DUANE PAUL MURPHY, San Clemente
To all of the known or unknown anti-lockdown individuals or organizations in or around our own city of San Clemente who have publicly demonstrated against any or all of the state and local government-imposed, COVID-19 pandemic crisis-related restrictions and curfews with little to no facial masking and social distancing occurring at those particular times during most of this year in the months of April, May, and November, you are not bringing our own local community from inland Talega to coastal North Beach the values of life, liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness for all that you supposedly stand for.
How can we have life for ourselves and others if your irresponsible mass gatherings of idiocy are more likely to cause viral infections that can make someone seriously sick with the coronavirus or other infectious ailments that are known to cause serious long-term health effects?
How can we have liberty for ourselves and others to economically and socially recover from this particular pandemic in a safe way with near complete effectiveness and efficiency, as well as caution, if your ignorant beliefs around wearing a face mask or maintaining appropriate or adequate social distance delay such progressing actions?
How can we have a pursuit of happiness if all you bring is stupidity and selfishness because of your own ego? Your actions against any government-imposed restriction, lockdown, and or curfew to flatten the curve of infection rates is not only being anti-patriotic, but also replicating historical neocolonialism of white European Christian colonizers that spread diseases towards any other social and cultural minorities, who are more likely to suffer from this pandemic than any other group, for the sake of exclusionary self-interests and just plain old-fashioned ignorance.
We as a local community will not succumb or surrender to your own grassroots quasi-fascist thuggery, intimidation, and display of willful ignorance. We as a local community must not become bystanders or complicit to fringe contrarian reactionary elements even if they are your neighbors, co-workers, families, or friends.
As a community, let’s please continue to be socially responsible to all.