I guess the UL now believes that “Live Free or Die” isn’t a two-way street. Once again, I ask – is it really still a conservative paper (note I no longer even capitalize “conservative” in their case).
Related: ReOpenNH: City-Wide Mask Mandate Defeated in Manchester!
Their editorial, below, is making sport of Mr. Bodge for closing his ice cream shop due to Government regulation and overreach (and an overzealous Karen’s, standing in as the Mask Stasi police, complaint) – isn’t that what General Stark meant in his best known quote?
And I dryly note the condescending and belittlement of Mr. Dodge:
An Epping fellow is shutting down his little restaurant. His sign out front reads “What Happened To Live Free or Die.”
Our first question: Whatever happened to proper punctuation?
Ah yes, they’ve demoted themselves to being the Grammar Police, these professional wordsmiths, with their second sentence. It is the Chest Puffery Cave in which those of little true thought and mind hide when they know they have little to say or have missed the point completely.
The first sentence sets stage; “fellow,” and “little restaurant.” The message sent is “ho-hum, so sad” instead of understanding the plight that the owner finds himself in when the Government has decided that it needs to control how he runs his business.
“Live Free or Die” – the UL has just proclaimed to the rest of us that it has no empathy with this gentleman, who truly believes in the Live Free or Die ethos in how a man may make his way through life with minimal interference from Government to seek his Happiness. No thought to the struggles met and conquered in overcoming the problems in starting, growing, and having one’s life work cut short by the scribble of a pen. The holder has no concept of personal agency and the ability to accept the ramifications of those decisions.
Just that he didn’t use a question mark – how belittling. But it gets worse.
That aside, we think the answer to Joseph Bodge’s question is that “live free or die” is alive and well and Bodge’s action is proof thereof.
Bodge has been ignoring the COVID-19 emergency requirement that restaurant workers in direct contact with patrons must wear masks. He says he believes the virus is real (families and friends of 220,000 dead Americans can vouch for that reality). But he questions the effectiveness of masks. (Just a guess here, but we suspect Bodge cheered when the President of the United States referred dismissively to Dr. Anthony Fauci and all those other public health “idiots” this week.)
And that is true – Mr. Bodge made both his declaration and decision. Government and the moralistic preening UL should have accepted it; the latter couldn’t help themselves. His employees could make their own decisions. So could his customers. They could decide to stay and work or come and purchase his goods. It’s not like they were unthinking buffoons, not understanding what was going on – they had (emphasis on HAD) the ability to discern risk factors for themselves. The government took that freedom of choice from them.
But the uptake is that the UL tries to paint the picture that masks are a universal solvent for this problem; they forget that masks cannot stop such a virus particle. But I suspect that the UL cheered when always-mask-wearing Nashua mayor Donchuss got the WuFlu despite putting his city under the thumb of a $1,000 fine. Draconian, Mr. UL Editorial Writer (“MULE-W”)? What good did it do him? We’re also seeing over in Europe, where mask-wearing is almost universal (and lockdowns much tighter) that skyrocketing rates passed ours. Whither the mask protocols?
Yes, we cheered over Donchuss, not that he got the Chinese Flu, but that yet another moralistic preening dweeb had his words lightly salted but liberally doused with hot sauce.
Making his staff wear masks is a state scare tactic, Bodge says. “Either we follow the sheep or we stood our ground,” he told our correspondent. So he closed his restaurant.
But if “live free or die” no longer applies in New Hampshire, shouldn’t the state have compelled him to remain open?
Mr. Bodge is right – Live Free or Die means WE get to make the decisions for ourselves. After all, wasn’t it the Founders that had the radical idea that former serfs and subjects actually had the same sovereignty as Kings and dealt a mortal blow to the Divine Right of Kings? Like the radical idea of Luther, all humans could commune directly with God instead of going through a priest?
The UL, however, is now supporting the Divine Right of Public Health Boards of Government entities, supporting the regressive notion of “Public Safety trumps Everything,” and Freedom be damned – a throwback and regression to the Days of Yore; serfs with masks.
And look at the twisted notion of Live Free or Die that the MULE (or is that Donkey?) utilizes, that “the state has compelled him to remain open”? The MULE turns the ethos upside down with sarcasm and strictly avoids the point that the decision point should be on the other side of the equation – does Government now run serve us, or do we serve it in every jot and tittle?
The point was not in the State compelling his establishment’s status but compelling that it had the Right to withdraw Individual Freedom. That the healthy must be treated just the same as the sick. Equality at the lowest level of Misery.
Our view is that a little discretion would be the better part of valor here for Bodge. Wear a mask. Don’t let the ice cream melt.
My view that a liberal dab of Freedom (ok, a truck full) ingestion would help in having the UL live up to its glorious past of standing up instead of kneeling at the behest of Government – which it should be afflicting and not “the little guy” to whom it is truly holding in contempt…
…for not having a herd mentality. The UL used to be a Sheepdog – it has shrunk to being a lapdog.
P.S. And inconsistent as well – here it is cheering that Manchester dumped its Mandatory Mask ordinance. Square that circle; woof, woof.
