When an ideological battle erupted over masks I was only slightly surprised. On the one hand, getting into a fight over wearing masks is analogous to getting over a fight over having vehicle lights—it is obviously foolish to fight over what is obviously a useful safety device for oneself and others. On the other hand, people can obviously fight over what is obviously foolish to fight over and the right has been working hard to undermine trust in reality, facts and science. So now we are in a situation in which schools are reopening and some people in positions of authority have embraced the anti-mask position (or the “pro-choice” position as some call it). This is problematic.
To be fair, there are legitimate concerns connected to masks. To illustrate, there are concerns about having enough of them, about their impact on the ability of students to learn and teachers to teach, as well as on the development of critical language and social skills that require being able to see faces. These are all matters that are worthy of serious consideration and can provide reasons to forgo masks—provided proper precautions are taken. My concern is directed at the reasons given that seem to be ill-founded and inconsistent.
Ironically, some people are borrowing from the abortion debate and taking the position of Jed Davis, who is the president of Parkview Christian’s school board. As Jed said, “We’re not trying to politicize masks by any means. Again, we’re not anti-mask, we’re pro-choice.” Along this vein, some people also make arguments based on liberty and Constitutional rights. In general terms, these arguments seem to distill down to this:
Premise 1: People have the right/freedom to choose what they wear.
Premise 2: Some people choose not to wear a mask.
Conclusion: These people have the right/freedom to not wear masks.
While the appeal to freedom/rights is certainly appealing, there is the matter of consistent application. This can be used to test if the proponents of allowing people to forgo masks believe in their professed principle. It is also a moral requirement if they believe their professed principle—they must apply it consistently in relevantly similar cases. So, let us engage in a thought experiment and use the same reasoning with a change.
Premise 1: People have the right/freedom to choose what they wear.
Premise 2: Some people choose to wear shirts that say “Fuck.”
Conclusion: These people have the right/freedom to wear shirts that say “Fuck.”
I suspect that Jed Davis other school officials would not follow their professed “pro-choice” principle consistently and allow students to wear such shirts; but I could be wrong. Give it a try, kids.
It could be argued that there is a difference: students are not supposed to wear shirts with “fuck” on them because the word is vulgar and could, I suppose, offend people. People are supposed to wear masks to reduce their chance of infecting and being infected with a dangerous disease. So, students should be able to forgo masks, but must be prevented from wearing “fuck” shirts.
While there is a difference between masks and “fuck” shirts, this difference would seem to favor requiring masks—after all, if schools ban “fuck” shirts because they might bruise dainty eyes, they should most certainly require masks because forgoing them can result in serious illness and even death. To be consistent, Jed Davis and his fellows would need to allow students to dress as they wish, including “fuck” shirts. Or he would need to maintain dress codes and require masks.
It could be objected that the “fuck” shirt is not analogous. After all, the choice is to wear a “fuck” shirt versus a choice to not wear a mask. So, the right/freedom being advocated is not the freedom to wear what you want, but a freedom to not wear what you do not want to wear. So, I will modify the argument again:
Premise 1: People have the right/freedom to not wear what they do not want to wear.
Premise 2: Some people do not want to wear pants.
Conclusion: These people have the right/freedom to not wear pants.
This could go further and replace “pants” with “clothes”, but I am known for my war on pants (in favor of running shorts). If not wearing a mask is justified by freedom of choice, then this would justify refusing to wear any clothing on the same grounds.
One could object, again, that pants are not analogous to masks. This is true—pants are not essential tools in preventing the spread of the virus. As such, any argument that would support the right to choose to not wear a mask would serve to support the far less impactful right to choose to not wear pants. Or any clothes. I suspect that Jed and his fellows will not allow the students to come to school forgoing to wear pants, shirts and such. But if they are pro-choice when it comes to masks, consistency requires they allow the same freedom across the board. Obviously enough, not wearing pants (and just wearing shorts) would present no risk to anyone, forgoing a mask would.
If the freedom argument has any merit, then the maskless students must be allowed to wear “fuck” shirts and no pants. Just to be clear, while I favor freedom of expression and oppose the tyranny of pants (in favor of wearing running shorts) what I am advocating is that students be compelled to wear masks.
Wrong. Nobody argues that pants in fact do what they are intended to do: Prevent me from having to see your balls. The science is unclear and dubious when it comes to wearing masks in all circumstances. This is not a pure matter of freedom.
The major problem with Leftism is that since the French Revolution, it has essentially promoted “cures” that were worse than the problem itself. It’s thrown millions of babies out with metric tons of bathwater. And this is why, from an evolutionary standpoint, what we call Leftism is a very new phenomena, and not one that nature will tolerate for long. Eventually, we will be dominated by barbarians who could care less about Progressive abstractions. Leftism can basically only exist because elites, insulated from the policies they endorse, promote worldviews and politics that they themselves do not adhere to. They do this because, psychologically, being nice is more powerful than being right when it comes to popularity and votes. The problem of course is that being right is fundamental to continued existence at a civilization level. The elites for instance, will own guns, or have paid bodyguards, (but demand more gun control) they will fly in jets much more often then the dreaded red-neck, whom they belittle for BBQing and eating meat, bemoan capitalism while being the most ruthless capitalists on the planet, scathingly attack “bourgeoisie values” while having mostly adhered to them since at least junior high school, which enabled (unless their establishment, progressive mommy and daddies helped to get into Yale, in nefarious ways) them to get into their elite schools and live relatively good lives.
So, in summary, being part of the Leftist intelligentsia/elite/progressive Establishment involves living the WASP (a group of people the Leftists diligently worked to destroy) life, while hating Protestants (unless of course those Protestants, like African Americans will, will vote for the Establishment, like all good and honest people do….
I, for one, will continue to do my running here in DC with pants and sans mask.
Bottom line: When assessing current “science” (ie whatever dude mainstream media puts in front of a camera after having vetting his politics), begin first with “Whatever owns Trump leads”.