I would cry, just not too hard.
Aw, hell. Who am I kidding?
Posted on 05/16/2020 6:15:27 PM PDT by sickoflibs
Earlier today on Facebook (where all good ideas go to die) I read three separate posts from friends telling people to “stay home, stay safe.” Every single one of them was dripping in self-righteousness and condescension. You must be an idiot if you’re clamoring to go eat in a restaurant or swim at the beach – that was the tone and continues to be the tone of quite literally every single person who is proudly and publicly toeing the “stay home, stay safe” (SHSS) line right now. I’m using “literally” literally. I’ve yet to see one SHSS post that isn’t bathed in Karenism.
Three weeks ago Georgia and Florida began opening up their economies and the SHSS crowd went crazy. They weren’t just annoyed, they were enraged. Many spit out hateful wishes that those going to the beach or stores would contract the virus themselves…it would serve them right. Some posted mock “contracts” for the “morons” to sign to give up their right to medical treatment or publicly funded services should they contract the virus. Many others expressed genuine fear at the possible consequences, making desperate posts predicting tragically surging infection rates and deaths if the toothless rednecks in the South didn’t come to their senses soon.
Fast forward to today and not only have the worst of the predictions not come true, both Georgia and Florida continue to post declining infection rates and fatality rates due to COVID-19. The consequences have been exactly the opposite of what the SHSS crowd had feared.
This is good news…right?
Not according to my social media timelines. The reactions from my SHSS friends and followers has ranged from begrudging recognition – “Fine but what happens when it gets cold/the kids go back to school/the second or third wave hits”– to utter silence. I have literally (and again, I use that word genuinely) not seen one post congratulating those states for surviving the reopening in tact or expressing relief and gratitude that the worst (and even the moderate) predictions of doom did not come true. These people actually seem disappointed that people aren’t dying in droves.
It is a bizarre phenomenon to watch. I’m sure smarter op ed writers than I have analyzed exactly why so many people are digging in like this but it’s my opinion that the COVID-19 panic has become nearly completely politicized. We’re no longer looking at data; we’ve stopped reading the articles and instead are stopping at headlines; we are no longer sharing information about the science of it all. Instead, our positions on the virus and our response to it have come to represent our partisan political positions. You want to go back to work? You must be a Trump voter and thusly, a moron. Want to stay in quarantine until there’s a vaccine? You must be zombie Brown Shirt and probably a trust fund baby or welfare recipient who isn’t worrying about working to eat.
Somehow the fears most of us originally shared have now devolved into sanctimonious bludgeons. “Stay Home, Stay Safe” in particular has come be synonymous with “You blithering idiots in red states gave us Trump so whatever you say about this virus is wrong, simply by virtue of how I think you voted.”
Where are the cheers? Where are the mea culpas? At the very least, where are expressions of excitement that the models were wrong? Don’t we want them to be wrong? Don’t we want to have grossly overestimated the death count in those states that opened? We’ve had weeks of tedious lectures about “science” and “data” and when the science and data finally shows that people can get back to their lives the SHSS crowd suddenly has no interest in such things. Worse, they have no interest in celebrating lives saved alongside jobs saved.
“Stay home, stay safe” has now become a virtue signal. Like #MeToo, it began in earnest. Also like #MeToo the goalposts supporting the movement keep shifting and people started politicizing it and now it’s just a hashtag instead of an expression that provokes thought and self-reflection.
I am shocked and so very disappointed to see so many people actively wishing death upon their fellow citizens just to prove themselves right. We should be happy that every day evidence is mounting that we can all go back to work and life and feel relatively safe about it. We should be happy that people are reopening their businesses and rehiring their workers. We should be happy that Georgia and Florida have been so successful in their handling of this situation.
The SHSS crowd has spent three weeks saying all they care about is saving lives. I can think of no earthly reason why these things wouldn’t fill all of us with joy and relief.
Unless, of course, you never really meant it in the first place and secretly hoped to see devastating fatality spikes among those people you’ve already been hating for quite a while.
Kira ✔ @RealKiraDavis I can't believe how many people out there are actually sad that that the south didn't get crushed by COVID deaths like they predicted. You'd think they'd be sharing the good news after being oh-so-concerned with saving lives. We live in bizarre times. #everythingispolitical
538 1:10 PM - May 16, 2020
I am also guessing that warm humid weather helped them. Here in Maryland we had a mild winter and a cool spring, but Friday and today it was warm and humid.
Btt
Kemp and DeSantis are two of the best governors in the country.
Those folks in Georgia are great people and those Georgia peaches are sweet. Let fly GA.
I read three separate posts from friends telling people to “stay home, stay safe.” Every single one of them was dripping in self-righteousness and condescension.
It’s getting to a point in this country where folks cannot be friends with those that think differently. As a Conservative, I have a “live and let live” attitude. I do not care what the Liberals and Leftists in the City of Atlanta or City of Decatur do, as long as it doesn’t bother me or effect my life. They want to have Gay Pride down Piedmont and do some really crude stuff, stuff the news won’t ever show you, fine by me. Just don’t bring that sh*t to my neighborhood.
But I’m really finding it difficult to be able to tolerate the “other side”, given how hateful they are of everything that isn’t to their liking. The President being the most obvious. Of course, when questioned they can never give you a legitimate answer about anything.
Hey Mr Gay Guy, why do you hate the President? Because. What has he done to gays in the US? He’s a jerk. But what has he done? He’s mean and he’s a jerk.
Hey Mr/Mrs Black Person, why do you hate the President? He’s racist. He just signed and put into effect criminal justice reform that helps the black community more than any other, black unemployment is at it’s lowest ever and wages for black workers is at their highest ever..........He’s racist.
As this election grows nearer and the President continues to perform beyond any and all expectations, the differences, vitriol, condescension, self-righteousness, etc etc etc, will only get worse.
It’ll be time to find out who your friends are, then.
I would cry, just not too hard.
Aw, hell. Who am I kidding?
Pfft.
This Yankee is pumping his fist for the Georgia Peaches down there!
I envy them.
The left is a death cult.
I actually had a friend tell me that Florida is a disaster with Covid cases.
I told him Georgia and Florida are actually doing really well and Georgia had a really low death count since opening.
He was absolutely shocked. I showed him the data and he was gobsmacked. I told him don’t believe what you hear in the media or on FB and Twitter.
We also had a conversation over Texas. I had to explain that cases had gone up more because of the huge testing increase that has occurred.
Where did he get his mind-reading degree?
Bookmarked.
Congratulations to Georgia an Florida for reopening. My wife and I both have pre-existing conditions that would keep us out of restaurants and stores in Illinois even if Illinois reopened.
But I could order on line and have meals delivered or picked up. The same with food or clothing or whatever . Quarantine the sick of at risk, not the whole world.
And, the people pushing the don’t open up the economy just lock yourselves in your homes are overwhelmingly people who continue to work themselves.
They are not among the 36.5 MILLION people who have lost their employment or, whose businesses teeter on the verge of collapse.
Hello to my home state of Maryland. And I got yer peaches right here, Equine1952. Literally. I have Late Red, Elberta, and nectarine trees in my mini orchard, plus Anna, Fuji, and Honeycrisp apples, and a Keiffer pear tree that is about to drop a small bushel in it’s first season fruiting. Ha. My wife and I live five minutes from the GA line, and we are making plans to help revive the economy and go back up to Alpine Helen GA, rent a streamside log cabin again, and spend four days with me fly fishing for trout under the deck while she soaks her weary bones in the hot tub in the loft, going into town to partake of all the great German cuisine at some great restaurants, shop all the little shops and boutiques in the alley ways, go panning for gems and gold at one of the mines up there in the hills (we hit a mother lode the last time), and just generally cork off.
So long as we can opt out of funding it and not just receiving it, I'm in.
Still have a couple of weeks before the clings start coming in. A bit longer for the free stone
You can order from Lane Orchards....if the fresh are too pricy you can get jarred “dessert” peach halves that are almost as good as fresh
Good thing in FL we don’t really have public transportation and don’t live on top of each other.
Democrats are evil scum.
That's troubling, that the state is not keeping up this important reporting.
It looks like they have been mostly flat with a very slight upturn in the last week with the 14 day moving average.
But one of the TV stations WTLV put a chart together. 
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