Monday, Jan. 31, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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I fondly remember what my dad used to say when I was acting like a jerk: “Knock it off, you’re acting like a jerk.”
It was the kind of scolding I now appreciate — direct, succinct and accurate.
It’s also the kind of scolding that should be delivered to certain people who recently stirred up trouble in the fine Illinois city of St. Charles, and to Americans causing similar trouble in locales across this great nation.
Let’s start in St. Charles. On Wednesday, I called the St. Charles Public Library and heard this recorded message: “Due to the heightened threat to health and safety, the library is currently closed.”
A reasonable person might ask, “Why is there a threat to health and safety at a public library?” The answer, not surprisingly, involves a number of unreasonable people acting like jerks.
On Jan. 18, a group of 30 to 40 unmasked people took a bold stance against rule-following and trotted into the library’s youth service department to protest the library board’s mandatory mask policy, which is in line with the statewide mask mandate. This unsafe and truly pathetic act is apparently what passes for “patriotic” among those who think posting videos of themselves doing childish, unfunny things on social media is a path to right-wing-goober celebrity status.
Unfortunately, the Great Library Invasion of 2022 was not enough for those who’ve decided the best use of their limited time on this planet is to rage against a reasonable public health mandate in the midst of a deadly and ongoing pandemic.
According to a statement from the St. Charles Public Library: “Since Jan. 18, the library has received hundreds of communications and social media commentary. Many of these communications and posts threatened a form of physical retaliation against the library including statements that unmasked large groups would enter the library. We have been diligently working with the St. Charles Police Department to put safety and security measures in place prior to reopening the library.”
The statement then listed a sampling of the missives received, including: “They don’t even know what a threat to safety is yet”; “These people need to be shown what an actual ambush looks like”; “Now the battle begins! Go get them”;and “Watch out — we’re coming!”
Let’s pause a moment and reflect on what’s happening. The people who work at a public library — from support staff to friendly librarians, the folks who do story time for kids and help you find interesting books to read — are being harassed and threatened for doing exactly what they’re required to do by state mandate. And that thing they’re required to do by state mandate is make sure everyone takes the entirely non-onerous step of wearing a mask to protect themselves and others from a wildly contagious virus.
That’s it. That’s what has earned them threats and made them fear for their health and safety.
On behalf of a large majority of Americans who, quite frankly, have had it with this sort of performative nonsense, I’ll direct the following at those who have decided librarian-menacing is a good behavior to model:
First off, as my dad would say, knock it off, you’re acting like a jerk.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, what exactly led to the moment in life when your brain broke so completely that you thought harassing people at a public library was a super idea? Is there anything remaining in the vast emptiness of your noggin, perhaps a fizzling synapse or two, that might allow you to recognize how inexplicably stupid “declaring war on libraries” looks? Do you feel the slightest bit bad, or maybe even embarrassed, that the thing in life you will now be most remembered for is making some really nice people who patiently explain the Dewey Decimal System to children fear for their lives?
You daring anti-mask crusaders are drips of the highest order. You are all literally going out of your way to make other people’s lives miserable in service to your own half-baked views, and many of you are doing it while crowing about what good Christians you are.
You want to know the answer to those “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelets you probably wore back in the 1990s? It’s simple: He wouldn’t threaten librarians!
My opprobrium can be directed in equal measure at the full-of-themselves-for-no-apparent-reason crowds of anti-mask dipsticks across the country who keep taking over popular stores and eateries while refusing to mask up. You all are making workers’ lives a nightmare, making other customers uncomfortable and making yourselves look like pennies waiting for change.
I don’t like wearing shoes, but you don’t see me and a bunch of other hairy-toed louts traipsing around the grocery store in bare feet to protest shoe mandates.
For the St. Charles library pirates, or whatever you all think you are, let me ask this: How do you see future generations of your family looking back on this ignominious behavior? Do you envision, years from now, your great-grandkids browsing photos from 2022 and saying, “Oh, look, that’s when great-grandpa went to the St. Charles Public Library and scared the tuna salad out of Helen, a 79-year-old library volunteer, because he didn’t want to abide by a public health regulation. What a great man he was!”
Knock it off so the non-bonkers people of St. Charles can have their darn library back. You’re acting like absolute jerks.
Rex Huppke is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
