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August 20, 2021 01:50 PM UTC

Sixteen Words To Live In Infamy

  • 18 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Douglas County Board of Commissioners George Teal, Lora Thomas, and Abe Laydon.

We mentioned this story in today’s Get More Smarter update, the vote yesterday by the all-GOP Douglas County Board of Commissioners to opt-out of a mask order from the Tri-County Health Department for children in school ages 2-11 and as a result not yet able to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Elliott Wenzler at Colorado Community Media reports:

Following a nearly four-hour-long meeting including dozens of public speakers, Douglas County voted to opt out of the latest public health order from Tri-County Health Department calling for students to wear masks at schools as a COVID-19 safety measure.

That move came two days after Douglas County School District leaders said they will require all students in preschool through sixth grade to wear masks when inside school buildings.

The three county commissioners unanimously approved an opt-out resolution during the Aug. 19 special business meeting.

The right of conservative Douglas County to opt-out of public health orders issued by the Tri-County Health Department is one of the concessions won by DougCo commissioners after they threatened to pull out of Tri-County and form their own health department last year. Douglas County has been a consistent hotbed of COVID-19 misinformation and misguided “resistance” to best practices to control the spread of the pandemic from the beginning of the crisis, with county and state lawmakers eagerly feeding falsehoods to their local supporters who responded by defying public health orders.

Back in April, or about 60,000 dead Americans ago depending on how you mark the time, the Douglas County Commissioners declared the pandemic officially over and opted out of Tri-County’s orders in effect at that time. Republicans who politicized the response to the pandemic have steadfastly refused to take responsibility for the obvious connection between their actions and the nation’s death toll, which remains as of this writing the highest of any nation in the world despite the United States also having the widest availability of vaccines.

The nation’s impenetrable partisan divide prevents most Republicans from acknowledging this simple but damning reality. But to the rest of the country, including Democrats and most of the unaffiliated plurality of voters in Colorado, the sixteen words that follow could be some of the most frightening you’ve ever heard:

“By opting out of this public health order, we will be securing the blessings of liberty,” [Pols emphasis] said Commissioner George Teal in the meeting.

What Douglas County’s GOP commissioners are exercising is not the “liberty” Americans grew up believing in.

It’s ignorance in the name of liberty. And history will judge them thusly.

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18 thoughts on “Sixteen Words To Live In Infamy”

  3. DougCo Commissioners are OK with kids catching COVID.

    Down in the southern US, pediatric ICU beds are full of kids suffering from it. But, hey, got to have freedom and liberty.

    2. And hey, as we all know thanks to Kris K. and Janis J., freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.

      Including one's life, apparently.

  4. Why do county commissioners get anything more than a chance to be citizens and advocate a position to the school board?  In the three Colorado counties I’ve lived in, the county and the public school board members were elected separately, were separate lines on the tax receipts, and I don’t recall them interacting on policy.

    Is Douglas County somehow different, and the county commissioners are the school board (or the boss of the school board)?

    1. No (. . .but don’t ask these County Commissioner maroons . . . they think they’re the bosses of every freedumb.)

      First the assclowns in Mesa, and now these shitdips . . . must be something in the County Commissioner’s water??? . . .

    2. The supervisors do not control the DC school district. 

      DCSD is now on their own – they can decide students getting infected and spreading infection is ok, or they can impose their own decision. 

      I am unaware of any place to place a wager on this kind of thing but I would also struggle with the ghoulishness of wining that bet.. 

  5. An obvious “blessing of liberty” = the unfettered contracting and spreading deadly viruses???

    “Give [George] Covid-19 variants, or give [him] death!”???

    Well, fuck, why not just give him both and be done with it? . . . The sooner Teal’s gone, the better off the world will be . . . 

  9. I wish the kids and staff all the best.  The antivax antimask adults, well, I wish karma on their hubris, ignorance, and arrogance.  If this is "freedom," I want no part of it

  10. The Gilpin County Commissioners took a different approach.  Below is their reply to inquires about their Public Health Order which mandates masks while on county property and requires unvaccinated employees to be regularly tested.

     

    Thank you for sharing your concerns. We have implemented PHO 21-03 with the best intentions to protect the public as best as we can using the most current information we have. We know that things are constantly changing and will take each new piece of information into consideration as we make decisions. We know that vaccination is our best defense against serious illness with COVID-19. We have chosen not to pursue mandatory vaccination as part of our mitigation strategy; however, we still feel responsible for ensuring we are not putting the public at risk and therefore, those who choose not to be vaccinated will instead be tested on a regular basis in order to minimize the risk of transmission in our facilities. It is up to each employee if they would like to share their vaccination record with Human Resources or be tested on a weekly basis. Please see the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s website for more information regarding the legality of this practice: https://www.eeoc.gov/wysk/what-you-should-know-about-covid-19-and-ada-rehabilitation-act-and-other-eeo-laws. It is our responsibility to protect those who live, work, and play in Gilpin County and we believe that this is our best, though not perfect, option to do so at this time.

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