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Civil Disobedience: Count Me In
Let me be clear: I am not, in general, an advocate of civil disobedience. I don’t believe that people should resort to lawlessness casually.
Throughout the social upheaval that defined 2020, I resisted the temptation to join other protesters. I didn’t block traffic. I didn’t set fire to cars or buildings. I didn’t break windows. I didn’t steal shoes or televisions. I didn’t deface public or private property. I didn’t throw rocks at police. I didn’t terrorize any neighborhoods. I didn’t hit anyone with a skateboard. In fact, I neither injured nor killed anyone.
Other people did all of these things, right up to and including killing people — were, in fact, celebrated for doing these things by prominent Democrats who, from the safety of their well-patrolled redoubts secured by armed guards, expressed their support for the rioting mobs as they burned their way through America.
“I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country, and maybe there will be when people realize that this [border policy] is a policy that [Republicans] defend.” — Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Gated Mansion)
I didn’t take part. I guess the cause that motivated the thousands of righteously angry rioters just wasn’t quite, I don’t know, truthful enough for me. It wasn’t sufficiently statistically accurate for my tastes.
But now the governor of my state has decided that I have to wear a mask indoors. I haven’t worn a mask indoors in months, and I haven’t seen anything sufficiently science-y to make me think I should start now.
So I’m going to cash in my unspent protest credits now. I’m going to walk into stores and businesses without my mask on, just like I did every day these past several months, and go about my business as if we weren’t pretending that there’s a crisis. That’s my protest. I won’t set anyone’s car on fire, won’t break any windows, won’t pinch an expensive pair of Nike Air Uyghurs® to sport at the gym next time I work out.
I’m just going to leave my Let’s Go Brandon face mask in my jacket pocket, rather than slapping the old sheep-muzzle on as I approach the door of whatever fine establishment (okay, liquor store) I’m about to enter.
The 2020 protesters wore masks so no one would know who was breaking things. My protest is to skip the mask, but otherwise behave myself.
Because, darn it, I’ve had enough.
Though, honestly, I’m almost going to miss wearing my new one. Here’s me and my kid brother John in Albuquerque this weekend, dining at Schlotzsky’s.
Do not comply.
Henry, you’re also a New Yorker, right? Some counties are not enforcing this.
I have been doing the same. I quit a job on Monday because of the mandate. I have been walking into establishments without a mask and I’m taking note of how they respond. Surprisingly, quite a few have said nothing and checked out my purchases as normal. One particular coffee shop that I visited every morning yelled at me to put a mask on when I walked in and pointed to the basket of masks by the front door.
Businesses that leave me alone will get my patronage. Businesses that get obnoxious, I will never shop at again.
James, my county is not one of those that defied the Governor’s diktat. (The Governor, for her part, has said that the state will take no action against counties that refuse to comply.)
I’ve walked into three establishments in the past two days. At one of them, a convenience store, the young man behind the counter sheepishly asked if I’d please wear a mask. I did: it isn’t his fault we have stupid rules, and he’s an employee who wants to keep his job. My position is that, if asked, I’ll decide whether I want to complete the transaction or not, and mask accordingly, but only when confronted by an employee.
At the other two, larger stores, no one payed any attention to my uncovered face — or no one was willing to say anything if they did. (As I told my brother John earlier today, for the first time in my life I’m going to take advantage of my ability to hulk menacingly, and hope that discourages busybodies and Karens from expressing their opinions.) I was, in every instance, the only unmasked person in the place.
If you didn’t listen to the news or read it, you might not even know there is a mandate. I have found it to be liberating not to know about such things, at least for a while. Eventually someone on Ricochet will spill the beans.
Some stores have big, obvious signs at the door, and others don’t seem to have it posted. I make it a point not to look.
Good policy.
I went to Best Buy the other day. Sign on the door said they recommended masks for customers who weren’t vaccinated. Mask wearing in the store was probably 95%. Guarantee 90% of those were treble-poked. I was talking to a salesman, and asked him if he wanted me to put on a mask, and he said “no, ‘s;’okay, I don’t care.”
Next stop: affluent-suburb grocery store. Again: 95%. There I am, a free-facing anti-social science denier.
In the skyways downtown, which are populated by the professional class, mask wearing is probably at 15%. I find that interesting, and heartening. These are the people who perhaps chose to return to the office, and have resumed normal life.
Then again, there were four people in the office today, and two had masks. Cloth. On opposite sides of the newsroom from anyone else. Whenever I encounter someone who rarely comes in, and is masked, and I’m brazenly unmasked, I feel like some tunnel-dwelling CHUD who makes his way on to subway platform in a tony part of town.
I visit the coronavirus subreddit every day, and it’s all sweaty trembling fear about Omnicron and surges. At least half the posts note that “I have anxiety already (lol) so this is making it even worse, I haven’t left my house in two weeks.” It’s almost as if people who have a contentious relationship with the outside world have seized on COVID to amplify and justify their neurosis.
It’s like the existential dread in the nuclear age, except much more imminent and likely. What’s unique is that the fear of death has made them perversely terrified of living.
I stopped wearing a mask over the week after Memorial Day while I was visiting my mother in the Sonoita Valley. When I returned to Flagstaff, no one else was wearing masks. I had a breakthrough case of COVID-19; I think that the Omicron Variant is a blessing in disguise in that it is easier to get, but far less dangerous. Put bluntly, the Omicron Variant is nature’s way of vaccinating the rest of the country who haven’t had formal vaccines. Just as cowpox was a benign form of smallpox and created the smallpox vaccination, Omicron will create its own vaccine. (I believe that you will be better off with Delta or Omicron if you are already vaccinated.)
I don’t wear a mask voluntarily. If a store says they are recommended, that is not a requirement so I don’t wear a mask. About the only place where I wear a mask is in a doctor’s or dentist’s office where it is required. And when I wear a mask it is a “f.u.” type of bandana which covers my nose and mouth, but lets air in under my mouth.
Ya think? ;)
My state agency called everyone back into the office at the beginning of August. One of the reasons cited was so we could resume in-person team meetings. Guess what? Within two weeks we went back to virtual meetings on MS Teams. We join a meeting while sitting at our individual work stations instead of gathering in a conference room. Masks have not been mandated but strongly encouraged, regardless of vaccination status. It has been interesting to see who are among the never-masked, part-time masked, and always-masked. The part-timers appear to be in the majority. When someone from the mail-room was asked why he was masking all of a sudden, he replied, “Well, everyone else seems to be masking.”
So, we might never reach herd immunity but we probably reached herd mentality months ago.
Welcome to the insurrection! I have refused to wear a mask since Gov. Toliets reinstated a mandate here in ILLinois. Other than a wake, I have not worn a mask inside. I am asked sometimes “do you need a mask?” “No thank you!” I truly feel bad for workers as they could lose their jobs and those places that make a stink (3 so far), I walk out.
Be a happy warrior about your resistance and others will join!
I’ve been doing the same. The Erie County Executive ordered the return of indoor masking a few days before the governor, Now, I’m reflexively rule-following – I’ve never even had a speeding ticket. I don’t like confrontations. But I decided that this was too much nonsense and I would try ignoring the rule and see what happened.
So far no one has said anything. This includes:
I’ve seen just one or two other non-masked people in these places. I could tell the cashier at the gas station really wanted to say something, but I guess she decided it was easier to give me my change and I’d be gone.
I have a speech ready about opposing stupid and useless rules, but I haven’t even had to use it yet. Still, it’s stressful to openly violate the rules, and I wish we weren’t in this position.
An employee at the coffee shop yelled at you. Sometimes it is a newly empowered or greatly fearful worker/manager that does the enforcing.
But my Brandon Bidenstan approved Bozo The fauci face diaper protects me from the Wuflu, measles, cancer, heart attacks and plane crashes. At least that’s what the “experts” tell me. I should wear it when I sleep!
It might keep you from grinding your teeth. I know. Teeth grinding hardly seems to be of much importance in the great scheme things, but should that moment ever come to you when you discover how badly you need a tooth extraction, the mask over your mouth will be right up there in importance with the mask over your eyes to keep morning light away from that sleep deprived mind!
Y’all live in the wrong states.
Here in GA, people wearing masks are the ones who look out of place. About the only place mandating them are doctor’s offices part of big healthcare systems being run by lawyers.
The key is “big healthcare systems being run by lawyers.”
In my little corner of flyover country, mask-wearing in stores is probably about 10% at places normal people shop and maybe 20% at more affluent places.
The really interesting part is the absolute hate-stares people — particularly women of middle or ‘a certain’ age — fix on those who aren’t wearing masks.
It’s also interesting how people in retail and food-service are universally forced to wear masks. Mask-wearing is now a marker of being a member of the service class.
That’s from the left again, of course. They need some kind of marker, since they can no longer rely on color.
The same could be said in our neck of the woods.
They would not be in my restaurant
Oh, nothing much. Basically, “I think it’s important to push back against stupid and useless rules, and this is a stupid and useless rule. Masks didn’t help us last winter – why would they make any difference this winter?”
If that’s not enough, I can always try “I’ve had COVID so I’m no danger to anyone.”
I can add two local restaurants to my list.
One was a small Mexican place where I had pre-ordered and prepaid, so all I had to do was walk in and grab a bag. At that moment there were no other customers, and most of the staff had their masks pulled down to their chins. They pulled them up when I walked in, and probably down again when I left.
At the other place my wife and I were meeting her sister, who already had a booth, so we didn’t have to talk anyone. We just went to the booth. The wife always wears a mask. I had one with me, but no one said anything so I didn’t put it on coming or going. I saw one other person paying her bill at the register who did not have a mask on.
Imagine if the cultural tides dramatically changed and the wearing of masks was prohibited by executive mandate.
The courts would overturn that in a heartbeat. Like when Trump tried to undo some Obama EOs.
And then the deference given to the courts would rapidly erode.
What, have you been looking at the world again? You’ve been warned not to do that!