In the name of liberty, unmasked MAGA heads are freely emitting oral and nasal droplets of God-knows-what. Welcome to Donald Trump’s America. In this bizarre upside-down moment, a former germaphobe has used his presidential power to turn unprotected coughs and sneezes into acts of patriotism. Mandatory masking, Trump argues, is an attack on liberty.
Speaking of liberty, do you think Patrick Henry would have worn a face mask? He’s the guy who, in 1775 created the rhetorical predicate for the Revolutionary War with his “Give me liberty, or give me death” speech. It’s hard to imagine those infamous words being uttered behind an N-95 facial covering. So weak and low energy, as our Twitterer-in-Chief would say.
But little did Henry know that, 245 years later, his precious aspiration for liberty would be used in another lethal battle, this time to preserve the Republican right to forgo wearing face masks during the most deadly pandemic in a century.
In a year overflowing with specious and spurious arguments, comes this granddaddy of insipidness: In the interest of personal liberty, nobody should be required to wear a face mask in mitigation of a virus that has infected more than 8.6 million Americans and left more than 224,000 of them dead.
Reasonable people can differ over the closing of schools and businesses. But to the medical professionals and other scientists tracking this epidemic, there is no dispute over the efficacy of masks. They work. And they are becoming more essential every day.
Despite Trump’s claim that we have “turned the corner” on this virus, we are actually moving into another crisis stage. There were 82,600 new cases on Friday, the highest since the pandemic began. More than 1,000 Americans die from this disease every day. Hospitals in 38 states are at capacity or near-capacity levels. Yet, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the virus could be brought under control in two months if everyone wore a mask. Between now and February, universal masking, according to another expert, could save at least 100,000 lives.
But there’s this liberty thing. A quick sampling of GOP governors:
Greg Abbott of Texas: “Requiring everyone to wear masks is an infringement on liberty.” (Texas liberty fun fact: You can be fined for selling Limburger cheese on Sunday.)
Ron DeSantis of Florida: “(Masks are) a matter of personal liberty.” (Florida liberty fun fact: Women who fall asleep under a beauty salon hairdryer are subject to fines.)
Brian Kemp of Georgia, “(Masks) must be a personal choice, not a requirement that infringes on people’s liberty.” (Georgia liberty fun fact: It’s a crime to give away goldfish as a prize in BINGO games.)
Doug Burgam of North Dakota: “(Mandatory masks) are not a job for government because people have liberty.” (North Dakota liberty fun fact: In Fargo, you can be arrested for wearing a hat while dancing.)
All of these red states have a plethora of laws regulating human behavior in order to protect the health and safety of its citizens. Drivers there stop at red lights and obey speed limits, not out of personal responsibility, but because they don’t want to be fined. Stroll through their liberty-loving parks and you will see signs mandating “No Bicycling; No Rollerblading, No Skateboarding; No Loitering.”
Yet, in the name of liberty, they will not post a mandatory mask sign that says “No Public Release of Potentially Infected Spittle.” Encouraging the spread of a deadly virus for reasons of political expediency is bad enough. But falsely and shamelessly cloaking it in the garb of a noble-sounding political philosophy is about as low as you can get.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote a piece this week under the heading of “How Many Americans Will Ayn Rand Kill?” With tongue planted at least partially in cheek, Krugman suggested that this anti-mask liberty nonsense was derivative of the late conservative philosopher who advocated that selfishness was a virtue.
There has been speculation that Trump is an Ayn Rand fan. After all, she did create this sentence: “Man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others.” It is hard to imagine The Donald as a Randian scholar – or any type of scholar, for that matter. My guess is that someone might have highlighted that sentence and read it to him. Probably during a Fox News commercial.
As we have learned these past five years, nothing with Trump is ever remotely profound, deep or even thought-out. This, I believe, was the impetus for mask liberty: He needed optics to match his lie about the pandemic petering out. He got the word out to those GOP governors who think they need his blessing. And they used the liberty gambit because . . .well, because they didn’t have anything else to justify their position in the middle of a punishing pandemic.
Sadly, this approach has falsely and dangerously ignited a violent righteousness in whacked out and frequently armed ruffians who delight in defying mandatory mask rules at grocery stores, restaurants and other public places. There have been countless examples of low-wage workers shot or otherwise assaulted by these thugs asserting their Trumpian-blessed liberty (here, here and here).
The fact of the matter is that the concept of government imposing restrictions on citizens for the public good has been a pillar of democratic governance for more than 200 years. Nineteenth century English philosopher, John Stuart Mill, an advocate of individual freedom, once wrote, “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” The U.S. Supreme Court, in a long line of mandatory vaccine cases, has upheld the same principle.
Patrick Henry would have shuddered at the notion that liberty means allowing people to freely disperse their droplets during a deadly pandemic. Yet, for those unmasked Trumpian warriors who insist on baring their full faces in every crowd, a simple conjunctive change in Henry’s memorable line would cover them. It is this:
Give me liberty, or and give me death.
Spot on, Bruce.
Insane Insanity.