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Masks

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They have been used as far back as the 17th century to ward off disease and infection.

The most effective preventive measure against the Covid-19 virus currently ravaging the nation, and Texas in particular is a mask. The mask not only protects the wearer from contracting the virus from public exposure but also prevents an asymptomatic person with the virus from infecting others.

But despite the fact that more than 140,000 people have succumbed to the virus and millions more have been infected, too many people make a personal choice not to wear a mask in public and, in fact, will vehemently assert, even violently express a perceived constitutional right not to be required, either by the government or public businesses, to wear a mask in public.

First, most people who assert “constitutional rights” have never read the U.S. Constitution, much less took the time to understand how its principles are applied. The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, do not mention the word “mask” nor can any of those amendments be remotely interpreted as a “right” not to wear a mask when required to do so to protect public health.

The First Amendment rights of religion, speech and assembly do not mention the word mask, nor do these rights entail any protection from being required to wear masks to protect public health. The Second Amendment right to own and tote a gun has nothing to do with masks. The amendments go on and on without discussing masks. Suffice it to say that the issue of masks was not high on the constitutional agenda of the Framers of the Constitution.

Protecting public health has always taken precedent over perceived individual liberty. For example, when science and medicine informed the public that secondhand cigarette smoke could cause cancer or other debilitating diseases, the government (local, state and federal) imposed cigarette smoking bans in certain businesses and in public except for designated areas.

In effect, the non-smoker’s right to be free of the dangers posed by someone else’s cigarette smoke exceeds the right of the smoker to light up and puff away as they see fit.

Again, the Constitution does not grant to the smoker any imagined right to huff and puff away in public at the expense of public health and the endangerment of others.

The overwhelming need to protect public health extends to the government an absolute legal right to regulate such dangerous human endeavors as vehicle driving, alcohol consumption, animal hunting, fish catching, human killing, and a host of other life-threatening human behaviors.

Personally, I wear a mask and medical gloves each time I leave my vehicle and step into the public arena (and I’m waiting on a face-shield from Amazon). I engage in this public safety behavior to protect myself from the non-mask wearer.

I will not confront or chastise the non-mask wearer for their individual recklessness and socially irresponsible behavior. I subscribe to the notion that every person has the right to go to hell in their own way.

More importantly, however, I do not engage in this challenging behavior because the reality is that a lot of non-mask wearers are certified, bona fide idiots. They welcome any opportunity to spit and slobber their imagined, un-sourced “constitutional right” not to wear a mask to anyone who challenges them. They will yell, curse, and make a genuine, 100 percent fool of themselves in public in support of their imagined “constitutional right” until the ICU doctor tells them that nurses have to stick a ventilator tube up their ass to pump oxygen into their failing lungs being munched on by the little ugly Covid-19 virus.

The issue about mask wearing in public is not about politics, hoaxes, Deep State conspiracies, the Boogaloo Movement, defund the police, Black Lives Matter, or any of the other emotional issues dividing this nation along racial and cultural lines. It’s about protecting you and your family’s lives, the lives of your grandma and grandpa, the lives of your friends and neighbors, and all of our obligations to protect public health and safety.

And if those of you who refuse to wear a mask cannot see that, then continue to clothe yourself in God, Flag, and Country as you watch our society die and collapse—a catastrophe you help create and perpetuate.

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To mask, or not to mask?

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That is the Shakespearian question facing Americans today.

Tragically, the question no longer emanates from science but from politics. Those who mask are considered by many who don’t mask to be either “politically correct” or somehow associated with the Deep State apparatus (whatever the hell that might be).

In essence, the increasing social perspective is that those who mask are politically “liberal” and those who do not mask are politically “conservative.”

That is the new “cultural war” raging in America today—a tragic time when a deadly virus is killing off hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Americans each day.

America has always been at war with itself from its very Founding: settlers versus Native Americans, English patriots versus rebellious colonists, slave holders versus abolitionists, Northern patriots versus Southern traitors, segregationists versus integrationists, war hawks versus peace doves, and Democrats versus Republicans.

The Founding Fathers actually planted the seeds of internal war and strife within their Bill of Rights that was ratified in December 1791—constitutional rights that applied only to white male landowners, no one else. In other words, white men who owned land were the only Americans who could govern and make decisions about the future of the nation.

It would take 76 years before the constitution’s 14thAmendment was ratified effectively applying the Bill of Rights to all the states and to every person residing in them.

It is the 14th Amendment that gives every person in this country the right to wear a mask when and where they want.

The great thing about the 14th Amendment is that it gives the unmasked an equal protection right to walk freely about in our society without any facial covering.

However, the police powers enjoyed by every state in the Union permit restrictions being placed on constitutional rights in order to protect public health, safety and morals. For example, to protect public health, the states can regulate the production and distribution of food and drugs; to protect public safety, the states can regulate transportation with vehicle driver’s license and highway speeds; and to protect public morals, the state can forbid nudists from fornicating on Main Street.

Put simply, states can impose, either through executive orders or legislative enactments, requirements that masks be worn in designated situations during a “public health crisis”, such as public businesses, job sites, medical delivery systems, and any place where more than a certain number of people congregate.

Within this legal framework rests the right of business owners, such as grocery stores, restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, etc., to impose mask requirements on people entering their business establishments.

You might say the “to mask, or not to mask” question comes down to this: those who wear masks are honoring both their legal obligation and social duty to protect public health and safety. Those who do not wear masks believe their individual “rights” exceed the common good.

I wear my mask in public (or whenever I have contact with anyone other than my wife) for my own personal safety and to protect public health. I do not interact with folks who do not wear masks in public unless there is a good ten to twelve feet between us. My mask is not worn in defiance of anyone personally or politically, but to anyone who does not like my mask wearing, let the mask stand as a clear, unequivocal middle finger to them.

Copyright © 2019 Jodie Sinclair| Author