I’ve personally felt like the approach Missouri has taken to COVID-19 has been one of the best of any in the country. The best indication of that isn’t cases or how much the gubment ordered people around, but in that the extremists on both sides moaned and wailed about it.
With national Democrats simply abandoning Missouri, we are left with one-party rule, and that always means the extremists find innovative ways to get more and more of what they want and find innovative ways to never be happy with anything.
With that said, anytime the crazies on both sides are weeping and gnashing teeth, it’s a pretty good day at the office of regular common sense folks.
Gov. Mike Parson governs the most diverse state in the union and allowed St. Louis governments to be all up in the lives of St. Louisans, and he allowed rural Missouri gubments to stay the hell out of the lives of rural Missourians.
The beauty of local control in a free society is that you can oppose the local governments’ decisions or easily run to be in that local government. If those options fail, you can move. Look at the migration from St. Louis City to north St. Louis County to now St. Charles County as proof that folks will move to find the right fit for them.
Therefore, if you don’t like lockdowns or mask mandates, and you live in a more liberal area where the majority of folks do like those things, then you can advocate to change their minds or run for office and change it yourself. If those options don’t work for you, then cross the river and move somewhere you’re free to make your own decisions if that is more to your liking.
Now imagine you’re a child. You can’t move. Or maybe one of your parents is a socialist, and you’re a 5-year-old capitalist, then you can’t move.
We all believe in science, right? Science has been defined as a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws.
In plain West Butler County speak, it is the use of logic and common sense in an organized fashion to solve problems. Now, how in the world are you gonna get a 5-year-old child to wear a face mask all day?
It’s literally a broadside attack on common sense to think that is even conceivable, even if it had any real scientific value, to think a 5-year-old is gonna wear a mask all day. That is, if you actually do believe in science.
From the beginning of the COVID debate, it was repeatedly stated as science that children were not at severe risk from COVID. That is, if you actually do believe in science.
Then the argument was that teachers at school could be of an age that is at risk. Well OK, so President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed brought a vaccine to market with incredible speed, and it’s been repeatedly stated as science that said the vaccine is effective. So a teacher can choose not to have COVID by getting vaccinated. That is, if you actually do believe in science.
As a proud Neelyville R-4 public school graduate, I’ve always defended rural public schools. It’s always the St. Louis Republicans who have big genius ideas for our public schools even though it’s their schools that are failing, and I’ve never seen a St. Louis genius have any good intentions for rural Missourians. Remember the 15-year plan?
It’s been one of the saddest things I’ve seen observing state politics to watch schools essentially declare war on common sense and science with their mask mandates. Local control honestly doesn’t apply to those kids because they simply can’t move.
It’s funny to watch the education intellectuals who think that some of those goofy high-priced studies are what has held the line for rural schools. No one who is persuadable ever reads or believes the big shot studies from either side.
What they just hate is that it’s not the intellectuals but the rural Missouri hicks like me who like our rural local schools and have never read a study who has repeatedly asked our state representatives to hold the line and protect our schools. It’s no coincidence that this is the first year they turned on their rural schools.
Watching school leaders rip apart those bonds that have protected rural education will ultimately lead to the floodgates opening, and I really don’t know how they will ever be shut. It won’t be long until the St. Louis geniuses are telling the folks in St. Clair County what to do.
The legislature passed what I consider a very good law on health orders (mask mandates) that said issue whatever orders you want, but you have to have a simple majority of your legislative body sign on to make sure there is broad-based support, and it has worked pretty well.
In the City of St. Louis, Mayor Tishaura Jones issued a mask order and the Board of Aldermen hasn’t moved to end it. However, in St. Louis County, Dr. Sam Page issued the same one and his county council overturned it.
I understand Dr. Page has his detractors, but I actually believe that he sincerely believes a mask order is the right thing for St. Louis County, just like Vince Lampe believes that the gubment leaving folks the hell alone is the best thing for Butler County. Reasonable folks can disagree with both of them without questioning their motives.
He is the one who got elected, and he is actually a doctor. If folks don’t like it, then they are free to vote against him or even run against him. Or move somewhere else.
Now the St. Louis County health director Mr. Khan is another matter. I’ll gladly defend Dr. Page’s intentions, but I really don’t see how a serious person can defend a guy who flipped off the very folks whose taxes are taken from them to pay his generous gubment salary.
I’ve personally seen people be aggressively obscene in attacking Dr. Page, some right to his face, and he handled the criticism with grace and class. He didn’t flip them off.
Then, after flipping off the taxpayers, Khan wrote a letter claiming he was racially heckled and surrounded and chest bumped. There is no audio of that, and the police who escorted him out of the building said they didn’t hear it, but you can’t scientifically disprove it. That is, if you actually do believe in science.
However, there is video of the man leaving the chamber and walking all the way to the elevator and flipping the bird at Dr. Page’s constituents. You can literally scientifically prove he was lying. That is, if you actually do believe in science.
Now, in his defense, showing up in a room where 200 people are all against you and the county council has already publicly stated they are voting against you is tough, and maybe in the heat of the moment, you remembered things a little different than they actually happened. However, after seeing the video scientifically proving you were wrong, you come out, explain that, and apologize.
He hasn’t. In fact, he has refused to do so. In fact, when questioned about it, some folks have said, “Well, we can’t talk about it because there is an ongoing investigation.” That was several weeks ago. At this point, that isn’t credible at a time when you’re asking people to trust your credibility about far bigger things.
If they need help, my 5-year-old son, Gussie, could take 5 minutes, remove his gubment mandated mask, watch the video, get out a crayon, and write “Khan lied” on the back of a kids’ menu from Smitty’s. Report done.
I won’t be one to attack sincerity, and I’m a simple hillbilly who isn’t qualified to really argue with Dr. Page about masks, but even so, it really cuts to the core of credibility when the person signing the orders touting science has been scientifically proven to lie when convenient to advance his personal agenda. That is, if you actually do believe in science.
Check out the show Sunday. We will have Sen. Bill Eigel on and Show Me Missouri is in Adair County with my old buddy Nate Walker.
Scott Faughn is the publisher of The Missouri Times, owner of the Clayton Times in Clayton; SEMO Times in Poplar Bluff; and host of the only statewide political television show, This Week in Missouri Politics.
