Chooserativity
Contagion is freedom! Masks are tyranny!
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell encouraged Americans to wear masks to limit the spread of coronavirus, as more than half of US states report increases in new cases.
“I think that’s what people ought to do,” the Kentucky Republican told an ABC News reporter. “That’s what we’re doing in the Senate, and that’s what I’m counseling other people to do.”
Some other Republicans have said similar things, Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio among them.
However, other congressional Republicans have taken a much more laissez-faire approach to encouraging mask usage.
Because that’s how contagion works – it’s all a matter of choice. You choose to let the virus infect you, or you choose not to. The virus chooses you, or it chooses the person beside you. Your immune system chooses to blow everything up, or it chooses not to. You choose to die, or you choose not to.
Freedomfreedomfreedomfreedom
At the end of a House freedom caucus press conference moments ago, caucus chairman Andy Biggs was asked whether his Arizona consitutents should wear masks. “It’s up to them,” Biggssaid.
Up to them. Choosy choice. Choose to infect people, or choose not to. Up to you.
I don’t like wearing a face mask. They’re hot. It’s harder to breathe. My glasses steam up. But…I decided to play a Republican game, thanks to my Economics classes, and do a cost-benefit analysis.
One the one side, steamed glasses
On the other side, dead. Not an easy death. A painful death with respiratory distress. (I had a near-fatal asthma attack about 20 years ago; I know what it feels like).
Easy. The benefits of the masks far outweigh the costs. I wear the mask whenever I am in public. If people in the grocery store glare at me and shove their cart into me, it is they who are the assholes, not I.
And one other side benefit: no man had shouted at me to smile since I started wearing the mask.
All these Unmasked Warriors reveal that we aren’t really a very grown-up nation. Our concepts of freedom, justice, and tyranny are so out of whack. “How dare you tell me to wear a mask! Just to prevent the transmission of some… some Chinese disease?!”
Long, red neckties are more in evidence than masks in that picture. Hmm, I wonder why that might be?
Iknklast, please tell me you got a mask like this…
https://www.etsy.com/market/venom_mask
Imagine trying to get speed limits and seat-belt laws passed today. Hell, who gets to tell me how much I can drink before I get behind the wheel?
Rob, not yet, but I probably will soon.