The Times reported on April 7th that a growing number of Idahoans are rebelling against a statewide stay-at-home order because they view it as an assault on their constitutional right to peaceably assemble. One of the leaders of the rebellion, Ammon Bundy—who gained national notoriety in 2016, when he led an armed takeover of a wildlife refuge in Oregon—stated that he hoped to contract the coronavirus now, while he was otherwise healthy, instead of later, when he might not be. “I want the virus now,” he said.
I also want the flu, the worst strain of it, and I want it as soon as possible. Ideally, it will come wrapped around a case of pneumonia—preferably walking pneumonia, so I can exercise my constitutional right to stretch my legs, but lying-down pneumonia would also do just fine, as I have a right to lie down whenever and wherever I goddam please. Last week, I lay down in the produce aisle at the Safeway in Coeur d’Alene. The floor was kind of hard, but it still felt good to take a load off. And it gave me some time to deliberate about pink grapefruit versus yellow grapefruit; that’s always been a tough one for me. I mean, they both have their advantages—the pink is sweeter, the yellow more invigorating. It’s a matter of taste, of freedom to choose. People looked at me funny as they wheeled their shopping carts along. I don’t blame them—it’s their right to look at me however they want. Just don’t bang into me with your cart, please—I’m a fellow-citizen—and cover your mouth when you cough, will you, Ma’am? That’s just common courtesy.
I’ve lost a lot of friends up here in Idaho, from doing unsafe things together, like playing with live electrical wires in the rain. We always figured we should do those things while we were young instead of waiting until we were old and more easily shocked. Good, red-blooded Americans, every last one of them. I guess in their veins it was blue. Plus, they had white blood cells. All the important colors.
Sometimes, I daydream about getting diagnosed with a really rare disease, maybe a bone disease that no one’s ever heard of. I think that’d be a pretty special development, and I don’t want the government telling me how to go about my business or what I should be doing with my time. I’m a free man, made so by the same God who invented rare bone diseases. See what I mean?
Just look at the view from up here—the rugged mountains, the manly rocks. Wouldn’t this be a beautiful cliff to dive off of, into that shallow river down there, under this clear blue American sky? I don’t think anyone who wants to do that should have to do it alone, virus or no virus. That’s why patriots of all stripes, but especially ones like me, who have thick, strong skulls, are planning to assemble tomorrow, peaceably, here, on this very cliff, in our diving Speedos and caps, and we’re not gonna be wearing masks, either—though I do have a stockpile of N95s at my compound, just in case the next pandemic is the real deal. If Andrew Cuomo wants to come out here and take those masks away from me, he’d better be ready for a good, old-fashioned shoot-out, so help me God. There’s a tyranny upon this land—it’s sweeping across the U.S. of A., from coast to coast. I tell you, it’s like a disease. We’ve got to stop it before it’s too late. This is life and death we’re talking about here.
