By now everyone has heard about violence caused by people who do not want to wear masks or observe social distance. It’s getting worse. For example, this morning in a neighborhood bulletin board discussion a local rightwinger actually threatened another writer with stalking and significant personal violence. The guy was mad because his business would not reopen because the staff felt unsafe, and other writers supported that view.
It is clear that the administration fosters this behavior rather than trying to tamp it down. Acquiescence by local government to this bad behavior can cost careful people their health or life. Active, forceful resistance to the bad actors will get ugly fast.
What can we do to confront irrational behavior effectively but without bloodshed?
I’d let police know. If it’s on a bulletin board, it’s in writing (screenshot it) so the bully can’t walk it back and say he was misquoted etc. If something happened to the people he threatened (or if someone slashed their tires, threw a brick through the picture window, etc.) police would know where to look first. He may be a lot less bold if he knows he’s likely to get caught.
What you do about people who don’t show their intentions…?
You have this ideology that is willing to sacrifice the lives of an indefinite number of people in order to support its leader. The leader is encouraging members to sacrifice their own lives, especially in large gathering in houses of worship. They threaten to murder people who disagree, especially government leaders who try to stop them.
Well, I’ve never seen it applied in real life, but I was thinking temple. Softfaced deadblow to the temple. Also, I predict no bloodshed, as per the OP’s request. . Just a guess.
My limited experience in LA last weekend, had everyone masking up and social distancing without complaint at super markets. That is certainly the case here in Seattle.
Christ, I went hiking with my son in a national forest that just reopened. Everyone stepped aside on the trail. 2 or 3 groups put on masks to go by on the trail.
What is with these numbnuts that think my wearing a mask is trampling their rights?
Here in the Bay Area compliance is good. But my wife’s cousin, who is a retired nurse, lives in rural Pennsylvania. She riles people up by wearing a mask and distancing. I think the problem might be that mask wearers are telling these people they are idiots by their actions, and they don’t like that.
Mask compliance is slipping badly in New York City, or at least in my part of Brooklyn.
The runners were always bad – my observation is that a slim majority of runners would not wear masks.
But lately it’s everyone.
And this ain’t exactly Trump country. This is brownstone Brooklyn. High education levels, affluent, overwhelmingly liberal. Or so you’d think.
It does seem to be twenty and thirty-somethings who have decided they’re just not going to bother with masks or social distancing anymore.
And this is in NYC – especially hard-hit. I think they’ve just decided that COVID-19 only happens to old people and poor people, so they, being netiher old nor poor, wil be okay without masks. And who gives a shit about old people or poor people anyway? Reducing their numbers a bit is probably a good thing, right?
At this point, nothing. These people have consciously decided to ignore every scrap of evidence, every logical argument, every lived experience of those more knowledgeable, to deliberately not do what they should do, and they go out of their way to actively harass those they see who are doing the right thing. Why would you imagine that now, at long last, someone will come up with the magical reasonable argument that will finally get the message across?
What we need to do is tell the population at large that violence against these morons is now considered to be legitimate self defense, and encourage the public at large to break the nose of any of these goddamn idiots who get in their faces with their stupidity. Break enough noses, and they’ll at least get the message that being an idiot is unsafe, even if they never quite figure out why.
Every single moron you’ve ever seen in one of those “Karen” videos gets away with being a stupid jerk because they know that no one else will just haul off and belt them in the nose. Take that away, and The Karens will run and hide.
And if they don’t, the videos will at least be more entertaining.
Dunno how it is elsewhere in the country, but in my little corner of a very red state, mask-wearing has gone slowly and steadily up – I would estimate that about one person in fifty was wearing one in the grocery store at the end of March, and it’s probably around 60-70% now. When I see people from the local area complaining on social media about how people “don’t want to wear masks anymore,” I can’t help wondering if they’re comparing what they see to an imaginary ideal world where everyone is wearing a mask all the time, rather than accurately remembering how things actually were a few weeks ago.
This is an important factor. The noisy idiots think they’re a majority, but they’re not. They sound like a majority, but they’re not. Polls show a large majority are in favor of things like social distancing and masks.
The problem is, even 20-30% of people not following the guidelines keeps this going for months to come.
We need to start shunning these idiots, en mass, to get them to realize that they’re not the majority.
I wear a mask in public, the majority around here do not. I’m required to wear a mask at work, doesn’t bother me, but a lot of co-workers think it’s stupid. Ok. But if the topic comes up I usually respond with “I’d like to reduce the likelihood that I have to spend the $10k insurance deductible if placed on a vent.” No one has challenged me, yet, but I’m sure it’ll happen.
In fact, maybe the dems should start endorsing conspiracy theories about how covid 19 is a plot by the insurance companies to get rich, maybe China would back this, Russia could back the right wing, China back the left wing…wait, America still loses. I hate Fakebook.
It’s the same here in upscale suburban Kansas City. The people mostly wearing masks are the elderly or those really concerned. The younger crowd, not so much and I almost never see children wearing them.
My observations as well. Purple area of a red state: the same area from with which Trump is threatening to take his football and go home, or at least elsewhere. A month, six weeks ago, seeing someone masked in a food store was not rare, but a distinct minority. Now it’s rare to see someone in a food store sans mask, even more so now in the midst of “stage-1 re-opening”. I feel less uneasy, and others seem to as well. Same for work: blue-collar technical place. Masks here and there but even before corporate requirement, the use went up steadily. There’s some astroturf-ey faux dissidents spewing shit about a “PLAN-demic”, they’re laughed at as crackpots, much to their irritation. I simply don’t see this “counter movement” anywhere else but in the media. This bucks up my faith in humanity somewhat.
While most people are wearing masks, and even most of those that don’t are well behaved, there certainly are a couple of problem children out there. If you’re at the store just to do your own shopping you likely won’t encounter one, but if like me you’re at the store 40 or more hours a week yep, you’re going to see them occasionally. So far, we’ve only needed to involved the police once that I’ve known about.
Uniformly, the maskless and angry seem to have drunk the far-right Kool-Aid. They are angry and hostile to anyone that isn’t like them and doesn’t believe as they do.