There was a short-lived protest today in Raleigh, North Carolina for people who want to get North Carolina back to work, trending under the hashtag #ReopenNC.
The first thing to note was the Raleigh Police breaking it up.
We are aware of the #ReopenNC protest that is occurring in Downtown Raleigh on Wilmington and Jones Street and are monitoring the situation.
— Raleigh Police (@raleighpolice) April 14, 2020
We are aware of the #ReopenNC protest that is occurring in Downtown Raleigh on Wilmington and Jones Street and are monitoring the situation.
— Raleigh Police (@raleighpolice) April 14, 2020
Protesting is a non-essential activity.
— Raleigh Police (@raleighpolice) April 14, 2020
Well fuck me with a spoon, that’s one hell of a statement to make. I seem to remember something about “the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” in one of my high school history classes.
Yes, someone was arrested.
NEW: At least one person now under arrest by @raleighpolice for refusing to leave #ReopenNC demonstration outside @ncleg. At its height, there were probably 100+ people at the tailgate-style rally. @ABC11_WTVD @ABC @ABCPolitics #coronavirusNC #StayAtHome #abc11 pic.twitter.com/so9ZIzzqpY
— Jonah Kaplan (@KaplanABC11) April 14, 2020
The Raleigh Police issued a statement to clarify.
https://twitter.com/raleighpolice/status/1250209697094930434
Here are the relevant sections:
“[B]oth the Governor and the County have declared a state of emergency. Under these temporary declarations, protesting is not listed as an essential function.
The Wake County District Attorney is the individual who decides charging language for failure to adhere to the Governor’s Orders and the Wake County Proclamation…
However, as a law enforcement agency, the Raleigh Police Department is bound to carry out the regulations stipulated in the Executive Order and the Wake County Proclamation.”
See, they are just following orders.
What sort of grievances were they petitioning the government to redress?
Gov. Roy Cooper to sign order limiting customers in ‘essential’ North Carolina stores
Retailers have been asked, under the county’s order, to close off “any portion of its facility dedicated to non-essential goods that it is reasonably capable of closing.” However, essential business retailers may choose to close off additional areas of their store, more restrictive of the state and local orders.
If you want to know how this gets interpreted by the counties just look at this fucking bullshit here:
Yeah, that is Easter Candy in Walmart in North Carolina being designated as non-essential and off-limits.
Holy bunny-shit Batman! Not only could Christians not go to church on Easter Sunday they couldn’t even do Easter eggs and Easter baskets at home because of the Virus.
See, Easter candy isn’t food. It’s party supplies which, are on the banned list.
Non-Essential: furniture, clothing (except for specific clothing used to make cloth masks), sporting goods, toys (for people or pets), music, movies, greeting cards & party supplies
What an incredible horse-shit list.
Only some fucking bureaucrat with his head up his ass could come up with that list.
So I was stuck at home with two school-age kids because the schools are closed. If I go grocery shopping at Walmart, I can’t also get them a toy or puzzles, CDs or DVDs to entertain them? No crayons or markers to draw with?
What about kid clothes? If the little one who is getting visibly taller in real-time needs new pajamas or underwear for potty training between now and sometime in June, I just can’t do it?
What some shit-for-brains governor’s aid decided was non-essential is pretty essential to me.
And while I’m on that subject, who in the hell gave the governor that authority anyway?
On top of this, throw in everything I’ve been saying about the financial and emotional stress of putting millions of people out of work for months.
That part of it is really getting to me. Having just suffered through unemployment, my heart really goes out to the people losing their jobs right now. Especially because every time the subject comes up, the end date for this gets kicked down the road.
Now the state is preparing to extend the lockdown until June.
CNN is reporting maintaining a lockdown until a vaccine is widely available, which by the way, they are reporting is 18 months out.
The Guardian in the UK is calling for social distancing until 2022.
There is no way to maintain the status quo for 18 months to two years, let alone through the summer.
Arrest people who have been locked at home for months, collecting unemployment, watching their savings dry up and their 401K vaporize, for going outside is, well… that’s how you get a boogaloo.
Seriously, people will not stand for the total destruction of the American economy with 50 Million people out of work and $50 Trillion in debt for unemployment insurance because of a virus, regardless of the mortality rate.
This is the reality of the situation.
When I go through the replies to #ReopenNC, they are infuriating.
Anyone seriously for #ReopenNC #ReopenAmerica #reopen ANYTHING needs to be brought up on criminal charges for every death moving forward. You are the problem, not the solution. #StayHome
— Suzette Vaughn (@suzettevaughn) April 14, 2020
The concern of the government for the health, peace, morality, and safety of its citizens. Thank you General Welfare clause.
— Suzette Vaughn (@suzettevaughn) April 14, 2020
Yes, “promote the general welfare” from the Preamble of the Constitution means the government has the authority to force people to stay in their homes for an indeterminant amount of time. I must have missed that day in civics class.
All the #ReopenNC folks protesting from their cars, with masks on.
OWN IT, COWARDS! Have yourself a full blown orgy in town square. Then sign waivers stating that if/when you get sick, you don’t get a ventilator, because we’re saving those for people who followed instructions.
— Richard Jeter (@MilesToGo13) April 14, 2020
If ppl want to #ReopenNC then they should wave off their rights to hospitalized when they catch the virus. Problem solved.
— 7 or never ? (@AmnaLight) April 14, 2020
More wishing death on people the Left disagrees with. Because having concerns for things like how to pay for a mortgage, cars, food for kids, and everything else is nothing compared to the virus and anybody to thinks otherwise should die.
#ReopenNC – Reduce the excess population of Fox News viewers, Grahm supporters, and Trump voters. Give Darwinism a chance.
— Soapy (@SoapyFMF) April 14, 2020
Watching GOPers push to open up the North Carolina economy before it’s safe. The worst part is they don’t realize that the wealthy people like Sean Hannity who are leading this charge are happy to sacrifice their lives so that their stock portfolio can rise #ReopenNC
— (((DeanObeidallah))) (@DeanObeidallah) April 14, 2020
It’s not just North Carolina that is seeing protests to reopen the state.
From the Cleveland Scene:
Crowds gathered outside of the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus during Gov. Mike DeWine’s daily COVID-19 press briefing on the afternoon of April 13 to protest statewide shutdowns.
Ohio Public Radio’s Karen Kasler posted about the protestors on her Twitter. You can see their signs proclaiming things like, “Open Ohio: We want our rights back” and “My inherent rights don’t end where your fear begins.”
Here is a news clip of the protest:
A full 32-minute video of the protest can be seen here.
Michigan also saw protests against the lockdown impositions put in place by Governor and potential Biden VP Gretchen Whitmer.
From Detroit Local 4 News:
‘People are fed up’: Michigan’s extended stay-at-home order draws criticism, protest
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s extended stay-at-home order is generating negative feedback, including a protest planned for Wednesday.
“I just never in my life fathomed that I would live in a place where my government told me what I could and couldn’t buy at a store. It’s bizarre,” said Matt Seely, of the Michigan Conservative Coalition.
This is how FOX 2 News Detroit reported on Governor Whitmer’s orders:
WOW…
On Monday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered non-essential businesses to close. Now she’s clarifying that if there’s any question, businesses should assume they should close and she’s threatening they could face steep fines and lose their license.
She made clear the boot will fall on people.
“This order is not optional and it’s not a recommendation. It doesn’t mean inviting 10 of your closest friends over for dinner or hosting a party at your house. It means staying home with the people with whom you live. It means when you do need to run to the grocery store or to the pharmacy, that you observe the 6-foot distance between others so you can keep yourself safe and others,” Whitmer said. “If we don’t all do our part, more people are going to get sick and more people are going to die.”
Do you want an idea of how restrictive this is?
Also from Detroit Local 4 News:
According to the governor’s office, a facility covered by this order that performs medical procedures must postpone, at a minimum, joint replacement, bariatric surgery, and cosmetic surgery, except for emergency or trauma-related surgery where postponement would significantly impact the health, safety, and welfare of the patient.
And this is why Michigan hospitals are having layoffs and furloughs.
But it gets worse.
Additionally, these facilities must exclude from postponement emergency or trauma-related procedures where postponement would significantly impact the health, safety, and welfare of the patient.
Exactly who decides what trauma-related surgeries would not significantly impact the health, safety, and welfare of the patient and can be avoided?
If you are a car accident, does facial reconstruction count as cosmetic or essential?
We’re not done yet.
Facilities covered by this order that perform dental procedures must postpone, at a minimum, any cosmetic or aesthetic procedures, like veneers, teeth bleaching or cosmetic bonding; all routine hygiene appointments; any orthodontic procedures that do not relieve pain or infection, restore oral function, or are not trauma-related; initiation of any crowns, bridges, or dentures that do not relieve pain or infection, restore oral function, or are not trauma-related; any periodontal plastic surgery; extraction of asymptomatic non-carious teeth; and recall visits for periodontally healthy patients.
So if you know you have a cavity but it’s not hurting, you can’t see a dentist until it turns into an abscess and you need a root canal? Sounds like a great plan.
What if my crown falls off? Can I get a new one or will I have to wait?
Since this seems to cover the majority of dental work, what dentists remain open sitting around waiting to provide emergency services? How many dentists in Michigan are still open right now? How many will risk losing their license because they decided to perform a procedure that the state later decided was non-essential?
This is an unbelievable crackdown on people. I can see why there are protests.
I suspect that the Left has the biggest “see a doctor if it lasts more than four hours” erection over this. Millions of people not working and living off a government handout is the zenith of the Soviet system. The Virus has let them turn the US into the CCCP, where the shelves are bare, people don’t work, the government can tell you exactly what you can and cannot buy, and protesting gets citizens sent to jail.
This is like one of those 30-day free web service trials but of ChiCom rule, and I most definitely do not want to renew my subscription.
Maybe the most appropriate reason to call it the “China Virus” isn’t that it originated in China but that it’s turning the US into China. Making governors into dictators and citizens into snitches.
We need to get out from under this as quickly as possible before we lose everything, and saying so doesn’t make me a grandma killer.
“What an incredible horse-shit list.”
Indeed, especially the clothing. WTF?
People on the Left aren’t miserable with this shutdown, they are ecstatic. This is the beginning of the utopia they’ve yearned for. They want to live with the government boot on their neck. You can see it in their remarks, claiming that it’s only Wall Street that benefits from a reopening, or that GOPr’s that want things reopened should waive their rights to go to hospital, and propaganda outlets like CNN calling for the lockdown to continue for months. The liberals making these claims are likely either unemployed or have government jobs that are still paying them, regardless of whether they are essential or not.
We are passing the point where the “cure” is becoming far worse than the virus.
I really wish I disagreed with you.
Get paid to sit home, do nothing, and order stuff for delivery. It’s the immature person’s dream. It’s what ever college commie thinks the perfect life will be like.
It’s those damn conservatives who want to work and be productive and responsible that a messing this up for them. If the economy reopens, they lose their sit at home perks and have to go back to work.
I think you’re giving progtards too much credit. Progtards are egocentric simpletons pretending they know more than everyone else, until they’re presented with facts. Then they devolve further and call you derogatory names since they know they lost the argument.
This is a simple matter of TDS: anything that can potentially hurt or embarrass the “Orange Bad Man” is something they will gleefully accept and encourage, regardless of the consequences.
No exception in my area. The City Assembly is considering an ordinance that would make the stay at home order a requirement for the next 60 days. Oh… they are polishing that turd as “removing it from” the Emergency Proclamation.
Not sure how turning the restriction on movement from an Executive Order into an Ordinance is removing it, but hey! What do I know, IANAL
If I were to go outside without clothes, most people would consider it an emergency to get me into jeans and a Tee-shirt.
I can only presume the order should have read “cloths” from the context re making masks. Some idiot sinecures staffer, on a guess.
But words have meaning, and now since somebody’s cousin can’t spell, and SC’s supervisor apparently can’t or doesn’t bother to proofread (or worse thought it was correct), sales of clothes are now verboten. Lovely.
Even if they meant “cloth”, that’s idiotic. While government bureaucrats are unlikely to understand this, there are people who make their own clothing. Telling them they can’t buy the ingredients is no different than telling people they are required to buy pre-cooked means and can’t buy food ingredients.
I quite agree, one shouldn’t ban cloth (or fabric) sales either. We are now starting to dissect the various flavors of idiocy, ignorance and hypocrisy, this order shows various levels of all three.
“CNN is reporting maintaining a lockdown until a vaccine is widely available, which by the way, they are reporting is 18 months out.
The Guardian in the UK is calling for social distancing until 2022.
There is no way to maintain the status quo for 18 months to two years, let alone through the summer.”
This is what I do not understand at all.
I do not know of a single working coronovirus vaccine (if there exists one, please let me know). Every trial of coronavirus vaccine I read about failed. Why do people expect this one to work?
Yes, it is possible, and I am rooting for this, but: if the vaccines fail, what is the plan B?
Plan B should be natural (and then, hopefully, herd) Immunity. Yes, it is, as far as I know, usually not strong for coronaviruses, but it is better than nothing.
And, by the way: I am one of the strongest proponents of vaccinations, having seen the consequences of no vaccination because of shortages with my own eyes, but…
If I can help it, I will not take and will not allow my family to take the new COVID 19 vaccine when it comes on the market.
I will wait for a couple of years, will read every scrap of paper submitted to FDA I can get my hands on, listen to every biotech and medical rumor flying around and then reevaluate my current stance on Covid 19 vaccination.
Why? Because I do not like what I see with major players skipping proper safety protocols.
Vaccines are not medicine for dying. There you have both a right and an obligation to throw everything and kitchen sink at it and see what works.
But in case of the vaccines, you should not play Russian roulette with the health of millions. Bill Gates has a habit of doing it in Africa. I would rather these filthy practices be kept away from American soil.
I was only following orders your honor to kill all those jews