Fucking idiot coronavirus-loving rednecks in Michigan

The BBQ Pit
1

Today, a bunch of mouth-breathing confederate-flag-waving neckbeards gathered in Lansing, MI, to protest the governor who has ordered people to stay home, stay safe and stop spreading the coronavirus in Michigan, which just recently went from being the third- to fourth-most infected state in the union.

It was a car-honking protest organized largely by a conservative group funded by our esteemed SecEduc Betsy Devos and her family. “Please stay in your cars!” the organizers pleaded. Only many of frothy shit-stains who showed up didn’t bother staying in their cars. They got out, milled about, carried picket signs, stood shoulder to shoulder, and drew attention to their tiny dicks with their big black assault rifles.

Marian Sheridan, one of the organizers of the protest said, “Citizens are frankly tired of being treated like babies. As adults, we now know what needs to be done to stay safe.”

Well, you fucking grease pit of a human being, apparently y’all don’t know what needs to be done, according to the pictures and video I’m seeing.

Some of these fucking jagholes were comparing the current situation to being put in prison without cause. Some of them were claiming the state was seizing their property because the governor wasn’t allowing them to visit vacation homes. “Don’t tread on me!” they whined.

On the plus side, every nurse friend I know in Michigan is livid about these cunt-clowns right now, even the ones that lean conservative/Trumpy. My Facebook feed is full of first- and second-hand rants about these turds from people across the Mitten State. From healthcare professionals, their families, from people who I haven’t seen share or say one thing remotely “political” in the past ten years. These loud, Confederate flag-waving racists that french kissed each other for several hours on national television today are now the face of the anti-Whitmer coalition in the state. They are being mocked, ridiculed, sworn at and shamed. Any low-information voter in Michigan who may have heretofore been a bit irked by the inability to hop on their pontoon boat or head Up North or buy paint will now clearly see the contorted, angry faces of the vermin who are protesting science and the governor. People in Michigan continue to see how fucking stupid and dangerous the anti-Whitmer, anti-science, pro-Trump crowd has become.

I hope the faces of these brainless assholes become as famous as the racist fucks in Charlottesville. But now I also fear these sphincter-rats will spread the coronavirus further across my state, right when it was looking like things were possibly taking a turn for the better.

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They blocked access to a hospital.

I say arrest them, throw them in lock-up together for a couple hours and send them home.

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Serious question: Is this sort of insolent protest against containment measures taking place in other countries? Or is it mostly just a U.S.A. thing?

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Idiots! It would be bad enough if this were happening in a state with a low death rate and small number of cases, but right now Michigan is #4 in the nation with 27K+ cases, behind only NY, NJ and Mass., and according to this post, its death rate is increasing at a rate higher than the 48% national average:

“11 states saw an increase from 50% to 100% in the rate at which people are dying: CA, CO, CT, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, NJ, PA”
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=22251558&postcount=2381

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I can give you the answer from a New Zealand perspective: No, it’s not taking place here.

We’re in week three of a ‘Level Four’ lockdown. Essential businesses open only, otherwise stay home. At Easter weekend, Police stopped a few people trying to travel to their vacation homes. Similarly, a small number of people were dissuaded from going surfing or other typical holiday pursuits. But by far the majority of people, including the very religious (who want to be in church) are heeding the government’s directives.

Some interesting comparisons. As a nation, we’re probably closest to Oregon (pop. 4.8m in a land area of 103,500sqm so pop. Density of 46psqm - compared with 4.2m people in 96,000sqm or so for Oregon: 41psqm density). We’re politically ‘left of centre’ with a conservative rural/urban liberal split, although much further left than the U.S, obviously.

We’ve recorded 9 deaths from 1,401 confirmed and probable cases so far. Oregon (from link below) has 58 deaths from 1,663 positive cases.

There’s plenty of us here who are concerned for small business owners and whole industries going under, if the lockdown isn’t lifted soon. But the country’s been successful at ‘flattening the curve’ enough to make the prospect of actual elimination of Covid-19 in the country a (still not large) possibility. Obviously, being an island nation gives us a massive advantage through border controls.

I see what the U.S. as a whole is going through and feel confident in saying that there’s truly no comparison with New Zealand as regards protests.

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Conservatives are bad people. It’s the political movement for assholes.

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I did a quick Google on “Sydney Covid-19 protests” and got three hits on stories.

  1. Villawood Detention centre inmates stage rooftop protest over COVID-19 (wanting more testing)
  2. Labor to protest federal parliament shutdown and push for review of the governments Covid-19 response package (fair dqueeze)
  3. Sydney cleaners protest against firm’s job offer for coronavirus work in Japan

Because Australia seems to have missed much of the initial impact (by largely co-operating with the rules and likely having just come out of summer) they are low level grumbles to get back to normality (and some discretionary cash circulating)

There have been some grumbles about overzealous police issuing fines for breeches of social distancing or travelling away from home.

NSW Arts Minister Don Harwin was forced to resign when he traveled to his holiday home about 90mins from Sydney in breach of coronavirus lockdown rules.

So nobody here is protesting en masse for infringements of their rights.
But we don’t explicit freedom of speech rights, nor rights to own firearms.

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American Right Wingers are used to constantly being pandered and catered to, to being allowed to ignore the rules and the law and trample all over everyone and everything. So they never really grow up and constantly demand instant satisfaction for their every whim, and throw tantrums if they don’t get it. And that’s what this is, a tantrum.

They want the pandemic to be ignored and everything open again so they can do as they please regardless of the harm done, as always. The fact that doing so would kill plenty of them is beyond their ability to really understand since they’ve lived a life where everything is the fault of some evil liberal or woman or brown person. Nothing they do is ever wrong, nothing bad that happens to them is ever their fault.

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I saw this on UK news and was very surprised to observe that these individuals were not escorted away by the police and fined for public endangerment of safety - this would highly likely have happened in most nations on lockdown and probably in many US states.

I looked at the death rate data on worldview and noted that the rate in Michigan is actually accelerating.

It does not help when Trump is proclaiming positive news that lockdowns may well be eased - I think this is merely politicking so that when he recommends opening up and it does not happen then he can use that to blame state governors - trouble is that at the very best interpretation of his statements it is highly premature, in most states the death and infection rate is still climbing.

Trump’s position changes so much that it is hard to actually pin down a public health policy at all - the only policy I can see is a re-election policy, unless I am wrongly interpreting from across the pond

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If the results wouldn’t spread to others and also be simply tragic I’d say let it be a self-limiting situation.

This will shake out like those massive church gatherings done in defiance of lock-downs and social distancing that 2-4 weeks later wind up with a lot of very sick people with some deaths in the mix. Including some of the arrogant twits behind organizing such events.

These days, in a state like Michigan, there are fairly good odds there was a spreader in the group, someone not showing symptoms but shedding virus like a lawn sprinkler.

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Mostly a USA thing. There are some in this country who conflate “freedom” and “irresponsibility”. There were photos of people at the protest open-carrying firearms, and reports of some people flying confederate flags. IOW, the people protesting the order were hard-core right-wing conservatives, taking advantage of an opportunity to thumb their nose at a governor whose gender and party affiliation they find distasteful.

12

Yes they certainly made fools of themselves, snarling traffic even in my area in the eastern fringe of the Lansing metro area. If they want to stage Morons On Parade, fine. Stay in your cars, but keep them moving. What really pissed everyone off was their blocking of Sparrow Hospital. Have a parade around the capitol but leave the fucking hospitals alone.

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What an embarrassment for the state. Tired of arguing with people about their constitutional rights. I think about the loss of life here and if we lost 1,900 people here under any other circumstances, we would be up in arms about how this shouldn’t have happened. But when asked to make sacrifices to save lives, these buttheads are far more concerned about themselves. It’s horrifying, really.

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I opened this thread to say, “hey, I’m from Michigan and I’m not a coronavirus-loving redneck! Don’t paint all Michiganders with such a broad brush. I fully support the shelter in place mandate!”

Then I saw you are a fellow Michigander and are pitting the stupid conservative side of Michigan, not the state as a whole. So I approve of this pitting.

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Fucking imbeciles.

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I assume this is some GOP/Russian government AstroTurf type thing.

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Coronavirus isn’t the only virus in America; these people are also viruses.

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It’s always about them and nobody else. This is the perfect exemplification of MAGA’s spirit. America is theirs and nobody else’s, and they are perfectly willing to endanger others to make that point.

I will double and triple down and what I said and what everyone else attacked me for: I want COVID-19 to wreak havoc until enough of the right people get it.

Call me a sociopath all you want.

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Saw somewhere where Betsy DeVos and family underwrote a lot of this, so yeah.

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Damn, I know Sparrow Hospital. I lived in East Lansing for three years, 1986 to 1989. I went to Sparrow’s ER once, when I had severe abdominal pain, turned out to be a kidney stone. I lived just inside the border between Lansing and East Lansing, on Highland Ave., a block up from Michigan Avenue., so driving to Sparrow was, luckily, a straight shot. Assholes, that was a good hospital, and to block access to such is unforgivable.