Lockdown advocates now object to restrictions on open-water swimming

by philg

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has decided to protect residents against the dangers of open-water swimming. “Swimmers Frustrated By New Ban On ‘Open Water Swimming’ At Walden Pond” (from state-sponsored NPR-affiliate WBUR):

The state’s decision to ban open water swimming at Concord’s iconic Walden Pond is eliciting a quick and irate response from swimmers.

The Department of Conservation and Recreation announced Friday that swimming outside of designated areas at Walden would be prohibited “indefinitely.” In a statement, the agency said the decision was made “in order to simplify and standardize education and enforcement” across all state-regulated bodies of water and to “protect public safety.”

The legislation follows a series of drownings in Massachusetts, including a 19-year-old who drowned Thursday swimming off South Boston’s Castle Island.

An open letter to the state purporting to represent “the open water swimming community of greater Boston” had collected more than 400 names before it was converted to an online petition, where it gathered thousands more. The letter claims the Walden ban “infringes on our reasonable right to access the natural assets of our state,” and proposes instead that open water swimmers should be allowed as long as swimmers use safety devices known as swim buoys.

11,058 of the Massachusetts righteous have signed a petition at change.org seeking relief from this latest governor’s order.

What’s interesting about this? The folks whom I know who signed the petition were enthusiastic lockdown advocates. They cheered when Governor Baker closed the schools “to keep kids safe” from a disease that had never killed a child in Maskachusetts (0 deaths among under-20s in MA through August 11, after which the state withheld deaths-by-age data from the public). Now, however, the Lockdown Karens object to Governor Baker using #Science and his newly unlimited powers to deal with a very real danger (Dr. Jill Biden’s colleagues at the CDC say that roughly 4,000 Americans drown annually.)

An October 2008 aerial photo of Walden Pond. The sandy beach at left is where Governor Baker orders you to swim. The area near the railroad tracks on the right (which went quite close to Thoreau’s cabin back in the old days) is where the open water swimmers used to risk death.

On a separate note, and it may be too soon to wonder this, but why are Americans so interested in the Champlain Towers South collapse, in which roughly 140 lives were lost? We are informed that 600,000 Americans were cut down in their prime by COVID-19. These folks, who had their best years ahead of them, went from the tennis court and soccer pitch to a ventilator in the ICU to the morgue. On June 24, 2021, when the Florida condo collapsed, we are informed that 355 young healthy Americans fell to COVID-19. If COVID-19 kills unpredictably and indiscriminately, like a building collapse does, why would we have time and energy to mourn building collapse victims who are so greatly outnumbered, even on the day of the collapse, by COVID-19 victims?

A January 2021 photo of Normandy Isles and North Beach with Surfside just beyond. The collapsed building, from this perspective, is just behind the first tower to the north of the park (green area along the beach).

(For the record, I personally am sad about the victims of the Champlain Towers South collapse partly because I do not believe that COVID-19 has killed hundreds of thousands of healthy Americans who had a lot of great years to look forward to, whereas I do think that the collapse killed healthy people who could have lived enjoyable active lives for years or decades to come.)

18 thoughts on “Lockdown advocates now object to restrictions on open-water swimming”

  1. Philip, you posted how much Massachusetts supports BLM. I assume they Massachusetts supports police de-funding that this is one of BLM tenets. Where does Massachusetts will find enough state troopers and park police to enforce new popular “no swim” mandate? Perhaps it will buy drones and use facial recognition to send fines to un-personed swimmers? But if swimmers follow progressive mask self-mandate facial recognition is harder to perform.

    • This one I’ve never understood. The Venn Diagram between “Defund the Police” and “There ought to be a law, for the benefit of the community” is absolutely mind-boggling. (And actual libertarians are nowhere to be found)

  2. Phil…. I assume the questions are all rhetorical because we all know the answer: the humaniform hamsters lack numeracy and reasoning ability and by necessity rely on feelz to guide their reactions to the outside world.

    How humaniform hamsters manage to control the humans is an interesting question, I think it has something to do with their sheer numbers due to the decidedly dysgenic breeding policies which were promulgated by some well-meaning fools and which are now impossible to repeal without massive culling of the rodentia or explicit recognition that universal suffrage was a stupid idea to start with. Later option being impractical due to feelz, we’ve having fun with COVID now.

    Unfortunately the evil mastermind elite is no more competent than the hamsters they are out to exterminate, probably because of the hereditary organization of said elite resulting in regression to the mean hamsternality (not sure if this is a real word, but let’s play science here), so the promised apocalyptic plague turned out to be a cheap Chinese imitation killing mostly already half-dead. If I were the Evil Overlord ™ I would already fed my pet virologists to the sharks. Which is kinda what is happening now only with hyenas of the pen instead of the sharks.

  3. I think they should eliminate swimming in public waterways entirely. Water is well-known by the CDC and public health authorities to be unbreathable. We are literally allowing people to jump into something guaranteed to asphyxiate them if they aspirate it. It’s dihydrogen monoxide! Everyone should read just a few of its other dangers, here at https://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

    Most importantly, there is a 100% correlation between the widespread availability of DHMO and gun violence. In fact, in every single instance of gun violence ever recorded, the shooter was found to have large quantities of DHMO in their bodies!

  4. I think Americans are interested in the Champlain Towers collapse for evolutionary reasons.
    High rise buildings didn’t exist in the United States until the 1880s. The Romans actually had some but they collapsed on a regular basis and Augustus unsuccessfully tried to limit them to 20-25 meters. But as a “normal habitat” for modern humans, high-rise buildings are comparatively new architectural innovations.

    Humans are barely smarter than monkeys. Monkeys are tree-dwellers. Most people get vertigo trying the clean their 1st-floor house gutters standing on a ladder (and many fall off!) We’re just not used to being in high places, and when one that was built in the 1980s collapses and hundreds of people are trapped and crushed to death, we are all reminded of our primordial fear of heights. It’s similar with airplane crashes: exceptionally rare events, but terrifying when they happen. Also there is always something about the inexorable forces of nature so easily destroying anything we can construct that terrifies us to the core.

  5. All I wanna know is: “Can the United States withstand the self-destruction we need to unleash on ourselves?”

  6. It is really to protect the colored community without embarrassing them.

    We all know that blacks are so muscular, that they sink straight to the bottom.

    • Wikipedia advises that African Americans comprise 2.24% of the population of Concord, MA.

  7. As of today the legislation was overturned – but JUST for Waldon Pond. Unless I’m incorrect, this shows that 15,000 rich white people can have their pond back for swimming but the rest of the Massachusetts Proletariat has to swim between the little lines from now on.

    https://patch.com/massachusetts/medford/s/hnvvv/open-water-swimming-to-resume-at-concords-walden-pond-friday

    Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks like the people who matter win again and everyone else gets screwed, like they should be.

    • Charlie has been emboldened by his success with all his Governor’s Orders so far during COVID and he’s ready to start really flexing his muscles now. He’s always been a “Clark Kent” governor to Cuomo’s “Superman” but I can tell you this: he’s got powers we haven’t even SEEN yet.

    • @philg: How many Tesla owners are there in Massachusetts? Tesla knows, and if they get together and complain, I’ll bet Baker will carve out a special exemption for them, too. They’re important people – especially if they’re driving a new Model S Plaid (as long as it is not number 1 of 125). They are VERY SAFE – even the EMT people say so.

      https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-s-plaid-fire-details-update/

  8. Walden Pond is roughly 200m×700m, with the shoreline along the entire perimeter consisting of sandy beach accessible by foot. There’s no point much more than 100m out. I don’t think any of Walden Pond can be considered open water.

    • Historically, Democracy is for drunks, not for dopeys. Change of public and their elected servants habits calls for a change

  10. Thank Goodness the triathletes and well-to-do recreational swimmers near Walden Pond have been granted an exemption so they can swim outside the little marked lines again – it’s just in time! Richard Branson is blasting himself into SPACE on Sunday! That’s the kind of White Privilege I’m Talkin’ About!

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