Yesterday evening, Idaho’s Central District Health Board, which rules four Idaho counties in the present environment, was meeting to vote on imposing a mask mandate in reaction to an uptick in Wuhan virus cases. As with so much of the scaremongering that has surrounded this virus for the past nine months, the panic driving the latest drive to restrict civil liberties is based on fears of what might happen rather than what is actually happening. The measure the board was considering was, to say the least, rather bizarre. The proposed measure, along with limiting business activity, would have limited gatherings to fewer than 10 people and required face masks to be worn in public and private around non-household members. Such a rule is utter unhinged lunacy as it is illegal and unenforceable. Its only purpose is to attempt to control citizens’ behavior by creating a method whereby law enforcement can break up church services, funerals, political meetings, homeschool co-ops, playgroups, etc. To date, there has been zero evidence that such a mask-wearing regime does anything but brutalize the people subjected to it.

Fortunately, the good people of Idaho are made of sterner stuff than the freakin sheep in Maryland.

Minutes into a public health district’s virtual meeting to vote on a local mask mandate in Idaho on Tuesday evening, Ada County Commissioner Diana Lachiondo tearfully excused herself after getting a phone call that anti-mask protesters had surrounded her home.

“My 12-year-old son is home by himself right now, and there are protesters banging outside the door,” she told the Central District Health’s Board of Health, which serves four counties in the state’s most populous region. “I’m going to go home and make sure he’s okay.”

A visibly upset Lachiondo then disconnected from the video call, leaving her colleagues at the meeting stunned. They soon learned that protesters had gathered outside the Central District Health office and one other board member’s residence as well, targeting the public officials who were meeting virtually from their homes and private offices as a precaution amid the worsening pandemic.

“I’m a father and that’s just unbelievable,” David Peterman, a doctor who had been giving an update on the status of the coronavirus pandemic, said after Lachiondo left the meeting.

Hundreds of anti-mask demonstrators poured out to protest a public health order that would have limited gatherings to fewer than 10 people and required face masks be worn in public and private around non-household members when social distancing is not possible, among other restrictions. More than 3,000 public comments had been submitted on the order between Friday and Monday, the health district said in a statement. The health district board was set to vote on the order Tuesday evening.

The Idaho Statesman first reported the abruptly terminated public meeting a short time after it ended on Tuesday.

This is how Talking Points Memo describes it:

The home of a county commissioner in Idaho was surrounded by anti-mask demonstrators on Tuesday night, forcing Ada County Commissioner Diana Lachiondo to abruptly leave a virtual public health meeting and the meeting to be cancelled 15 minutes after it started, by the recommendation of local officials as protesters swarmed outside the Central District Health office.

According to the Idaho Statesmen, Boise Mayor Lauren McLean and Boise Police Chief Ryan Lee asked the CDH board to quickly adjourn a meeting where a vote on a public health order aimed at combatting the spread of coronavirus was scheduled to take place due to safety concerns amid demonstrations against the pack of measures.

…

According to the Statesmen, Lachiondo, in tears, told the board members upon her sudden departure that her son was home alone as demonstrators banged outside of her door.

Another board member said protesters had swarmed outside of his house as well. Dr. Ted Epperly, told the Statesman that roughly 15 people were gathered outside of his home, “beating garbage cans and flashing strobe lights through my windows. Two came up and knocked on my door during the meeting.”

Boise police took custody of at least one protester for trespassing, according to a police statement.

“This has gone too far,” per the Statesmen, McLean said later on Tuesday at a Boise City Council meeting with regard to the anti-mask demonstrations. “We’re at a point now that we need to remind ourselves this is not who we are.”

Just a few points here. If you can contemplate demanding that your fellow citizens limit their ability to congregate in their own homes and on their own property, you have no f***ing right to be shocked and surprised if they don’t like it. If them not liking it makes you break down into tears, then maybe you should look at your actions and not theirs for the reason.

Protesting government actions is a part of our civic tradition. Sometimes protests can get boisterous…like when British tax collectors were tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail. Petitioning our government for a redress of grievances is a right that we are guaranteed. I’m sorry if your family is inconvenienced by this; I don’t understand why your inconvenience has a higher value than the inconvenience being imposed on thousands of other families. And while the protest against the proposed ordinance was harmless, what this bunch of fascists were considering was not. These lockdowns are killing people. Not just the sick who can’t get treatment. Not just the heart attack and stroke sufferers who have been so terrorized that they are afraid to go to the ER when they have symptoms. Not just people with substance abuse problems who are relapsing because of the absence of the support network they need for recovery. Healthy people are being harmed, too.

Today I spoke to the family of Spencer Smith. Smith died by suicide on Friday. His family says he left a note, writing he felt locked in the house and disconnected from his friends due to the pandemic #NEWSCENTERmaine pic.twitter.com/jIiwlF8DUs

— Jackie Mundry (@j_mundry) December 8, 2020

These protests were peaceful. They didn’t damage property. The police arrested anyone who broke the law. That is how a free society functions. It may look messy to those who think they rule us, but that’s too bad.

There was a time, perhaps four years ago, when I would have disagreed with the notion of carrying political protests to the homes and families of politicians. What I saw during the Trump administration was that his behavior was encouraged by his opponents. The people who did it were lionized in the media. In this time of overbearing government response to the Wuhan virus that is calculated to reduce individual freedom while aggrandizing power to unelected bureaucrats, the stakes are just too high to worry about some would-be despot having their feelings hurt.

If we are to end this nonsense and get back to normal life that does not include people you don’t know telling you what to wear and where you can go and when you can go there, we will need more direct action like this. The people who are trying to control are afraid because they know what they are doing is wrong, not because they are in danger. They should hope this does not change.