Last Updated on March 6, 2021
Children were encouraged by their parents to burn face masks on the steps of the Idaho Capitol building earlier today in support of a lawmaker who introduced legislation that would permanently ban mask mandates within the state.
Children squealed with excitement as they reached for wads of face masks to throw into a burn barrel positioned on the steps of the Capitol building in Idaho. Parents, admonishing them to “be careful” and “watch the fire,” smiled on as their children symbolically rejected mask mandates.
As they threw the masks into the flames, children could be heard cheering and saying “Destroy them! Destroy them, they’re dead!” Another child added, “Throw them in the fire!”
Parents encouraging kids to burn masks on Idaho Capitol steps pic.twitter.com/VOYfOYqwwt
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) March 6, 2021
Parents and adults were standing nearby, supervising the burning and making sure the flame did not get out of hand. Additionally, the crowd appears to have made sure the smoke was blowing in the opposite direction of the crowd, with the children standing with their backs to the wind.
This comes after Idaho State Representative Karey Hanks proposed legislation that would ban mask mandates within the state of Idaho. While the state’s governor has not enacted a mandate, as is common throughout the country, local city and county governments have enacted their own.
“We live in a republic and we the people should have a voice and a choice about our own health,” Representative Hanks said while introducing the bill, which, as National File reported, “would nullify existing mask mandates in public schools as well as entire municipalities, putting the decision to wear a mask or not back in the hands of the people and allowing business owners to decide for themselves if a private mask mandate is the right choice for their operation.”
Hanks urged Iowa legislators to carefully examine “the physical and emotional and even mental injuries to our bodies, and possibly even our souls, as healthy individuals are required to wear these masks.”
This also comes as a wave of conservative states have ended their economically devastating COVID-19 lockdowns and mask mandates, much to the chagrin of the Biden administration, who said this pro-freedom movement is guilty of “neanderthal thinking.”
