'Some of the wackiest stuff:' Branson's 8-hour mask debate wades into Nazis, communism

[pstokely]

https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article244274647.html

"One local pastor said half the U.S. population had already been infected with COVID-19 and said the novel disease had been around for 20 years. The country, he said, “is suffocating in a cesspool of ignorance.”

Another pastor linked the proposed mask ordinance with the Black Lives Matter movement, warning of the nation’s slide into communist rule. Business owners said Branson will lose the tourism it’s known for if visitors are made to wear face masks.

And one resident, wearing a hat and T-shirt that said “Tyranny Response Team,” said the coronavirus was “artificially created” in a North Carolina lab to make money for a company “in cahoots” with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At least three people likened mask mandates to the Holocaust that killed millions of Jews and other European"

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. "suffocating in a cesspool of ignorance" - yes, but the pastor is a source of the shit

Two pastors leading the insanity. That's a fundamental problem.

Later on, Amber Thompson called those who want a mask ordinance "paranoid schizophrenics", and then claimed hospitals were purposefully killing patients on ventilators, the government was stealing children, and there's a national currency shortage, and that's why a drive-thru is only taking cards. Jesus, the projection is off the scale.

Then we get someone saying the Bible doesn't recommend masks, so we shouldn't use them. This is a willing victim of those pastors.

[Sherman A1]

2. +1

[ProfessorGAC]

9. Agreed!

First thing I thought of was "Well, he would know."
He's as ignorant as they come.

[Submariner]

3. For decades I've read about southern evangelicals

getting on southern state school boards, and over time successfully removing what little science they had in elementary and high school text books, only to replace it with creationist jibberish.

Today, the right wing nut god cult must be relishing their success in dumbing down their sheeple.

[obamanut2012]

10. Missouri is the Midwest, not the South

Every single problematic state somehow becomes part of the South, including Ohio and Missouri and Oklahoma. They aren't ours.

[hatrack]

11. Missouri's a border state - and the Ozarks are culturally the south

Cross the Missouri River and you go from a generally Lutheran/Catholic German(ish) north to an AG/Southern Baptist/Pentecostal Scots-Irish south, the more overwhelmingly so the farther south you go.

And Branson is maggot-gagging horrible. Been through many times on kayak trips to points south, and rule #1 - make sure you've got enough gas so that you don't have to stop there.

[Kaiserguy]

4. Talk about stupid

these people win the award for the dimmest light bulbs in the pack. America really need to declare war on stupidity since we seem to have more than are share of these people.

[leftyladyfrommo]

5. That's just Southern Missouri. nt

[wnylib]

14. Ozarks. Not the most enlightened part of the country.

[leftyladyfrommo]

15. I never go anywhere in Southern Missouri.

Ozark hills are pretty but completely jammed with people. The Lake is crowded with speed boats which I hate. Just too many people everywhere.

Branson is just a mob scene. Tourist stuff everywhere.
I just don't like that kind of thing.

The countryside in Southern Missouri is full of super conservatives. Lots of farm people. Lots of people belong to those far right churches.

It's just better if I just away.

[wnylib]

16. My aunt did some research

on one side of my family that had moved from farm country in Ohio to Erie, PA when my grandfather was a kid. She discovered that my great-great grandparents had been German Swiss immigrants to southern Missouri. Protesants from a fundamentalist Calvinist tradition. They later moved to a region of German immigrants in southern Ohio who were mainstream Lutheran.

By the time the next generation settled in Erie, they were solid Lutherans with a "liberal" leaning (liberal compared to their original religious fundamentalism).

My grandfather retained some rural pronunciations and expressions that I always thought came from the Ohio/Kentucky border region, near Appalachia. But somebody told me those expressions and pronunciations were closer to rural Ozarks. Don't know since the only place I ever went in MO was St. Louis.

Do these expressions sound like MO Ozarks to you? "Crick" for creek; "hain't" instead of ain't or isn't; "heared" (pronounced like "hear" with a "d" on the end) instead of "heard;" and "niver" instead of never.

A sentence might sound like this: "I hain't niver heared a nothin' like what that fella down by the crick said."

[leftyladyfrommo]

17. There's a bunch of rural dialects.

One farmer I visited pointed to a collapsed building and said " the tornado blowed it plum away."

You hear a lot of incorrect grammar. "I seen that there xxxx whatever. " "I seen that there what you done. "" I heared that." Here you just hear "ain't" not "hain't." It's creek. "I never done that." Or "I have never did that or I never done that."

One especially beautiful sounding dialect comes out of Arkansas. The grammar is typical south Missouri but it's soft. I love to listen to it.

This area is a lindquist's dream. People break all the rules. I like to hear it.

There are people here that speak perfect English until they get tired or just relaxed and then they slide back into the speech patterns they grew up with. They will say ain't or " We done that, too."

[wnylib]

19. Oh my gosh!! Some of those sound exactly

like grandpa, especially, "The tornado blowed it plum away." And "knowed" and "I seen." Or "I seed" for "I saw."

The grammar and pronunciation made him sound like a "dumb hick" but he was capable of speaking a perfectly good, grammatical sentence and was actually an intelligent, well read man with a collection of several books. But, as you said, he would sometimes slip into dialect that he learned in childhood from his parents who had come from the Ozarks.

Now I know the source of his dialect that I always wondered about. Thanks.

[NoMoreRepugs]

6. Excellent reason to NEVER go to Branson - this level

of stupid has to be INFECTIOUS.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. A good review of why I haven't ever gone to Branson to

see the 'shows' nor set foot in Silver Dollar City and I'm only about 2 hours away. I have stopped off Highway 65 to get gas there on my way from Arkansas to Illinois.

The whole area is this crazy. Close by is Harrison, AR, known as the home of the KKK and billboards welcoming only whites.

[Grokenstein]

8. Wait, I thought it was "artificially created" in China.

(as opposed to "naturally created" I guess)

[safeinOhio]

12. Yep, and don't even get me started on mandatory

shirts and shoes.

[Buns_of_Fire]

13. I read the article, and no one stated the REAL reason to oppose a mandate.

It's because masks sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids. i'm glad i was able to inject some facts into the debate. You're welcome.

In retrospect, this whole mask thing could have been handled with a little more finesse.

The public health people said to "do it for yourself, do it for your neighbors, do it for your loved ones." Well, screw that. Who cares about them, anyway? No, make them the new, coolest fashion accessory on the market and it is a grave faux pas to be seen in the better circles without one. Versace and Yves St. Laurent-branded, even.

I think the manufacturers should have started infusing a small amount of medicinal THC directly into the masks, so people would constantly breathe the vapors. They'd be so mellowed-out that you wouldn't be able to pry the masks off them. Or infused with the calming hint of lavender. Or gun oil, for the NRA crowd. Big Macs, for President Plump, and the enticing aroma of his butt for the WH staff and republican members of the Senate.

There y'go, Capitalism. Do your thing.

[Midnight Writer]

18. "Business owners said Branson will lose tourism...if visitors are made to wear face masks".

Branson will lose tourism if the people who go there get sick.

Can they not see beyond next week?