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New Covid wave has begun and masks should be worn again, scientists warn
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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Saying they should is not authoritarian, yes. Mandating they do so under penalty of law is.
And for sure, authoritarian measures are sometimes genuinely necessary in strenuous circumstances. But I'm pretty damn confident that if you polled Americans about restoring mask mandates, you would see pretty overwhelming opposition against it. Imposing it despite that would be unquestionably undemocratic, and yes, authoritarian.
Nobody was required to wear masks in their own homes or cars or minding their own business in the open away from others.
I don't see the difference between mask mandates during a pandemic and laws about needing to stop at red lights. Both are there to avoid deaths caused by others, and both are reserved to specific situations that involve interactions with others. There have been zero proposals to expand mask wearing to other diseases, it was an extraordinary event on the scale of the Spanish Flu.
Are basic traffic laws authoritarian?
Is there maybe a middle ground where some laws are necessary because of vast potential harm that can be mitigated by small requirements when interacting with other people that are not authoritarian?
We clearly agree that mitigation of some level of harm is worth reducing people's freedom. The core question is, how do you determine where the line is?
Democracy generally demands that the people have some kind of say here, and the vast majority of Americans would strongly oppose restoring mandates now. I don't think you'd find that level of support for eliminating traffic laws. I'm fairly confident that most people at this point think that masking should be an individual decision and would not support the use of government force to impose their use on others. That might be strongly different from your own view, but that's democracy for you.
I think the majority of people are perfectly fine with a tiny inconvenience of wearing a mask during a mask mandate and there is a loud minority who opposes it because they were riled up by conservative propaganda to oppose minimal and reasonable scientifically based safety measures. It is literally the least that someone could have done to minimize the spread of a disease that ended up killing millions of people.
Opposing masks during the pandemic was the most petty and selfish reaction to the situation. People overwhelmingly took the vaccine once it became available while the loud minority acted like it was going to be mandated when that was never a plan.
Stop projecting your selfish attitude on everyone else.
https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_051822/
Polling from May of last year found only 32% of Americans supported re-instituting restrictions, a number that has undoubtedly decreased significantly in the near year and a half since then.
The support for what you're wanting simply does not exist. People have moved on, whether you call them dumb and selfish for that or not.
Yes, May of last year when vaccines were in full swing and people were relieved we were on a downswing. Note that in the same sentence 4 in 10 supported vaccine mandates.
I don't know why you think I want mask mandates right now just because I am saying that most people are willing to do it when needed. You know, the next pandemic for something that we don't have a vaccine for yet.