, is a healthcare worker. BuzzFeed News reports:
“I think we were careless and we went out into a public place when we should not have,” she told the news station. “I think we had a whole ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality. The state opens back up and said everybody was fine, so we took advantage of that.”
The bar Crisp and her friends went to, Lynch’s Irish Pub, closed voluntarily last Friday for cleaning after learning one customer had tested positive. They also tested their employees, and seven workers tested positive as well.
Twenty other people Crisp doesn’t know who were there that night messaged her to say they too tested positive. The carrier was likely asymptomatic, she believes.
Florida’s Department of Health confirmed a record high 2,783 new cases on Tuesday.
Masks wearers are sheep, believes Ashley Smith of Morganton, NC. The co-founder of ReopenNC responded to Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) consideration of mandatory mask use in public spaces with the “Burn Your Masks” challenge.
Smith posted a video to the group’s Facebook page explaining her views (WRAL):
“As you know, we are a group that is completely against mandatory anything,” she said. “We are for personal liberty and the constitution and personal freedom.”
Smith, holding a blue medical mask, the kind used by many workers in healthcare settings, read the description on its packaging, which cautions users, “When properly worn … the mask reduces potential contact by the wearer to fluids but does not eliminate the risk of contracting any virus, disease or infection.”
“This does not prevent the spread of COVID,” Smith addressed viewers in the video. “This is not a sign of your compassion or how much you care for another human being. This is a sign of control.”
Perhaps. But for Trump cult members wearing a mask is also a sign of apostasy. Those of little faith are not worthy of the love Dear Leader does not have to give them. Mask wearing is a public confession, an admission that Donald Trump was wrong when on February 26 he assured, “when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”
That was over two million U.S. cases and 117,000 dead Americans ago. Give or take a few thousand graves.
Not wearing a mask in public spaces is also an admission that you could not care less that neighbors might die if you are the carrier. “Conservatives Without Conscience,” John Dean called such people in 2007.
Perhaps the description fits. “Are we willing to kill people? Are we willing to lay our lives down? We have to say yes,” Adam Smith, husband to Ashley, said in a Facebook Live video opposing the shutdown on May 22. “If you bring force, we’re gonna bring force. If you bring guns, we’re gonna bring guns. If you’re armed with this, we’re gonna be armed with this.”
The Winston-Salem Journal reported Adam Smith attended a Raleigh protest in May alongside “Boogaloo bois” interested in provoking a second civil war. Another Boogaloo extremist, an Air Force staff sergeant, was charged in California on Tuesday in the killing of a Santa Cruz County deputy and the attempted murder of a federal officer. Recall your Maya Angelou.
But that disclaimer Smith read on the surgical mask box reminded me of something else. Oh, yes:
Latex condoms are intended to prevent pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted infections…. However, they do not completely eliminate the risks of pregnancy and STIs.
So, useless. Clearly. Personal liberty without personal responsibility. That’s Donald Trump in a nutshell, emphasis on nut. Freedom? A worship word. MAGA worship. Now only a shibboleth. God Bless America.
Don’t expect POTUS to follow his mentor on this one.
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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.