Going After Friends

Guest Post by Eric Peters

There is a scene in the 1990 film adaptation of Tom Clancy’s Cold War thriller, The Hunt for Red October that bears on current times – and current situations.

The book – and movie – center around the defection of a Soviet ballistic missile submarine, the Red October, commanded by a disillusioned Captain Marko Ramius. Once the Soviet leadership realizes what Ramius is up to, they send everything they have in hot pursuit, with orders to sink the Red October to prevent it falling into the hands of the Americans.

One of the vessels sent after the Red October is the attack submarine Konovalov. Its commander, Captain Tupolev, tells his crew what their mission is: We’re going to kill a friend.

I had friends – or so I thought – at the coffee shop in Roanoke where I’ve been a regular for years.

Also during the months of “lockdown” when almost no one else patronized the place out of fear of being caught violation the decree of Gesundheitsfuhrer Northam that none but those decreed by him to be “essential” – which I was not decreed to be – were to leave their homes, or else.

Fines and worse were threatened.

I did leave my home, considering myself essential – and also because I do not like threats and the bullies who issue them. I also considered it essential to do what I could to defy the Gesundheitsfuhrer and by doing that, support the Donk – the name of the coffee shop – and also the principle that Gesundheitsfuhrers haven’t got the legal much less moral right to “lock down” people who’ve committed no crime, nor to shutter businesses that aren’t forcing anyone to do business with them.

The owners of the Donk expressed no “concern” over my nonessential self showing up every day during the “lockdown” to buy coffee – and tip heartily. They told me they appreciated my patronage – which is another way of saying they appreciated my ignoring the Gesundheitsfuhrer.

They didn’t object at all during those months that I came in without a Diaper – which they weren’t wearing, either.

This was during the weeks and months of Sickness Terror – when the Fear Organ was promising the Black Death and millions – literally – of bodies stacking up like cordwood. It might have been reasonable during that time to don the Diaper – and even to insist on it – as a precaution as neither they nor I knew much about the “virus” and in particular, how likely it might be to kill us.

Or anyone.

Now, we do know. We know that it is non-threat to practically everyone and the tiny percentage of people it does threaten are already threatened by every virus – as the elderly and otherwise compromised always have been. What may produce a fever, sore throat and bad cough for a few weeks in a healthy 35-year-old can lead to pneumonia in a frail 80-year-old.

The rest of us might get sick. Most of us won’t even notice. Almost all of us will not die. Virginia has about 8.5 million residents. About 2,000 deaths over the past six months are laid at the feet of the WuFlu virus. Most of these occurring in nursing homes, not coffee shops.

And now they Diaper Down.

Now, they’re ardent about not only obeying the Gesundheitsfuhrer but go beyond what he decrees, even when the decree is at odds with both sanity and legality, at least arguably.

They have defected.

Everyone must wear a Diaper now in order to be served. Even for the minute or so it takes to be served. On this basis, I was excommunicated from the Donk. Told that henceforth I will not be served unless I put on the filthy rag of – as they style it – “community”  regardless of the effect on my physical and psychological well-being.

Which is possibly actionable.

Just as it was possibly actionable for me to show up during the “lockdown” and buy coffee when I was under “orders” to “shelter in place.”

But the Donk took no action then.

Yet it takes action now.

Which is making me consider taking taking action. There are some top-dog Better Call Sauls in Roanoke who might be very interested in my case.

In a class action case against the Diaper Decreers.

All I wanted was to buy my cup of coffee in the normal manner – as I have been for years, without ever getting anyone sick.

I never made an issue out of the other people who Diapered. I just didn’t Diaper myself – because there is no good reason for me to do so and several very good reasons not to do so, among them not acceding to bullying to put on what amounts to a hijab and for similar religious reasons which I do not agree with.

But because I refused to obey a policy that forces me to put my health and well-being at risk in order to be served, I will no longer be served. I was told to go away in the same way that a person of an unacceptable appearance – as determined by the policy of the place – was told to go away. Before it became illegal to do so.

It is also illegal to refuse service or to provide second-class service to people on account of their medical status – which encompasses a wide variety of conditions, none of which the sufferer is obliged to explain in order to be served.

In time of war, one uses whatever weapons are at hand. These include legal weapons – such as the Americans With Disabilities Act, which supersedes “store policy” and hasn’t been countermanded by the fiat “guidelines” of the Gesundheitsfuhrers. 

I do not like to go down this road – per Captain Tupolev, who was a friend of Captain Ramius. I considered the folks at the Donk – the owners and the baristas – friends. I stood up for all of them in a way that few if any of their other patrons did.

But they didn’t stand up for me. Or anyone else who resents being treated like a suppurating leper by “policy” in order to get served.

This may, indeed, be actionable. And I may have to look into it. Not because I am looking for money (I don’t want a cent) or revenge.

Rather, to make a point – and take a stand.

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