Make it stop:
https://twitter.com/katiehugscats/status/1272957475247931392?s=21
Some thoughts on this:
1.) That clip isn’t funny. It’s horrifying that some Americans actually think this way.
2.) Would you say that a person who lives in a country where they’re not allowed to vote is more or less free than a person who is required to wear a mask in a grocery store? How about a person whose elected officials can’t pass important bills because one guy from an insignificant state is sitting on them and won’t get off of them unless or until he is voted from office or loses his slim majority? Is making all of the other majority votes in the country irrelevant conferring more or less freedom than being required to wear a mask?
3.) I get it that a lot of businesses deemed “non-essential” we’re forced to close for what looks like an indefinite period of time and that seemed like an unreasonable violation of their rights. If I had been governor and had more time to make decisions some of those businesses would have stayed open. There just wasn’t time. But are we more free than New Zealand that got back to work after 4 weeks by using a strict lockdown procedure? We would have to say yes, we are more free than NZ, whose politicians didn’t have a choice. On the other hand, they’ve pretty much kicked their Covid habit with spotty traceable outbreaks while we will be repeating cycles of large outbreaks, followed by lockdown until this plague is over. Sooooo, stitch in time and all that.
BTW, the gig and freelance workers have it worse because they don’t always get state employment benefits. So, you know, it depends on what you do. Freedom is more important to a freelancer I’m betting.
If it were me, I wouldn’t require the Trump Republicans, as they proudly call themselves (for now) to wear masks. As long as I’M wearing a mask and practicing social distancing, disinfecting everything someone else might have touched and ritually cleaning my bank card after each use in the reader, then my risk is substantially reduced. Sure, it would be better if the lady above would quit whining and wear a mask so I don’t have to further reduce my exposure to her but if she really doesn’t want to wear one, don’t wear one, lady.
Even better would be if grocery stores and other stores would set aside a couple hours a day for the non-mask wearers so they can exercise their freedom and liberty and share germs amongst themselves without getting the rest of us involved. That would suck for cashiers but maybe businesses could amp up the shields and air circulation and other PPE for them.
They could always use instacart but if that interferes with their constitutional freedoms then let them have the hour after the seniors and maybe the hour after rush hour in the evening. It would be nice if businesses’ sprinkler system could be retrofitted to disperse a fine mist of disinfectants or if UV lights could be used to flood the store after they leave. Of course, this might cost more money to the store but that’s ok if it’s factored into the additional fee tacked onto the maskless’ total bill. Sure, let them have a few hours all to themselves so they’re not trampled upon by the dirty feet of the liberal nanny state.
Speaking of dirty feet, did you know that there’s no public health ordinance in any state that requires a patron to wear shoes in a store? Or a shirt for that matter. Those rules are at the discretion of the proprietors and really do seem to be violating constitutional rights since they were originally created to keep hippies out. Discrimination much?
So, I’m totally fine with some irate Americans to go maskless if they want. It’s like having sex with strangers without a condom but hey if that’s your kink, knock yourself out. I’m wearing my mask and keeping my distance.
But that’s not really the problem is it? Because if you give in on the masks, they’ll just be back at the council meeting the next week with more visual aids and a new rendition of God Bless the USA. (I dare one of them to sing This Land Is Your Land)
It’s like Lincoln said in his Cooper Union speech about the people in slave states issuing demands. You can give in to them and accommodate them and bend over backwards to not hurt their fee fees or take away their freeance and liberdom. But they’ll be right back asking for something even more outrageous the next day. There is no pleasing them and that is the point. The point is to create as wide a chasm between the two sides of the debate as possible.
“But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of your Constitutional rights.
That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right, plainly written down in the Constitution. But we are proposing no such thing.
When you make these declarations, you have a specific and well-understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional right of yours, to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. But no such right is specifically written in the Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by implication.
Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.”
Now, who benefits from that?
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
The Constitution does not give any American the right to do what he or she wants. There is always a balance between the rights of an individual,and the rights of another individual; and then the rights of the state itself, as supposedly representative of the will of the majority of the people.
Cigarette smoking used to be allowed all restaurants and bars in Los Angeles. Then some restaurants had smoking and nonsmoking sections, but that did not protect nonsmokers much. Then various ordinances were passed which prohibited smoking indoors in any restaurant or bar, and at public events. Some smokers were incommoded, but everyone else got to be protected from noxious smoke. Similarly, I cannot drive 90 mph down a city street, even if I would like to. That is because the state police power allows them to write and enforce safety rules. And if the state wants to require people to wear masks, for the protection of all, they can do that, just like they require workers to use safety equipment.
The concept of “liberty” for the far Right in this country is really exposed as, they want to do anything they want, but they get to tell everyone else what to do. I remember a boy in elementary school who would not say the Pledge of Allegiance, because his family were Jehovah’s Witnesses. No one forced him to, but it was much talked about. Who compelled each teacher to start each day with the Pledge of Allegiance? The far Right, the same people who wanted everyone to sign loyalty oaths at work. Try to go to a baseball game and not stand for the National Anthem, or the fairly recently added God Bless America singing in the seventh inning stretch, and someone is liable to take a punch at you. These people want to compel all sorts of behavior, but no the wearing a mask during a pandemic. The difference? The former they like, the latter they do not like. Someone in media might want to point that out, but they are too afraid of angering them and getting death threats and maybe even getting shot by the professed lovers of liberty.