Jesus, I’ve never heard of that, but it makes perfect sense in the most cynical, disingenuous, and toxic way possible. Which is to say, it just makes perfect sense for our current situation.
ETA: What you reference is such a horrific thing to teach people–why can’t they just stick with the proven techniques:
I wonder who this guy voted for in the last election…? /s
I am not a lawyer, or a Floridian, but it looks to me as if Stand Your Ground is pretty well impossible to abuse. All you need to do is say “I feel threatened” and you have a free pass to use deadly force, because no one can gainsay your feelings.
And we know feelings matter.
It appears that Costco has officially become the go-to place for face mask tantrums.
COP 1: “Stop resisting!”
COP 2: “Stop resisting!”
COP 3: “Stop resisting!”
CHORUS: “STOP RESISTING!”
Deranged man screams “I feel threatened!” because he was asked to wear a fucking face mask. It’s pretty clear that if he had a gun, he would have started shooting, and claimed he was “standing his ground”. One more example of the infantilization of America.
There should be four cops for a proper Copshop Quartet.
I’m not condoning this man’s aggressive behavior, but I haven’t seen a single person question why the person was recording him in a Costco in the first place. Don’t we need to understand what led up to this event?
It seems clear.
A man at was filmed Monday yelling and threatening shoppers at a Costco in Fort Myers, Florida, reportedly after an elderly woman asked him why he wasn’t wearing a mask.
Welcome to BoingBoing.
From the story, it looked like the filming started after a woman asked him to wear a mask and he started getting aggro on her and the man (perhaps the person filming) who backed her up. It’s not a mystery if you take the time to RTFA.
I asked a man at work to wear a mask (who ironically somehow gets to listen to conservative talk radio in a closed room with 3 others in his department) at work- he walked away from me claiming I was threatening him, despite no threat. I was written up for supposedly confronting him, when all I did was ask him to wear a mask when he walks by me.
Management where I work refuses to enforce their own mask policy- and I think it’s going to turn into a lawsuit at some point.
I’ve had various people I’ve asked nicely to wear a mask lose their shit at me. I think at this point its become a thing because conservatives have disassociated wearing a mask with basic decency, much like covering one’s face when coughing, specifically because the President has refused wearing one himself, and his rallies at Tulsa and Mt. Rushmore show that he doesn’t take it seriously.
When the commander-in-chief doesn’t take something seriously that is killing people, it doesn’t matter whether we like him or not- these people follow him as if he is an evil God- if he’s not doing it, no one else’s rationale can get them to recognize what decency or safety looks like anymore
Someone asked him to wear a mask. There you go.
It reminds me of a story from Baton Rouge yesterday. I white women stopped a black woman from driving down her flooded street (because the truck was causing waves that might reach her house). She threatened the driver and hit the vehicle with a baseball bat. Then went inside and got a gun to threaten the driver.
Upon arrest, her explaination for her attacks was “I was in fear of my life and my child’s life.”
We’ve reached a point that either claiming fear is practiced by people to excuse their violence, we are surrounded by gun-wielding children in adult bodies that are so insecure that everything feels like an assault, or a bit of both
Pretty sure it’s extremely obvious and the literal title of this thread answers your question as well as the entire body of the thread posting.
If you need more grasp of the situation I suggest you read before you comment
Fort Myers does NOT have a mask mandate. You linked to Fort Myers Beach. Two different places. Derp.
Costco DOES have a mask policy.
Please explain how a beach that I assume is connected to a town of same name can have 2 different mask policies.
Actually better yet, if there are two different masks policies and you live there or near there, maybe go get those people to get their policies straight before your state sets a record new cases yet again.
Florida is leading America to untold heights…of disease and death.
Because the concept of wearing a damn mask is apparently beyond the grasp of its populous
Historically ignorant shirt. “Running the world since 1945” might be more accurate, but even that’s not 100% correct. More like “trying to run the world since 1945.”
But that’s conservatives for you, preferring comforting lies and invented history as long as it boosts their egos.
Two different towns sharing a potentially confusing name. They aren’t even adjacencies to one another, just like how San Francisco and South San Francisco are separate and not adjacent either…
Someone else on Boing Boing had put forward the idea that people don’t wear masks for the same reason people refuse to get tested for suspected cancer; the thought that doing something about the situation “makes it real” so that the person cannot safely continue to ignore it.
“If I don’t get tested for cancer, I can continue to deny the possibility”.
“If I don’t wear a mask, I don’t have to admit that my life is in very real danger”.
