If I were in their shoes...

[3Hotdogs]

I am in good economic shape. I'm not rich or nuthin'. No boat to go to the Virgin Islands or mountain retreat to wait out the virus.... Hell. Maybe I could'a written the new, "Tales of the Decamaron"....

But I am not stressed. Mortgage is paid off. Coupl'a thousand of debt that I will pay off by July. Monthly S.S. and defined benefit pension keep me above water with 2k left at the end of the month.

Then I wonder. If this had happened 40 years ago, 2 kids, one in college and another gonna go, mortgage, property taxes and on and on... and suddenly furloughed, would I feel the same way I do about the protesters? Then, I would have been in deep shit.

Side thought. We paid off the mortgage in 2009, after the crash. I was worried about banks crashing, and would someone even be able to pay off a mortgage if the mortgage was sold to bank after bank...because bank after bank went belly-up. --- would we even have income?

So we paid off the mortgage. We would have been economically better off if we kept the money in Fidelity. Probably would be $300k richer than we are today. But we slept good in 2008. We sleep good now.


Still, I don't have resentment for the people who want restrictions lifted. Some of their methods of protest are assholic. But I understand and have some sympathy.

[demigoddess]

1. I think that the best thing we could do for them is Universal Healthcare

one of the big drags on people today is healthcare and health insurance both too darn expensive. And they drain you. Heard a story from a doctor years ago. He was injured exercising. Knew he needed a scan. Went to the scan place and asked "if I pay cash, how much and when?" they said $1500 and right now. After the scan he asked the lady on the desk why so much cheaper and quicker to get in?? She said they had 4 people in the back repeatedly calling insurance companies. Said they always denied coverage the first 2 or 3 calls. Just standard operating procedure. Probably to get people to not get the test they needed. That is what makes health care so expensive all the paper work and calling and also the big profits the rich guys have to take home. Universal healthcare would also have made this pandemic better responded to. Enough masks etc. Just look at what happened in Europe.

[Caliman73]

2. They are directing their anger at the WRONG people.

That is as big a problem as the stupid methods they are using. They are pissed at the Governor who is trying to protect their stupid asses from getting sick and getting others sick. They are upset at science and the best that that data can tell us as to what to do.

They are NOT protesting the idiot GOP and Trump who are doling out billions to huge corporations no questions asked and putting loopholes into the small business loans so that the same rich companies can steal that. They aren't pissed at Lindsey Graham who is threatening not to provide more unemployment insurance while we wait this thing out.

This is the problem. It is too easy to fool the idiots into protesting against the entities trying to help them.

[The Magistrate]

3. Anyone Who Shows Up With Armed Thugs And Red Hats, Sir

Earns feelings far deeper than mere resentment.

Maybe not everyone in such an assembly goes whole-hog for the poison swill and insurrection the bodies aim at, but the old 'walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, spotted in a flock of ducks' standard applies.

[tinrobot]

4. Perhaps, except most of those shoes are filled with political operatives on a mission.

Most of the people doing the protests are not normal people in an economic bind. They're political operatives trying to cause chaos and override state governments through the use of force.

Not grass roots, and not cool.

[Brainfodder]

5. What IF they are just paid hooligans?