4 August 2020 — 1805 mdt
Unfair means to promote a fair
Endangering the health of others at public meetings is not
a legitimate protest tactic — in fact, it’s against the law
Last night’s meeting of Kalispell’ city council was brought to an abrupt end a few minutes after it convened because approximately 45 citizens in the council’s chambers refused to mask-up. Their objectives? Making a political point and shutting down the meeting (Flathead Beacon):
A few minutes into the meeting, the council passed a motion to continue the following night where it will be online only since people were not complying with the statewide mask mandate.
“We opened up the meeting, did the roll call and Pledge of Allegiance, and as we started off we had a council member make a motion to take the meeting online,” [City Manager Doug] Russell said.
City officials encourage people to submit public comments online at www.kalispell.com.
According to a 3 August email from Love Lives Here in the Flathead, a grassroots organization promoting social justice, last night’s debacle was engineered by right wing zealots:
Yesterday, we discovered that supporters of local militia and “patriot” groups are planning to show up to the Kalispell City Council meeting tonight without masks, and probably without social distancing.
Their message is that the NorthWest Montana Fair should go on as scheduled, even though more than 140 physicians [link to InterLake report that local health care providers want the fair downsized] in the valley have expressed concerns that that contact at the about the fair could lead to an outbreak of COVID-19.
The same barefaced agitators who shut down the city council’s meeting may go for the trifecta by packing this evening’s meeting of the city-county health department, and Thursday’s meeting of the fair board. Their objective? A full blown Northwest Montana Fair, held with no cowardly concessions to rampaging coronaviruses.
These barefaced bullies have the same right as you, me, and Ed down the road, to militate for a cause. But they have no right to endanger the health of their fellow citizens by, in defiance of both common sense and Gov. Bullock’s mask-up mandate, refusing to wear face masks to protect others.
There is community spread of the SARS-cov-2 virus in the Flathead. The perfectly healthy person sitting next to you may be asymptomatic but contagious, capable of infecting you and the people in the surrounding seats. If he wears a mask, he significantly lowers the probability that he will infect you and the people next to you. He has to know that, and he has to know that President Trump now endorses wearing masks. Ergo, a choice not to wear a mask to make a political point is a choice to put others at risk of contracting a disease that’s already killed 150,000 Americans.
That degree of reckless disregard for the welfare of others is on the same order as shaking a bottle of hot nitroglycerin in the playroom of a day care center. Defying a mask-up directive could, I believe, be prosecuted under a number of laws.
Should a refusal to mask-up to protect others be prosecuted? Probably not for a first offense. But repeat offenders, especially those who organize these barefaced assaults on public order and the health of their fellow citizens, who try to intimidate public officials into making decisions that the SARs-cov-2 virus welcomes, should feel the law’s lash. Requiring face masks in the indoor venues where our government meets is a reasonable public health measure to control a pandemic that does not impinge on anyone’s First Amendment rights. The time for education and light handed enforcement of masking-up is ending. It’s time to get tough with these barefaced thugs.