Originally captioned is Trump inciting violence in demonstrations against governors? Updated April 30, 2020
Forwarding to me from Dr. David Lurye, formerly of Winter Park , which he received and posted on Facebook he
copied this from another post.
I'll say it again: Your "rights" and "freedoms" do not include the right to endanger others by acting irresponsibly. Even if you want to.
Ok, so, here’s some venting and some explaining and if you don’t like it, I honestly don’t care. Move on and good day to you.
This has easily been the longest 2 months of my career, and, for that matter, my life. COVID-19 has changed everything. The way we live, the way our kids learn, the way we work. It has trashed the economy, exploded unemployment, and harmed businesses, many of them, sadly, beyond repair. But here’s the deal: it’s real and it’s here and it’s still spreading.
As a healthcare worker, I’m exhausted. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. As a manager in the the healthcare industry, it’s been one of the longest, most stressful things I’ve tackled.
First off, the truthers and the conspiracy people and the protesters, you’re not helping. The people bitching CONSTANTLY about the governor’s or whatever level of government’s handling of things, it’s not constructive.
Do you want to know why medical people, real medical people, not some crackpot quacks and kooks with a YouTube account or Facebook page, are taking this seriously? Because it’s serious. And we’re serious people when it comes to people’s health and their lives. Yes, it mostly kills at-risk populations (the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions) but it also kills perfectly healthy people with no prior diagnoses and we don’t know why. I’m so tired of people acting like there’s information that’s being cooked up or withheld. You know why there’s lots of gaps in the information? Because we’re still learning about this virus every day. It’s new. It’s never been seen. How it acts, how it spreads, why it does the things it does is all new and we’re learning on the fly. Stop mistaking genuine lack of information for misinformation or withheld information.
The numbers: this one sticks in my craw like no other. “I heard they didn’t die from COVID-19, they died from a heart attack but they were positive so they called it COVID-19 to boost the numbers and scare people.” Stop. It. You know how many people died specifically from AIDS? Zero. AIDS patients die from pneumonia or some other illness normal, healthy people fight off because the AIDS virus destroyed their immune system and they couldn’t fight off the infection. But at the heart of it, they died because of AIDS. The coronavirus attacks the respiratory system. The respiratory system is, in case you didn’t know, pretty important to sustaining life. It also has a huge impact on how other organ systems, like the heart, work. Guess what, when your lungs don’t work because they’ve basically filled with brick mortar because the virus is attacking them, that puts a bit of a strain on your ticker and very well can cause it to fail. So unless you have a basic understanding of or want to understand how interconnected organ systems are and how the body fundamentally functions: stop.
I think I can speak for a lot of medical professionals when I say, we don’t mean to be arrogant, we don’t mean to be jerks, but damn it, this bullshit is frustrating and yes, we’re going to clap back to ignorance. Ignorance is not something to be flaunted and there is a difference between ignorance and stupidity. Ignorance is being uninformed. Stop being willfully ignorant and even reveling in it because it doesn’t fit your preconceived narrative or opinion. Even worse, stop pretending you’re not ignorant because you watched some damn YouTube video or read some op-ed piece. That’s someone’s opinion, normally based on nothing. NOTHING. No research. That’s not information. That’s not factual. That’s not based in science. It’s click-bait with the sole intention of riling you up and getting you to let your guard down. And instead of being pissed at the virus that’s causing all this, it’s to direct your anger at the government or doctors or anywhere else their agenda wants it directed.
Medical people are fired up for a couple reasons. 1 month ago, we were all heroes and putting our lives on the line because this was dangerous stuff. Well, I think I can speak for most of us when I say we aren’t heroic, we’re just doing our job. But guess what, we’re still doing the same damn thing we were doing a month ago and this crap still hasn’t gone away but now we’re “just trying to scare people” because “it’s really no big deal.” We aren’t looking for a pat on the back or even a thank you, we just want you to do what we all need to do to stop this thing and avoid the spread. Listen, if you think that my big fat ass enjoys sweating like a whore in church in an isolation gown, walking around like Mr Magoo because my glasses are fogged up because of my mask, and wearing goggles that dig into the backs of my ears because I’m “just a sheep,” you are mistaken. It’s because I don’t want this virus and I don’t want to take it home to my family and I don’t want to infect my co-workers and other patients. We’re fired up because we’ve seen and even performed intubations. We don’t intubate for funsies. Outside of the surgical setting, an intubation is basically throwing a Hail Mary to save someone’s life. And when the mortality rate once that plastic tube slides between your vocal cords with COVID-19 is 85-89%, yeah, that’s terrifying. This virus is dangerous.
Lastly, stop being spoiled children about public health advisories. Stop bitching about wearing a mask when you’re in public places. Stop pretending that that is somehow infringing on your rights. Get over yourself. I wish all businesses would grow a pair and refuse service to people who refuse to wear a mask “out of principle.” Police aren’t inclined to enforce it and that’s fine but, spoiler alert, private businesses have and reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Don’t tell me it’s ok for a bakery to refuse service to a gay couple for a wedding cake on religious grounds but not ok for a convenience store to refuse service because they don’t want the outbreak monkey strolling through their place coughing all over other patrons and their staff. Stay outside the 6ft bubble, wear a damn mask, and wash your hands. It’s that easy. Stop pretending they’re asking for a kidney. It’s as much to protect yourself as it is everyone else. People wonder why we have things like stay-at-home orders and closing of non-essential businesses. It’s because of you, jackass, you’re the problem. It’s your lack of ability to exercise common sense and your refusal to follow simple, insanely simple advice that forces the government to exercise it for you. And even then, you still thumb your nose at it in all your ignorant glory. Sorry that you feel like they’re infringing on your right to be an irresponsible child.
Look, all I’m saying is I get that it’s frustrating and I get that it’s irritating, and inconvenient and all the other bad things that it is, but please, continue to take this seriously, continue to do the little things that make a big difference. Stop denying facts, science, and the advice from people who have spent a lifetime doing what they do in the medical and research fields to ultimately make everyone’s lives healthier, safer, and better.
I’m done with my soap box now. ✌🏻
My message to the" freedom "demonstrators:
Freedom has its limits, and it has always had those limits when it infringes on the rights of others. In this COVID -19 case, the safety of others and me are at stake. Your selfish and self-serving actions are infringing on my freedom. The irresponsibility you and others advocate would also spread it to more innocent people. This is thanks to your ideologically driven wilful ignorance and lack of caring either about your own health or the health of others in trying to force premature disregard of stay at home orders. With this virus, carriers of the disease may not even know they are carrying it...or they think they just have a little cold. In another disease of years past, we called such spreaders Typhoid Marys. Without testing, we do not know how many like those are even in our community. We do not even know what the odds are when we do not know what the risk is even if we wanted to gamble leaving our homes now.. The number of people one carrier of COVID 19 can infect can be as high as 3.5 people.
On April 30 a Michigan court ruled in favor of the Governor's right to impose stay at home decisions. Michigan has been the epicenter of demonstrations by opponents of stay at home orders. Demonstrators have included in militia members brandishing assault weapons with ammo clips in them and storming the state legislature which was debating whether to extend the stay at home orders. https://www.newsweek.com/michigan-gretchen-whitmer-lawsuit-1501109?amp=1&fbclid=IwAR3re4Rs5wuR4_MqWTku4ppvwf2ObJNQtX https://sph.umich.edu/pursuit/2020posts/how-scientists-quantify-outbreaks.html
Bring on the demonstrators; demand freedom from the stay at home orders issued by governors, as Trump calls out via tweets specific Democratic ones in swing states critical to his re-election. https://abcnews.go.com/US/residents-protest-coronavirus-stay-home-orders-states/story?id=70233220 This was after telling governors they can decide what's best for their state in reopening them for business. Much of these demonstrations are being fueled by right-wing activist groups, similar to the Tea Pary, as a way, observers to believe, that their purpose is to put the blame for the response to the pandemic on them, and to get Trump off the hook in November. In Denver, April 19, the demonstrators were noisy but peaceful, many staying in their cars. However, they chose to demonstrate when Colorado's Department of Health reported over nine thousand cases of confirmed COVID-19 infections and over 400 deaths, reaching the highest numbers to date. Recent public opinion polls show both Democrats and Republicans are afraid to lift stay and home orders and opening for business now. https://fox40.com/news/national-and-world-news/ap-norc-poll-few-americans-support-easing-virus-protections/
Is Trump inciting violence? Actually, the demonstrations were funded heavily by the Dorr family, famous for disinformation to promote their pro gun anti choice agenda. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/conservative-activist-family-behind-grassroots-anti-quarantine-facebook-events-n1188021?fbclid=IwAR0Qn7_eNyRrXGPEM3AlEWwT9pMNUmH9PIkKB7ytX5HcfyUCIYpQQORY65QThe demonstrators turned out in Michigan wearing MAGA hats, some waiving anti-government, and Confederate flags and guns. Why? Why guns other than to threaten violence if the governor does not cave in to their demands? Why Confederate flags often toted by neo-Nazis, anti-Semitics? "They like me", Trump said when asked about the demonstrators. I was just waiting for Trump calling the demonstrators "some fine people". In a weird and troubling twist on the Nazi theme, governors of Michigan and Colorado's governor were called Nazis by "freedom" backers for issuing stay at home orders. Colorado's governor had a public meltdown since he was Jewish. Freedom for what? Freedom to act like irresponsible juveniles who don't believe the virus will kill them or they will infect others? Freedom to riot a la Charlottesville? Never had we had a president to urge anti-government demonstrations against his own official guidelines, either. The president is a danger to the civil order of our society because gun-waving neo-Nazis and their ilk can and have easily turned violent in violation of the right guaranteed in the constitution to demonstrate peacefully. Before he knows it, they can act beyond his control. Or does he want them to act that way to make a political point?
Let me give you a personal plea: I have a daughter who is a grocery store deli clerk with a major chain in the Denver area. The store in which she works is in one of the heaviest Trump-supporting areas in Colorado. She has asthma. She supplies her own masks. Others in her section are over 60, and like her, some also are recovering from cancer. Masks keep her from infecting others. They do not protect her from those not wearing masks. She is at risk; her life is at risk. However, there are many customers who think they are making a political statement or are not taking COVID-19 seriously and they are not prohibited from shopping even if they do not wear masks. Without testing, they have no way of knowing if they are asymptomatic carriers or even if the little cold they may have might be the virus. Their infecting droplets are dangerous. They could infect up to 3.5 more people with their virus. Their political statement of freedom, to ignore even the president's guidelines, is dangerous, inconsiderate, and harmful to their own health. Shame on them.
The photo of the freedom demonstrators in Denver that went viral in the US and internationally was of the health care workers in scrubs and masks standing with crossed arms to block a vehicle cavalcade led by a crazed-looking woman hanging out of a pickup truck window demanding that the stay at home orders be lifted so she could go about her freedom, free to get sick and get others sick from COVID 19. That was not the message the demonstrators intended that would warm the cockles of any person questioning whether a stay at home order should be lifted. It was a picture worth a thousand words.
From the UK Daily Mail:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8235127/amp/Defiant-healthcare-workers-clash-anti-lockdown-protesters-Colorado.html?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR29myojcwwlJBiJ0TU13KwrrqvQ9_r9aDwQYxcVa6R8s0DV5UK3SoUQG_U
The demonstrations have been overtly political, organized, funded, and designed by Tea Party type Trump supporters who are trying to shift blame to the governors from Donald Trump's fumbling, delayed, incompetence in handling the response to the virus. Their targets are swing states President Trump needs to win if he is to be reelected in November.
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/19/21225195/stay-at-home-protests-trump-tea-party-reelection?fbclid=IwAR0QkYRnrTlLv5HK3N15J2UStvt89CzJExnV9rl6brM7-31-HIT_p-P85l0
The message the demonstrators were delivering ignored the fact that Gov. Polis of Colorado had already set April 26 before the demonstrations as the date his stay at home orders were going to be lifted anyway. Polis's orders for re-opening business are gradual and phased in slowly, with safety valves if the disease ticks up. All schools and universities are to remain closed; people should exercise social distancing and wear facemasks.
From Colorado Public Radio: Colorado’s Stay-At-Home Order Will End, Gov. Polis Says, Outlining A New Phase Of Coronavirus ‘Marathon’ | Colorado Public Radio
"
"Your May will look a lot like your April if you’re in that most vulnerable group," he said.
“We can’t lose sight of the fact that our job isn’t finished, your job isn’t finished, not by a long shot,” Polis said, as he outlined new rules for businesses that would maintain levels of social distancing that are much higher than normal, but that are greatly relaxed from the way the state has operated for nearly a month.
“Retail curbside delivery, any retail that wants to do that, that starts immediately April 27,” Polis said. Other retail would be allowed to open May 1 with some restrictions.
He said that elective surgeries would be allowed starting Monday.
Large workplaces, starting May 4, will be allowed to open at 50 percent capacity, and are advised to have symptom and temperature checks for workers as they arrive.
Polis said his own goal for bars, restaurants and clubs to reopen would be mid-May, but that he’d have to wait for data on the effects of other changes to make those decisions."
COLUMN VERSION (CONDENSED AND EDITED)
My message to the"
freedom "demonstrators is this:
Freedom has its limits, and it has always had those limits
when it infringes on the rights of others. In this COVID -19 case, the safety
of others, my family, and me are at stake. Your self-serving actions are infringing on my freedom.
The irresponsibility you and others advocate to “open up the state” in the middle of the state’s height in a
pandemic would also spread it to more innocent people. This is thanks to your l
ignorance or lack of caring either about your own health or the health of
others in trying to force premature disregard of stay at home orders. With this
virus, carriers of the disease may not even know they are carrying it...or they
think they just have a little cold. In another disease of years past, we called
such spreaders Typhoid Marys. Without
testing, we do not know how many like those are even in our community. We do
not even know what the risk is even if we wanted to gamble leaving our homes now.
The number of people one carrier of COVID 19 can infect can be as high as 3.5
people.
Bring on the demonstrators; demand freedom from the stay at home orders
issued by governors, as President Trump called out support to demonstrations
via tweets ones in specific swing states critical to his re-election.
This was after telling governors they can decide what is best for their state
in reopening themselves for business. In Denver, April 19, the
demonstrators were noisy but peaceful, many staying in their cars. However,
they chose the time to demonstrate when Colorado's Department of Health
reported over nine thousand cases of confirmed COVID-19 infections and over 400
deaths, reaching the highest numbers in the state to date.
The demonstrators turned out in Michigan a
week before wearing MAGA hats, some waiving anti-government, and Confederate
flags and guns. Why? Why guns other than to threaten violence if the governor
does not cave into their demands? Why Confederate flags often toted by
racist extremists. In a weird and troubling twist on the Nazi theme, governors
of Michigan and Colorado's governor were called by demonstrators Nazis by
"freedom" backers for issuing stay at home orders. Colorado's
governor had a public meltdown since he was Jewish. Freedom for what? Freedom
to act like irresponsible persons who do not believe the virus will kill them
or they will infect others?
Let me give you a personal plea: I have a daughter who is a grocery store
deli clerk with a major chain in the Denver area. Grocery store clerks are
considered essential workers and given the dangers they fact, they are also included
in the list of COVID-19 heroes. Yes, she is lucky to have a job but it is more
than that. Grocery store clerks do it at considerable risk to themselves. She
has asthma. She supplies her own masks. Others in her section are over 60, and
like her, some also are recovering from cancer. Masks keep her from
infecting others. They do not protect her from those not wearing masks.
She is at risk; her life is at risk. However, there are many customers
who think they are making a political statement or are not taking COVID-19
seriously and they are not prohibited from shopping even if th
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/22/opinions/denver-1918-lesson-avlon/index.htmley do not wear
masks. Without testing, they have no way of knowing if they are asymptomatic
carriers or even if the little cold they may have might be the virus. Their
infecting droplets are dangerous. They could infect up to 3.5 more people with
their virus. Their political statement of freedom, to ignore even the
president's official COVID Task Force guidelines,
is dangerous to others, inconsiderate, and harmful to their own health.
Shame on them. For more, visit
www.mufticforumblog.blogspot.com
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/19/21225195/stay-at-home-protests-trump-tea-party-reelection
https://sph.umich.edu/pursuit/2020posts/how-scientists-quantify-outbreaks.html
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-far-right-extremists-are-now-calling-social-distancing-a-nazi-policy/
https://denverite.com/2020/04/19/operation-gridlock-colorado-denver-capitol-coronavirus-stay-home-order/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=lookout&utm_campaign=lookout20200420
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8235127/amp/Defiant-healthcare-workers-clash-anti-lockdown-protesters-Colorado.html?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR29myojcwwlJBiJ0TU13KwrrqvQ9_r9aDwQYxcVa6R8s0DV5UK3SoUQG_U
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/17/liberate-michigan-trump-constitution/?fbclid=IwAR3dnjI9mF5_c253d2U5k9kjd9G
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/swastika-flag-trump-pence-michigan/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-bows-to-coronavirus-reality-allows-governors-phased-approach-to-reopening-their-states
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/paloma/the-trailer/2020/04/16/the-trailer-the-resistance-to-stay-at-home-orders-rises-from-the-right/5e970f46602ff10d49ae5b2a/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8225759/Protesters-swarm-Michigan-North-Carolina-Ohio-Utah-Wyoming-demonstrate-lockdo
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/trump-supporters-protest-coronavirus-orders
