The People’s Republic of Keene has rescinded its mandatory mask mandate city-wide. The Nashua Board of Alderman is scheduled to revisit theirs tonight, and it seems likely it too will be mothballed.
The Nashua Board of Re-Education announced that their district-wide mandate would end when students and staff return from February Vacation.
Why the stunning change?
Town elections are coming up, and I’m not certain the mandates, while popular among the elected classes, is not a big mover with the regular folks. There’s no medical reason to make anyone wear it, and terrified people will keep wearing them anyway.
Why not just let my people go? It’s not like anyone is really enforcing these things anymore.
I was in several locations over the past weeks where many people were not masked – myself included – despite mandates, and no one said boo.
Even the masked marauders seemed less likely to give me their creepy Karen side-eye.
How Dare You!
None of that, not that I noticed. And yes, municipalities and school boards backing off useless mandates are nice, but they are as meaningless as the masks. The people who impose them are still filling these seats and need to be escorted out of public service.
That takes elections and turnout, not just this year but next year’s elections and for years to come. And I’m not sure they’ve got it in them.
One of the things I’ve seen, and still see, in my paltry 14 years paying attention to such things, is that many on the center-right get riled up for a hot minute, but they aren’t up for the long haul. I can name dozens of people who were pro-Trump and gung ho two years ago, whose names I never see nor voices I no longer hear.
And not just Trump. Pick a candidate and an election. You see them, and then they are gone.
But the issue didn’t stop being important. These days the state of the nation is always an election or two away from the sort of destruction and chaos we see around us today. You have to show up. Every damn day.
That doesn’t mean you need to write two-thousand blog posts a year, stand for every flag wave, or attend every rally or vigil. But you do need to vote, and it helps if you can convince others why you vote the way you do and bring them too.
Yes, the Left from the street urchin to the oval office will make you pay for your opinion. Some will be less kind about that than others. And most have no clue that they are selling out their own rights and liberties alongside yours. But there is no victory for rights or freedom when the left wins. Nothing they want can abide either.
Everything is political and politics is all that matters to them. And until they pay a political price, they won’t stop. Even then, they may never stop.
And this means that we too must remain vigilant. And yes, it can be exhausting. But we need to do it. Attend those boring town meetings. Write letters to the editor. Share new media stories from sites like GraniteGrok. All while continuing to be skeptical of everything, especially the idea that government can fix anything
It can’t.
COVID proved that (again). As in, let’s not do that again. But that will take a lot of people standing up and showing up, and if it makes you feel better, we’ll still have your back.