With the protests to end the lockdowns, the main pictures I've seen in my social media bubble have been ones with signs like " I need a haircut" or " Let my People Golf". So it's not surprising that people would be writing responses like annacaffeina's:

People aren't out protesting to be waitresses and hairdressers again. People are out demanding that their waitresses and hairdressers go back to work. The idea is to force the service industry to serve them despite the risk to the servers.

This seemed unlikely to me: the financial strain of not being able to work is something I've seen my conservative friends posting about a lot. Since the signs we see are generally coming through multiple layers of filters, primarily for being interesting and controversial, I wanted to try and get a more representative sample of what people actually had on their signs.

I ran an image search for [reopen protests] and looked for pictures that had a lot of signs. I picked ones that had as many legible signs as possible, and where it didn't look like the photographer was trying to feature a specific sign. I ended up with the text of 71 signs.

Most of the signs were generic pro-reopening ones ("Reopen NC", "Stop the Shutdown"). The most common theme was the constitution ("Gov't can't Suspend the Constitution", "1st Amendment - The right to peacably assemble", "We The People") with nine signs, followed by references to tyranny ("Tyranny Is When You Restrict The Movement Of Healthy People", "Tyranny Calls Itself Safety") and freedom ("Free People Make Free Choices", "We Demand Freedom") with six each.

On the motivating question, I counted four signs about wanting to work ("Let Us Work / Let Us Live", "Re-Open NC /Let Us Get Back To Work", "We Want to Work", and "If It Pleases The Crown May We Go To Work"), three about wanting to let others work for their own benefit ("We can do Both / Save Lives / Save Jobs", "Poverty Kills", "Let'Em Work / Let'Em Live"), and none about wanting others to go back to work for one's own benefit.

Here's the full list:

Wyoming Protest (18):

• Reopen Wyoming Now!!
• Re-open Wyoming
• We can do Both
  Save Lives
  Save Jobs
• Stop the Shutdown
• God Gives Gov't Takes
• Life of Lock-up
• Gov't can't Suspend the Constitution
• Stop following other States
  Wyoming is full of Leaders
  Let's Lead
• Faith Over Fear
• Keep Wyoming Economy Open
• Open
• Poverty Kills
• Spread Facts not fear
• My Constitutional Rights are Essential
• 1st Amendment - The right to peacably assemble
• Your Solution is worse than the problem
• Free People Make Free Choices
• All Businesses are Essential

North Carolina Protest (14):

• #ReopenNC
  #WeThePeople
  America Strong
• Let Us Work
  Let Us Live
• Reopen Our Lives
• Reopen NC
• Freedom Over Fear
• Re-Open NC
  Let Us Get Back To Work
• Absolute Power Corrupts!
• Reopen NC
• Losing Your Rights
  Preventable Disease
• Facts Not Fear
  Reopen NC
• More Harm Then Good
• Every Business Is Essential
• We The People
• Free People Make Their Own Risk Assessments #ReopenNC

More North Carolina (21):

• You Woke a Sleeping Giant
• Tyranny Calls Itself Safety
• Shutdown Is Tyranny
• Shutdown Is Based On Lies!!
• Reopen Now
• No Mandatory Vaccines
• ReOpen with GA, TN, SC
• Fear God Not Covid
• Do Not Consent to Tyranny
• Re-Open NC
• Reopen Our State Before Its Too Late
• Obedience To A Lying Government Is Not Virtue
• You Are In Violation Of My Constitutional Rights
• Make America Constitutional Again
• We the People Want To #ReopenNC
• Just Say No Socialism
  By We The People
• No Fauci
  No Gates
  No Vaccine
• Let'Em Work
  Let'Em Live
• My Rights Are Essential #ReopenNC
• Stop Gov'T Overreach
• Freedom Is Essential
  Politicians Are Not

Florida Protest (11):

• Re-Open Florida
• Never accept the Government Infringing Upon Your Freedom As Necessary or Justified
• Plandemic
• Small Business is Essential #ReopenFL
• When Tyranny Becomes Law Rebellion Becomes Duty #ReopenUSA
• Stay Home
  Promote Unemployment
• Tyranny Is When You Restrict The Movement Of Healthy People
• There Is No Virus Clause In The Constitition Reopen Florida
• Don't Tread On Me
• Trump Pence
• Fauci Lied About Death Toll & Oppressed America For Pharma-Tyranny Nazism

Minnesota Protest (7):

• Open
• Stay Home MN [in a red circle with a line through it]
• Free The Humans
• We Want to Work
• If It Pleases The Crown May We Go To Work
• We Demand Freedom
• Planned Parenthood Is Not Essential
  Open Minnesota
  Facts + Faith Over Fear

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