Disgraceful display at City Council meeting shows COVID not only disease spreading in Neosho

What a frustrating time it has to be for medical professionals in this area.

At a time when COVID-19 vaccinations are beginning and we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, all we have to do to prevent needless deaths until enough people have been vaccinated, is to be reasonable.

Wear masks, wash your hands, maintain proper social distancing.

When medical professionals took that message to the Neosho Civic Center Tuesday night, they were swept away by a tidal wave of self-righteousness, a display of behavior that would not be permitted at a professional wrestling match and a bizarre orgy of self-satisfied selfishness as they intimidated the Neosho City Council into social distancing itself from a proposal that was guaranteed to save lives.

They ranted about socialism, they quoted Bible verses, they cited "facts" that came from any unreliable source that agreed with their opinions.

"Masks do not work. That's a fact. Look it up. Do the research," one man said, also using the despicable argument about the low percentages who are dying from COVID.

(Recently, the U. S. death toll passed the number of Americans who died in World War II. Thankfully, few of this sort were here then to bray at elected officials about why we should have to sacrifice by rationing when only a small percentage of soldiers had given the ultimate sacrifice.)

They argued that most of those who are dying are in nursing homes.

Of course, people do work in those nursing homes and go home to their families and mix with people in the community, but the idea is that it's a bunch of old people who are dying, so why should the rest of us have to inconvenience ourselves.

One speaker compared the ordinance to the way slaveholders controlled their slaves.

It was offensive. Naturally, he received a generous round of applause.

They proudly paraded their maskless faces to the microphone and explained why masks don't work.

And they gleefully mocked and shouted down the professionals, who have watched as the COVID wards at local hospitals have filled with patients, many of them from Neosho. After all, that was the hospitals' problems and, according to the shouted crowd commentary, they were raking in the money from the coronavirus.

Dr. Robert McNab, head of Freeman's COVID-19 unit, was met with jeers and disrespect. Audience members picked up their chairs at one point and turned their backs to a man who has fought valiantly for several months to save lives.

Yet McNab received better treatment from the audience than Steven Douglas, the public relations director at Access Family Care, as the audience shouted and prevented him from speaking.

They bullied Lori Marble of Mercy as she spoke.

Among those orchestrating the circus were members of the Ozark Mountain Proud Boys, shouting at will, berating the speakers from the medical facilities and the council members.

The measure had supporters.

One person spoke in favor of the ordinance, letters were read from three others who supported it, but knew the kind of circus that was being orchestrated by the mask opponents and wisely opted not to risk their health by attending a meeting full of barefaced bullies shouting and possibly spreading the very disease they claim is not as bad as the medical professionals and the media say.

When Mayor Carmin Allen said other e-mails had been received from people who supported the ordinance, an audience member shouted, "So you say."

State Rep. Ben Baker, who preceded Allen as mayor, objected to those who used the Bible to support the argument and in a Facebook post today indicated the disrespectful attitude was not just coming from the mask opponents.

In other words, there were bad people on both sides.

During his speech Tuesday night, Baker was stopped at the end of three minutes, though he had plenty more to say. He was so impressed with his words that he posted them on Facebook today and they included this passage:

In my opinion these draconian mandates are a violation of our civil rights at best and possibly creating a health crisis rather than solving one.

- I implore you to look at this with perspective. We MUST have a balanced approach!

- The Odds of death from an actual covid infection if you are under 50 is somewhere between odds of death by sunstroke and electrocution. You won't hear this from the mainstream media, but the numbers are based on the CDC and National Safety Council, and easy to calculate.

- For instance, somebody under 50 is 3x more likely to die in their life by choking on their own food than by covid-19 and that's if you're infected. So do we ban eating because its too dangerous? No of course not. We take the risk because we have to eat.

- Well I think many are willing to take the risk because we have to get on with our lives!

- Nobody has skipped a single meal due to the risk of choking, yet millions have been forced to in essence stop living altogether because of a lesser risk!

- Just like with driving a car, or operating a power tool, or even walking down the sidewalk, Life has risks.

- In America, we still have the Freedom to make the choice to take a risk, and we are here fighting for that freedom by making our voice heard and asking you to listen to the people.

- This idea that the burden of your health depends on me is a dangerous idea to be introducing into the minds of our youth.

- “Love your Neighbor” is the mantra…Though clever, twisting a Biblical Principle into a tool for pushing the ideology of collectivism is alarming at best and frankly deeply disturbing.

- Using the brute force of government to force you to give up your liberty to do what someone claims will protect me is a dangerous road to travel and definitely NOT loving your neighbor, and historically never ends well.

Though Baker's novel approach- you can't twist the Bible because that is what he does- is original, he also came out on the winning side.

When council member Angela Thomas made the motion to approve the mask ordinance, it died for lack of a second.

A second proposed ordinance would have put occupancy restrictions into effect. There was no need to even bring that up.

On the social media platform, Parler, that provides access to everyone, the Ozark Mountain Proud Boys, boasted of its success at defending its Constitutional rights to bully, berate and be proud of it.

Neosho Council found out, yet again, we value freedom and liberty. Peddle your bullshit mask mandates and occupancy restrictions somewhere else. That dog don't hunt here.

With Ben Baker, the Ozark Mountain Proud Boys and the ones who took such gleeful pride in their disgraceful show of disrespect for medical professionals (and their fellow man), COVID-19 is not the only sickness that is spreading in Neosho.