No vaccine passports (they’re banned), no tests, no masks, no distancing – 22,000 people packed together for an outdoor live music event in Florida. Freedom-loving Governor Ron DeSantis showed up and was treated to a hero’s welcome. The Capitolist has the story – though there was notably little coverage of this milestone in pandemic recovery elsewhere.
Video from this weekend’s Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam shows the governor emerging out of the smoke on the concert venue’s runway as “Crazy Train” blares and roughly 22,000 country music fans erupt into thunderous applause. He throws his arms in the air, encouraging the crowd even more, clearly enjoying the experience.
“Amazing,” a man backstage is heard on a video saying as DeSantis takes the stage, “that guy’s a rock star.”
DeSantis made a surprise appearance to the concert last night to welcome country music fans to Panama City Beach and thank them for attending what is believed to be the first major live music festival event since Covid.
The Panama City Beach 2021 Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam three-day event did not require masks and featured headliners Lynyrd Skynyrd, Brad Paisley and Luke Bryan. It was originally slated to occur last Labor Day weekend but was postponed because of the pandemic.
The festival is just the latest example of Florida’s determination to get life back to normal.
During DeSantis’ brief remarks he encouraged other states and countries to follow Florida’s lead and open back up and “let people live their lives.” The crowd roared when he said the reason Florida was hosting the event was because “Florida chose Freedom over Faucism.”
While the U.K. dithers about whether to take a step closer to normal later this month, Florida ended all restrictions eight months ago in September 2020 and went through the winter without lockdowns or mask mandates. But no public health disaster unfolded, and the state did better than strict lockdown states like California.
Since the U.K. Government is so keen to follow the science and restore our freedoms as quickly as possible, presumably they are right at this moment sending teams to Florida and other re-opened states like Texas to find out what real-world data rather than models show about what happens when places reopen without vaccine certificates, tests, masks and so on and get back to normal.
Yes, I’m sure there’s going to be a Public Health England report on the lessons we can learn from the open U.S. states any day now. And next time Imperial College or Warwick produce a model predicting impending disaster, I can already hear Chris Whitty asking them: “You have made sure it fits with what happened in Florida, Texas and Sweden, haven’t you? I’d hate to think we were using modelling that wasn’t road-tested on real-world outcomes when there’s now so much data on what happens in different scenarios.” Because that’s how science works, right? Models are tested and improved through continually comparing to real-world outcomes. I’m sure the Government wouldn’t want to keep making the same mistakes over and over again without learning from those who do things differently. That would be awful. No Government in its right mind would do that.
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Remember all those NHS numpties who twattered about how horrified they were by the antilockdown demonstrators supposedly risking undoing all their noble hard work. All the vile insults they slung at dissenters?
Did we ever get an apology from any of them?
Doubt it. Presumably they’ve transitioned smoothly to scapegoating vaccine dissenters, fomenting hatred of them, and violence and discrimination against them.
Incredible isn’t it, all those unmasked, unsocially distanced mass protests in the uk, and not a single one linked to a “surge in cases”. Anyone would think there wasn’t a pandemic going on.
That’s the thing – there isn’t.
Guess I should have put (sarc) after my comment
I can’t square the fact that the very people who are so obstinate in their misguided belief on what is right work in the provision of healthcare. Unbelievable.
All the “scientists” who do NOT practice the “scientific method.” All the “scientists” who are unwilling to state that the predicted results from their hypothesis did NOT happen.
Not at all unbelievable; they’ve all bought in to the ‘NHS is the envy of the world’ fantasy.
I remember after the Super Bowl in February the MSM were all over the NFL after large crowds celebrated with headlines about how this or that will shame the NFL, untold thousands will die because of this, etc.- well, nothing happened, so now we wait for all the apologies and corrections…
DeSantis – what a hero! (And I don’t use that term lightly)
He is a hero. It takes a brave person to pioneer the pre-pandemic way of thinking, but that is what needs to be done. Especially heroic given the barrage of abuse he must know is coming from the tantruming pro-lockdowners of the world, who will no doubt twist figures to show how these events are “super-spreaders”!
State the truth and be proven right when the truth becomes better known. It’s an easy political philosophy. I’m surprised more politicians don’t follow it. Anyway, this one easy stand will probably ensure that DeSantis is the next president of the USA. This said, the entire establishment is now gunning for him. They don’t like being proven wrong.
I’ve always said it doesn’t take much to stand out from the “crowd,” when everyone in the crowd is so obviously wrong. By simply refusing to believe a false narrative, this man is now considered a hero. Which is good. Now if more politicians will glean this important lesson.
The government just need to stop taking advice from SAGE. End of. By definition (the clue’s in the last letter of the acronym) their purpose is to advise in times of emergency / national crisis so as long as SAGE advice remains the predominant guidance for running the country, they will never green-light fully opening up again, for fear of being scapegoated for the inevitable winter resurgence of Covid.
Well done Florida! I will continue to buy your orange juice!
DeSantis deserves the presidency next election. Sad thing is, too many Republicans cant get over Trump, even though he’s not very electable.
75 million people voted for Trump. No other presidential candidate has ever got anywhere near that — apart from Biden.
That figure is kind of meaningless as America is still growing.
“That figure is kind of meaningless as America is still growing.“
Funny that, because the US pop was growing (rather faster) back in 2008-12 as well, but Obama lost 4m votes whereas Trump gained 12m.
And Obama had the old style US media that was part biased for him and part against, and a less powerful and less arrogantly interventionist big tech that was unwilling to be too open in its politics.
“No other presidential candidate has ever got anywhere near that — apart from Biden.”
Something to do with the fact that no other candidate has ever had the kind of massive media and big tech social media manipulation to protect his own campaign and smear and demonise his opponent….
No other way such an obviously senile and corrupt man could get elected. A less systematically biased media and social media would have torn his campaign to shreds.
-apart from Biden, helped to that by post office and election workers and supervisors, and by a certain vote count machine company and its executives.
Hallelujah Freedom
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dXkv-mNTAq4
Tears of joy from me, how uplifting. Remembering the human spirit and how we belong together.
The NHL play offs are well attended in the US – a recent match was attended by 19,000 people. The number of people wearing masks was pretty small, and ‘social distancing’ (I call it anti-social distancing) is impossible. The situation in Canada is quite different, where the play offs are still being carried out in virtually empty arenas.
Trudeau is the problem there
Any Americans reading this. You can either win convingly with DeSantis or repeat 2020 witb Trump, your choice.
DeSantis or Kristi Noem.
President Captain Underpants is a huge loser.
DeSantis Noem is the ideal ticket for me.
Are you comparing Trump to Captain Underpants? I’m intrigued to know why.
No, I am saying Trump actually is Captain Underpants, right down to the ridiculous toupee.
American reading. I’ve donated to DeSantis’ gubernatorial campaign, and I don’t even live in Florida. This Democrat-for-50-years will leap at the chance to vote DeSantis for President in 2024.
Awesome.
What – you think the demo-rats wouldn’t steal votes from DeSantis?
Freedom over Faucism (Drostenism, Whittyism etc.)- love it!
Imagine Doris taking the stage, but then, the likely still muzzled British sheep will probably applaud him or rattle with their jewelry…
We can only hope that he is much better protected than equally beloved and dangerous to the deep state and to our current real rulers JFK, RFK and Magufuli.
rowing across the pond as we speak in a a small boat
American here (South Carolina). We just cancelled a two-week hike in Switzerland (with an air transfer at Heathrow). Instead, we’re doing three weeks in Georgia, Florida, and Texas, hiking, paddling, fine-dining, and gun-shooting. We’re trying to accept this new reality where the free world is a hell of a lot smaller than we thought. Hang tough, UK cousins!
If you read the story, you’ll see the last quote predicts X number of concert-goers will die because DeSantis allowed an outdoor concert. Nobody will die. In fact, albeit little reported, Americans have been attending outdoor events with no resulting “super spreader” even since the end of last August. These events were high school football games. True, capacity at some of these local games was limited, but I can report that many of these stadiums were at least 50 percent full. And the fans at these games were not “socially distancing” – before the games, during the games or after the games. Student sections were jam-packed at many of them. For some reason, the press never ran stories on the outbreaks that NEVER occurred in these communities. This would be “evidence” that did NOT support the narrative.
This man is a f**king hero in my opinion. When I saw this yesterday, it really gave me hope for the first time in ages.
Flights booked 9 months ago, due there on 6 October. NOTHING will stop this, even if it means going via Mexico or Bulgaria. Beat the bastards!!!
Clever Ron, ‘Faucism’ not ‘fascism’ , but we all know what you mean!
Can we claim asylum in Florida?