News flash: We are in the midst of a deadly, once-in-a-century pandemic. More than 600,000 Americans have died a horrible death, gasping for breath in a crowded hospital room with no family member there to comfort them, no family member to hold their hand as they die.
Yet, there are millions of people who refuse to be vaccinated and who vigorously protest any effort to mandate masks or vaccinations. They try to intimidate those who disagree with them, and even when they are a minority, they often succeed by their bullying tactics. Even when they are a majority, should their right to be free of masks and vaccinations take precedence over the rights of other parents who want their children to be safe from a deadly virus? I think not.
The Los Angeles Times reported stories that could easily be replicated in many other school districts:
The American Academy of Pediatrics recently urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize COVID-19 vaccines for children under 12 as the Delta variant “created a new and pressing risk to children and adolescents across this country.”
But differences of opinion have led to aggressive confrontations at some school board meetings.
In Asheville, N.C., a few dozen parents opposing Buncombe County Board of Education’s mask mandate forced the board on Aug. 5 to call a recess, then “overthrew” the board and declared themselves the new leaders of the county’s public education system.
In Franklin, Tenn., a crowd of angry parents shouted, “We will not comply!” at a board meeting Tuesday and threatened public health officials who supported mask mandates.
Britt Maxwell, 43, a parent and internist who treats COVID-19 patients in Nashville, was left shaken after attending the board of education meeting in Franklin and finding that those who supported wearing masks were outnumbered about 10 to 1 by a raucous crowd of anti-maskers.
Maxwell said a mask mandate in Williamson County elementary schools was a no-brainer with Delta surging. His two children, ages 7 and 11, are not vaccinated. “The facts are clear,” Maxwell said in an interview. “This isn’t hypothetical. Children are getting sick, now more than ever, and hospitals all across the South … are being stretched to the limit.”
He and other healthcare workers were booed by a crowd that chanted, “No more masks,” and carried signs reading, “Your fear does not take away my freedom” and “Let kids be kids. No mask mandates.”
As Maxwell and his wife left the meeting, a woman called him a traitor.
“My colleagues came with facts and statistics; nobody wanted to hear that,” he said. “They treated us like the enemy and that couldn’t be further from the truth. We were there for the same reason as them — we want to protect the children, including their children.”
These displays are manifestations of the powerlessness felt by the participants. The economy is crushing their dreams and government doesn’t listen to them. Plus rogue news media are fouling their minds with wild nonsense. Is it any wonder they are lashing out, trying to grasp some power over their lives?
It would be nice to believe there is a simple solution to this problem but there is not. It took decades to develop and will take a long time to resolve.
In the “good old days” these things were often resolved with pitchforks and torches in the middle of the night, but that option is fading from possibility and I don’t think anyone wants that back.
The real villains are the rich, but their PR people have created an image in the minds of the rest of us as becoming rich is a laudable goal for all of us. The rich have waged a class war, won it, and this is their brave new world.
“No amount of Marxian determinism can explain what we are seeing” (Lofgren 2019) . The economics do not line up with the reactionary ideology. Reactionary right wingers are not the ones suffering in the economy. From long Island to Ohio to Louisiana liberals fantasize about the roots of fascism being economic. While every data point says that is not the case.
Obama opened a wound in this country. As LBJ said: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” Tough to do that when an educated Black man was President.
Interesting, Joel. Can you give me more to read on this viewpoint? E.g., the full reference for Lofgren 2019, and “every data point says it’s not true.”
How does the LBJ quote [“the lowest white man”] fit in? It seems contradictory.
bethree5
Biden wins those making under 50k by 15 points . He won those making 50- 99k by 13 points . He lost those making over 100k by 11points . I assume those were family incomes. . There is a lot of nuance in those numbers from Statistica.
The numbers require a deep dive but the same dynamic played out in 16 and in depth interviews conducted after that election, found that Trump voters were on the whole better off economically and the unifying factor was racial views.
But here is the original never Trump Republican before Trump ever ran.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/08/09/buckeyes-lament-what-has-happened-ohio-and-midwest.
bethree5
The LBJ quote fits in perfectly. It not only explains those sitting on the Caboose of the train as Dylan said, but those near the top of the Blue and White Collar working class . I don’t know what AFL CIO polling found this time around. But back in 16 they found the Union Building trades voted 70% for Trump . That is the pinnacle of the Blue collar working class, with incomes well into the six figures in many jurisdictions.
Joel: Insightful article from Lofgren, thanks for that link. Although he calls the rust belt ‘derivative Southerners,’ I believe IN was the re-birthplace of the KKK. My dad [born in 1924] escaped from rural IN culture at age 14, first to steel mills in Gary, then to Navy, then to the Northeast. His stories from his youth sounded exactly like how I’d already pictured the South. In “The Great Trials of Clarence Darrow,” the Leopold & Loeb case sounded little different from the Scopes trial in terms of local attitudes. I mean there were differences of course. For the nuanced differences, Isabel Wilkerson’s “The Warmth of Other Suns” does a good job.
Lofgren captures it right here: “It is not that the tale [economic anxiety in the Great Heartland being responsible for Trump’s election] is wholly, or even mostly, false, but it is told in the wrong context, and without important qualifiers attached.”
You cannot divorce the economic downfall of Ohio from its “NASCAR-ization,” its becoming “a cultural outpost of Dixie.” But the story is not precisely about change in cultural attitude due to economic decline, it is more about resurgence of century-old attitudes. And those century-old rust-belt attitudes cannot rightly be compared (as Lofgren does) to the debt owed to 18thC Northwest Ordinance, nor to mid-19thC abolitionists. The attitudes sprang from economic disruption of the Industrial Revolution and the wave of newcomers that brought in short order, immigrants from Southern Europe and Ireland, and the Northern migration of Southern blacks.
Racism [and classism] cannot easily be separated from economic anxiety; it’s all based on a zero-sum understanding of economics, an unwillingness to share the pie out of fear of poverty. And fear of poverty doesn’t just go away because now you’re doing well compared to your parents and even better than your grandparents. The lesson that it can all be taken off your plate in a heartbeat survives for generations. Reinforced by looking down the barrel of, your own kids are not likely to do as well as you did in the current economy.
I dissent from one point: Those who are “not willing to share the pie” already own most of it.
The great mystery is why those who have a few crumbs don’t get angry and demand a fair economy.
bethree5
You say that Indiana was the birthplace of the KKK in 1924. Now granted the industrial revolution may have caused immense cultural disruption. And one can argue whether that disruption in the short term
increased or decreased quality of life for native Indianans. Yet it is worth noting that 1924 is roughly 50 years before the economic disruption of the late 60s and early 70s. A decline caused by the retooling (automation )and relocating of American Industry. A relocation that created what we call the rust belt. Stretching from central NY through Minnesota and including other parts of the NE.
1924 is also note worthy for being the year that anti immigrant fever was translated into law. As Wilkerson also points out in “Cast” the Nazis took lessons from American Eugenicists.
So perhaps Lofgren was wrong. Perhaps Ohio did not change, perhaps we were never the Nation of our mythology.
The KKK was founded after the Civil war by former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. It was a secret society whose purpose was to terrorize newly freed black people.
bethree5
Correction – the re-birth of the KKK.
Anecdotal accounts are no substitute for in depth study and hard data. But my experience in a high wage Blue Collar industry would show that the economic ties are tenuous at best. Although the Union Construction Trades in NY have been under economic pressure. It is not the story of the Rust Belt . Some of the highest earners in secure positions are the most loathsome.
It’s great making a correction to a comment that is still in moderation.
Horrors!
Do these people NOT understand science, math, and history?
Is this the outcome of years and years of DEFORMS in education?
Yes no and maybe. Was k-12 education ever the answer to social problems. We would like it to be but I am afraid the 6 hours spent in school was always less potent than other influences. If it was, please tell me when that was.
Agree!!
Our Vegas Trustee Meetings are full of misinformation spewed during public comment. Conspiracy theorists shout from the audience, disrupt the meeting, and attack members who support masking and vaxxing. It is difficult to describe how crazed and out-of-control these anti-masker/anti-vaxxer folks can get. Pretend stories of children dying because of masks. Fake medical information. Supposed doctors/nurses giving their “professional” opinion that folks should avoid real science. Misquoting the CDC or real data while begging us all the listen to their twisted interpretation of science. And there is a racist element to all this too with the extremists attacking people of color and claiming in their privilege that no one is listening (to them only). Many of the white supremacists in the Power to Parent Group are also in the anti-mask/anti-mask group.
We also have a vocal QANON Trump supporting Trustee. Katie Williams is a evangelical. She states the she will not teach her child to fear. Wearing a mask equals fear? In meetings, she has to be reminded to mask or be vaccinated and she in return reminds everyone that her medical information is private. She votes to open school campuses without any concern for safety or mitigation. All things Trump like or QANON come from her with her arms wrapped around white supremacists/gun lovers in photo ops.
One of these shockingly vocal folks is also suing Governor Sisolak. Tiffany Paulson with two high school students is anti-mask. Coronado High School is full of privilege. Teachers are getting weekly warning and no one is masking or acting differently than before the pandemic. Must be nice to have the resources and health insurance to do whatever you want.
It is truly disgusting and crazy.
Disgusting and crazy…. and sad and embarrassing. I’m embarrassed for our country.
The radio and t.v. personalities…. and politicians.. et al should be held to account as cult leaders. They are brainwashing these people to foam at the mouth and go crazy.
Exactly!
I am filled with sadness at the ignorance. And there are wealthy forces that are preying on this ignorance.
A very small, but respectful, version of this happened in my district. But the state and the overwhelmingly in favor of science parents… outnumbered. We are, thankfully, all going to be masked in the fall.
I think if I had a child in one of these districts with wild, hooting parents overthrowing a school board…..I would homeschool. And if I had the means I would move. These are scary people.
Beachteach, see Angie Sullivan’s description of school board meetings in Las Vegas.
Just did – she paints a vivid picture of a crazy situation. Let’s hope “what happens in Vegas – stays in Vegas.” People are losing their cotton-pickin’ minds.
Like Bob Shepherd, I have lost all patience with the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers.
They are science deniers and they endanger everyone in their community.
Do they send their children to school without vaccinating them for measles, mumps, rubella, etc.?
I think this is about owning the libs! And I think the right way to handle this is to thank them for their services(getting sick and dying) . Then watch how quickly they line up for a vaccine.
On a positive note more and more insurers are refusing to pick up certain Covid related hospital costs that they were picking up last year. That goes for the vaccinated and the un vaccinated . The vaccinated have far fewer hospitalizations so this will fall mainly on the un vaccinated.
The Center For Medicare and Medicaid services should do the same. In fact it should be no vaccine no coverage.
Anyone getting sick from Covid is sad. No one should be alone and that sick. I have people I love dearly who are vulnerable. None of us are without the potential to get sick – even those of us who are vaccinated.
There are some people with legitimate reasons and concerns, who are taking the pandemic seriously, who chose not to get the vaccine. As long as they are taking the pandemic seriously and being respectful… that’s all I can ask.
I am vaccinated. But please do not paint all the unvaccinated with the same brush stroke – and wish them harm – in response to my comment.
I don’t wish the unvaccinated harm, even though most of them are putting many other people’s lives in danger. I just wish they would get vaccinated. They can’t send unvaccinated children (measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio, smallpox, etc.) to school now. Why is this vaccine different from the others that they accept?
One difference is these vaccines appeared less than a year ago, has only been distributed for 8 or 9 months, have only been approved for children age 12-18 for a few months. There also is disagreement among major national and international health agencies about whether the vaccines should be administered to people under age 18. The other vaccines you mention reached widespread adoption many decades ago. And I don’t know the history of the rollout of those vaccines in detail, but I would be surprised if they were universally mandated, much less near-universally adopted, within the 9 months of their initial availability. I do know it took many years (5-10) for the polio vaccine too be widely adopted, which means most parents were sending their children to school without the polio vaccine for years after the vaccine became available.
Should people who get HIV through unprotected sex be denied medical care?
How sick does one have to be to call it a “positive note” that insurers are letting more people go bankrupt due to medical debt?
I’m interested in your answer to FLERP!’s question. Also, should insurers stop paying for medical costs associated with Type II diabetes? Lung cancer/emphysema due to smoking? Injuries from car accidents for the driver at fault? Where do you draw the line?
Florida has passed a “parents bill of rights” law making parents the ultimate decision maker for their children in school and health. This law is being used to justify not masking children. It may also impede emergency treatment for children in schools or sports. https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=70313
FLERP!
As you are well aware in many states knowingly having HIV and transmitting it to others is a felony. As you are also aware there Several exclusions to your health insurance that are based on behavior.
For example if you break your nose your medical care will be paid for.
If you break your nose as the result of inebriation either in a fight or an accident the insurance company can refuse to pay.
That didn’t answer the question, Joel.
dienne77
The line has already been drawn . Insurance companies are not compelled to pay for injuries that resulted from alcohol use. Insurance companies can charge a premium for smokers . And in the biggest outrage insurance companies including medicaid do not have to pay for abortion services. Except when the life of the mother is at stake .
That at one time included when rape and incest was the cause of that pregnancy.
Further the largest hospital system in the country(shout out to Linda) refuses to preform abortion services even when the woman’s life is at stake. Or to rephrase that the woman could be bleeding out before they did.
So here is the car accident. If that reckless driving was a criminal act which in many it is a misdemeanor or worse.
“The basic rule of insurance is carriers will not cover an insured for intentional illegal acts. Insurers will cover patients for harm resulting from their illegal act IF that crime was not intended. … Insurers argue that paying for the care of someone who was only injured through their own illegal conduct rewards them.”
As for diabetes the insurance company would love to charge a premium for it. Instead the premiums are reflected in the shared cost of insurance.
Your faux outrage is pathetic.
beachteach
No one is exempted from Covid which is exactly why the State has the right to insist on vaccination mandates right up to fine and imprisonment since1905. Reaffirmed to some degree a little over a week ago by a 6/3 conservative court, when they rejected the case against Indiana State University,without comment. The 1905 case exempted those with valid medical conditions.
If your main reason for not getting the vaccine or not to wear a mask is to own the libs . You are endangering other people. So as for those people getting sick or dying it was their free choice. “Ask me if I care”
FLERP at 5:50 pm post: I recognize this doesn’t address your point about a vaccine being well-established, but it’s an interesting comparison to the covid vaccine rollout: in one month alone [April 1947], somewhere between 2.5-4.4million smallpox vaccines were administered in NYC, following a small cluster of cases related to a traveler coming home from Mexico. (Vaccines given weren’t tracked carefully, hence the uncertain number range.) The program stopped when public health authorities were sure the spread had been stopped in its tracks.
Part of the difference is that the smallpox vaccine was known and already long in use (though not uniformly). That’s a stark difference to the covid vaccine. Though mRNA vaccines had been in development and testing for 30 yrs with clinical success (in both animals and humans)—and clearly safer than conventional methods [as you’re not injecting any form of virus], and with potential for much quicker scalable mfg/production, there were issues of stability and efficient delivery that were only overcome about 4-5yrs ago. That left a lot of lot of regulation-devpt & massive trials to be done between when we needed them and when we got them. Which took nearly a year—still it can hardly be called a “new” vaccine; the tough work had already been accomplished.
Probably the bigger difference that caused millions to rush to their smallpox vaccine distribution center: the scourge of smallpox was well-known/ infamous: it killed 30% of those contracting it; survivors were left disfigured and often blind. Covid is harder for the public to get its arms around. Though it’s more transmissible than smallpox (or even the common cold), it kills a much smaller %age– yet at this point, after 1.5+yrs of spread, covid death is way above other ‘normal’ causes of death [the ‘excess mortality’ factor].
At this point I think the population is still wavering, with 30-40% thinking it’s best economically to just plow ahead with fully-open biz/ schools etc regardless of spread/ vaccination level/ mask-wearing, & the rest noting that spread of more deadly mutations increases depending on those factors, spelling needless lengthening of economic doldrums going forward.
FLERP!
With a 170 million vaccinations i would say no vaccine ever had that type of field test .
As for those nations that don’t offer shots to 12 year olds. They do not include France , Germany , Italy or Spain . The UK only offers shots to 16 year olds and vulnerable 12 year olds . But my married 30 yr old daughter was only able to get her second shot two weeks ago. The NIH assigns appointments so I don’t think concern for safety is the issue with 12 year olds.
“How sick does one have to be to call it a “positive note” that insurers are letting more people go bankrupt due to medical debt?”
There is no reason I should pay higher insurance rates to bail out fools who voluntarily make expensive mistakes by ignoring medical advice. This kind of bankruptcy is a voluntary choice.
“… should insurers stop paying for medical costs associated with Type II diabetes? Lung cancer/emphysema due to smoking? Injuries from car accidents for the driver at fault? Where do you draw the line?”
Drawing the line is simple: insurance companies SHOULD cover costs resulting from these behaviors, BUT charge a higher rate to cover the higher costs incurred by those who voluntarily engage in risky, foolish, and/or stupid behaviors.
My health insurance rate is less because I do not smoke. When I got a speeding ticket 3 years ago, my car insurance went up for a year. Hello!
FLERP!,
Should people who get HIV through unprotected sex be denied medical care?
Just watched a Missouri news program “This Week in Missouri Politics” where the first half of the program consisted host Scott Faughn interviewing MO Governor Parson. Much time was devoted to discussing local control and public school mask mandates, with the Governor saying that if need be, he would intervene to protect students from local mask mandates. Later in the program when a different person was being interviewed about the money that is being paid to cattle producers, the possibility of a mandate to protect cattle producers came up and was favorably discussed. So mask mandates for children too young to be vaccinated BAD, but mandates to help cattle producers GOOD.
Even the Republican use racism and anti -science world of protecting power and profit, how are dead people a strategy? And, how does freedom from mask inconvenience trump dead family and friends? A terrifying world of cult behavior.
Excellent comment, Arthur.
Thank you.
This is insanity.
Insanity is denying reality over and over and expecting different results each time.
In Salt Lake County, Utah, a county council meeting on a mask mandate ended with screaming parents, one of whom waived a 3 Percenter flag. The mask mandate was voted down.
The infections and deaths will continue.
so much is revealed in your two sentences
It is incredible that the loudest voices whose “knowledge” is based on the most most propagandistic ignorance ever conceived are actually dictating policy concerning the general population. Informed voices who know better or, at least, are uncertain about what little certainty they believe they have. That’s why we shake our heads when idiots say they know something to be unimpeachable.
Good to know nothing has changed in the 25 years since I left.
Sadly, the majority of us want masks and vaccinating. Even the leader of Utah’s predominant religion (a former world-renowned heart surgeon) has come out strongly for masks and vaccinations. It’s the loud few who are making it dangerous for the rest of us, especially kids under 12, which Utah has the most of per capita.
It has always been the nitwit politicians in Utah who control everything (People like Scott Matheson, Ted Wilson, Rocky Andersen and Wayne Owens are notable exceptions, but they don’t have anywhere the influence of the nitwits)
That apparently has not changed.
But of course, it is the majority of the voting populace who put the nitwits there, so the majority don’t get off the hook.
Orrin Hatch was the epitome of the nitwit Utah politician to which I refer.
A nitwits me a slimeball.
and a slimeball.
Of course, we’re all about the science.
EXCEPT the basic science established at the onset
of ‘rona.
COMMUNITY SPREAD– Person to person, is the how and
why.
What might the writer of 1984 think of how efficiently this resurgence of ignorance has been achieved in 2021? The paranoia and power of the post-WWII conservatives could not exist without the wholesale promotion and acceptance of ignorance as expertise. This should be a lesson to those who think discussions of education issues on this blog or anywhere, for that matter, shouldn’t be sullied by rank politics.
A great example of this was juxtaposed on the NYT editorial pages a few days ago. On one page, Charles Blow sums up how education has been used a surrogate for “culture” issues for ages. And directly on the other side was a writer whose name I have purged from my memory bemoaning the general attacks on credibility and then proceeds to offer a ridiculous both-siderism argument on how everyone is responsible. She blithely concocted a “liberal” view that since some deride the SAT, we are as bad as the Right, because of the well-documented (but not according to her) linkage in their racist origins and reality. Her other examples were just as ridiculous. We seemingly can no longer have any discussions about what are settled matters.
Who knew a bunch of kids who were watching The Flintstones would take it seriously and actually rise to exercise political power?
Who knew every Republican would emulate Bamm-bamm and that his last name (Rubble) would be the preferred outcome of every Republican policy.
Little harsh on Bamm-Bamm, don’t you think? Pebbles surely manipulated his behavior. The Met will premiere an opera on this precise scenario in 2024.
Behind every Bamm-bamm, there is always a Pebbles.
Of that you can be sure.
I’m staying home 99.9% of the time. While I’m staying home, I’m waiting for many if not all of the anti-vaccine and anti-mask mob to be infected by the Delta virus and possibly an even worse mutation and die off.
I don’t care what anyone thinks about what I think. The more of them that die off, the better off this country will be in the long run.
Evolution and Survival of the Fittest go together: the continued existence of organisms which are best adapted to their environment, with the extinction of others, as a concept in the Darwinian theory of evolution.
Let the anti-vaccine and mask mob become extinct.
How many ways can I like this comment?
If I may take the liberty to rewrite the last sentence (I’ll take it regardless):
“Let the anti-vaccine and mask mob suffer to confront the reality of the worst of everything COVID has to offer before they become extinct.”
That’s the primary reason I’m against the death penalty. First, because there are always errors and innocent people pay the price. Second, there is nothing worse than a life sentence if one is guilty. Nothing. The more obvious the guilt is verified over time, the more solitary that sentence becomes. But getting back to the point, to hell with this anti-vaccine and mask mob. Each and every one of them.
Lloyd Lofthouse
First you have to reread Darwin. Survival refers to reproduction not voting. So 40 to 80 year olds are pretty much out of that picture. But even with the inclusion of 40-50 year olds the Sun might die out before Trumpanzees went extinct.
I do not see anything in what Lloyd wrote that would contradict what Darwin had written.
The Williamson County video is frightening. Many respondents to the tweeted video wondered why the police didn’t immediately arrest the two or three shouting threats at public health officials and trying to prevent their car from leaving. Some cynically responded the police were on the side of the yelling protestors. Regardless of their personal viewpoints, their obvious intent was to de-escalate the situation and get the threatened folks out of there safely– they succeeded. I think they handled that correctly. Snapping somebody into handcuffs in the middle of that melee could easily have turned it into a riot, with people injured.
Commenters at this video, and some from other locales where schboard-mtg locales had to be broken up by police, say that such bullying attitudes/ actions are common enough in those communities, and long pre-date covid. I suspect this is on the nose. Why is it proliferating, and spilling into the public-governance space?
My guess: the main factor here is general incivility and even lawlessness encouraged by govt actors for some years now– started during Obama admin, grew rapidly under Trump [exacerbated by covid fears], & continues while he controls his base from backstage. First time for me: Rep Joe Wilson yelling “You lie!” when the President addressed details of the ACA during a televised address to joint session of Congress. Second time: a year later, Justice Alito did virtually the same thing when the President criticized the Citizens’ United decision during the State of the Union address. Since Trump campaign the hits have just kept on coming. Lawlessness in the governance space is now at a peak– Trump refusal to concede/ participate in transition, Jan 6th, governors & Senators buying into “The Big Lie,” now governors and state legislatures acting openly against the safety of their constituents.
I posted this at OEN: https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/The-Battle-Against-Reality-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Battle-For-The-Editorial-Pages-Of-America_Education_Masks_Refuse-210822-77.html#comment794375
I am so fed up with people who believe they have this freedom. Thank goodness when I was a child in the forties and fifties, there were no init-vaxxer morons a split ripped across the world.
American Exceptionalism
Exception to the rule
Is really Nature’s fool
The very type of guy
Who science would deny
Let kids be
kidsdead”Let kids be dead
A GOPawn
Adults have said
“Let masks be gone”
freedumb: noun, the belief that your personal freedom is more important than others’ safety.
LOL and true.
FDA approval will enable vaccination mandates. I wonder if an executive order could require universal vaccination, once Pfizer is FDA approved.
Great title, Diane!
And, ofc, when people battle against reality, reality wins.
The Pentagon just mandated vaccination for all 1.4 million members of the armed services.
Maybe we can persuade the anti-vaxxers that only wimps won’t get the shots.
LOL. YES!
Except in the case of The People vs Reality Winner, Reality lost
Thank God for the Pentagon’s decision to mandate vaccination, and also FDA for approving the vaccine.
As for framing the argument for masks: when the antimaskers claim they have the freedom to refuse wearing masks, we can ask which part of the Constitution gives them the freedom to infect others. Maybe there is a part of the Constitution which explicitly spells out the differences between individual and collective freedom, and explains that collective freedom trumps the individual’s.
The Fourteenth Amendment
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law”
Seems like state laws or governor decrees that ban mask and vaccination mandates quite literally “abridge the immunities of citizens” (to CovID) and (potentially) deprive them of ** life** or liberty (sick in hospital) Without due process of law.
This is good to know; thx. Is there a prediction what’s gonna happen with these executive orders of Fl, TX and TN Governors, which give parents the right to defy mask mandates?