NO. This is WRONG. Hassling a small business over their policies is wrong. It’s not OUR business it’s THEIR business and when we enter THEIR business we are a GUEST.
If we don’t like their policies, and that includes businesses which never required masks or encouraged people to take them off, we don’t patronize them we quietly go elsewhere but we don’t try to ruin them because they feel masks are still prudent.
People like to talk a good game about supporting small town America and her businesses, so trying to DESTROY a business over their mask policy which is within their rights is wrong.
I am not a rock climber, so I don’t patronize Downingtown Rock Gym personally, but I respect their right to try to do what is best for their business, their employees, and their patrons. If you are a climber and a rational human being, I encourage you to support their business.
Our forefathers granted us freedoms and fought and bled and died for them so we had the freedom of choice among other things. And freedom of choice does not mean destroying a business because you disagree with their masking policy, it means just going someplace else.
And I have been told this person has family members with businesses in Downingtown and is that correct? How would this person feel if people started posting about those businesses in this manner? It would be wrong too, so not encouraging that AT ALL, but asking HOW it would make them feel?
COVID19 has been long enough and terrible enough for all of us, no matter what you feel about masking and shots, and some of the people who have felt this the hardest are small business owners.
We need to respect small business owners and what they choose to do with masks versus no masks until COVID19 is but a nasty memory.
Business shaming over mask requirements is wrong. Plain and simple.
So if it is not making a scene at school board meetings over masks, shots, book lists and whatever else, these people are also all about hassling local businesses? Really?
I thought I had run out of Welcome to Crazier Town posts, but no, no apparently not.
A slightly related aside before I dive in.
Historically, the Republican party was about supporting, not destroying business. But enter the age of Trumpublicanism. All of a sudden, January 6th, 2021 as per the G.O.P. otherwise known as the attack on the US Capitol, which left people dead and injured as well as terrified, was “legitimate political discourse.”
Take Trumpublican politics to the new heights of groups defending “freedom” and “patriotism” where THEIR rights supersede everyone else’s. They have inalienable rights, ours do not matter. It’s their constitution, not anyone else’s.
You go against them and you are vile and horrible. Everyone who disagrees with them are terrible people. Just ask me I get comments ALL of the time. And yes, these are the people that made me decide once again that leaving the Republican party after being a Republican since I was old enough to vote was the right decision. I am not overly liberal. I would be what you call fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I am in truth, a moderate. Of course, that doesn’t matter in this post, it’s just part of my thought process.
So enter groups like Stepford Wives for Totalitarianism (and their man-servants.) They are the avenging angels (in their little minds) of truth, justice, and the American way. They are the avenging whatever the hell they think they are of saving us all from whatever their pea brains think up that week. Except they aren’t saving any of us, they are just trying to control how everyone else thinks. They are bullies. When we were in middle school they were taking over lunch tables and calling you out for fights behind the gym. It appears they haven’t evolved much. Hence, why they are the future handmaids of the totalitarianism point of view.
to·tal·i·tar·i·an·ism
/tōˌtaləˈterēəˌnizəm/
noun — a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.”democratic countries were fighting against totalitarianism”
What is another term for totalitarianism?
(also tsarism or tzarism), despotism, dictatorship, totalism, tyranny.
Synonyms for totalitarianism
absolutism, autarchy, authoritarianism, autocracy, Caesarism, czarism (also tsarism or tzarism), despotism, dictatorship, totalism, tyranny Words Related to totalitarianism
monarchism, monarchy, monocracy Big Brother, Big Brotherism, Communism, fascism, Nazism domination, oppression
So yea. That. Wearing his Trump shirt proudly (which is his right), this guy goes and hassles a small business employee over their masking policies (which is not his right.) The Downingtown Rock Gym. With his little kids in tow. Yes the video is grainy. Took it off of social media.
But this is wrong. Small businesses have had it hard enough since BEFORE COVID-19 hit, and this is this guy’s town and this is how he supports local businesses? By harassing employees doing their jobs?
So what if say, people went to another local Downingtown business like Creekside Antiques Downingtownon the Brandywine and did a similar thing? What if they went in and said they were horrible people that didn’t care about their community because no one has to wear masks? Do you think that would be right?I don’t.
Why am I choosing this other store (which I love, by the way)? Because that is a store that I know does NOT require masks to enter, so again what if someone was upset by that and went in and harassed their front desk and took a video and posted it? After all they went through getting reopened after Hurricane Ida wouldn’t you think that was awful? I would.Just like I think it was awful for that guy to do that to the front desk guy at Downingtown Rock Gym.
Look if you don’t like the business policy on masking or anything else, you DO NOT, I repeat, you DO NOT have to go inside. But right now whether it is WEAR a mask or DON’T WEAR a mask, that is up to the business, it is not up to the rest of us. They are doing what they feel is best for their customers, employees, and business.
That grainy video is a HORRIBLE example of how to treat ANY small business during this time. First we all had lockdown, and all of these small businesses had to close for a while. Then they had to get creative opening up and adjusting like the rest of us to the new normal. And they had to try to pay their rent, mortgage, employees, and survive. Now we are in the in between where some things are masks required (hospitals, medical offices as two examples), some things will be masks for a little while longer (schools), and then there are small businesses who have to do what THEY feel is best for their business, employees, customers.
DO NOT TARGET a small business because you don’t want to wear a mask. CHOOSE another business you are more comfortable with.
Personally, I know how hard the pandemic has been on businesses like this rock gym, so I APPLAUD them for the courage of their convictions. It is EASY to do NOTHING, it takes COURAGE to act in what you feel is the best direction for your employees, your customers, your business.
I am also appalled that a grown man took his small children to watch him essentially yell at this poor employee of the Downingtown Rock Gym. To each their own on parenting, but I also kind of think that was mean to the kids.
We can’t even say Hate Has No Home Right now because I feel (right or wrong) that this world is so crazy, we can’t say it. That makes me sad.
For the love of anything you believe that is holy, people, just stop this crap. Respect the decisions of these small businesses. If you don’t agree with them, go someplace more to your comfort level. But if they want us to wear a mask for a little while longer, so what? Masks aren’t forever, even if they are for now.
