Unmasked

A mask.

It’s uncomfortable.

It’s sweaty.

It makes you realize how bad your own breath smells.

Not wearing a mask may set you apart from your master, Vladimir Putin and his puppy, Donald J. Trump. After all, they don’t wear masks.

A mask reminds you of the outlaws in the Old West. A mask marks you as someone who reads. A mask marks you as someone who listens to science.

And science is hard. You maybe didn’t do too well in science. Or, maybe you’re just fed up with science because it tells you that Cheetos and beer is not a well-balanced and healthy diet. Or, maybe you’re fed up with science because it tells you that if we keep paying no attention to our carbon footprint, we will end up destroying a lot of the ecosystem we rely on to survive. We are melting the polar ice caps. We are killing the forests. We are killing the bees. We are killing all the fish. We are destroying the Coral Reefs. We will have more and more pandemics in the future. People living on seacoasts will be under water. Salt water. Meanwhile, potable drinking water supplies are shrinking.

Why? It’s the fault of science, damn it! If we didn’t have science, we wouldn’t know those things! If we didn’t test people for COVID19, we wouldn’t have any cases! If we didn’t do X-rays, we wouldn’t have any broken bones! If it weren’t for science, you couldn’t be electrocuted! If it weren’t for science, which says we need to breathe air, people wouldn’t drown! If it weren’t for science, people could jump off cliffs and fall 500 feet onto hard rocks and they wouldn’t even get scratched!

Bullshit. 

And you know it’s bullshit.

If Trump tells you that “his gut tells him” it’s okay for you to jump off a cliff because gravity is a liberal hoax, are you going to jump?

Science doesn’t cause gravity. Science doesn’t cause human ills like Global Climate Change. It allows us to understand things at a deeper level so that we can take appropriate action. Science isn’t the reason you need to wear a mask to help prevent the spread of the deadly pandemic. The reason has to do with the nature of the novel coronavirus and the nature of human life. We breathe. We must breathe to live. We breathe air in — and as we do so, germs come in with the air. We breathe out. As we do so, germs come out. 

That has been true since life forms climbed out of the ocean onto the land 500 million years ago. It didn’t start being true once we developed science. 

But there’s some good news! Properly wearing a mask will work to protect you — even if you don’t like science. A mask will work to protect your family, even if you don’t like science. Properly wearing a mask will work to protect your friends — even if you don’t like science. Wearing a mask will help prevent the spread of the virus and allow us to minimize the economic impact — even if you don’t believe in science. Conversely, not wearing a mask will help the pandemic spread costing more American lives and losing more American jobs even if you believe the pandemic is a liberal hoax. The virus doesn’t give a damn about your politics.

Are you the sort of person who yells and screams and insists that you have a right to defecate in public? To walk naked? To have intercourse in public? To throw rocks at people who walk by you, provided you’re throwing the rocks from your own property or on public property? How about a flame thrower? That might be fun! Stand in your front yard and toast people who walk by. You should be allowed to do that! Right? So long as you and the flame thrower are on your own property. Do you have the right to try to build a nuclear reactor so long as it’s on your own property? Do you have the right to burn poison ivy vines in your own back yard and let the toxic smoke drift into your neighbor’s yard?

If you’re wearing a mask when you’re close to others, you are sending a message.

The message is not: “I hate Trump.”

The message is not: “I am a democrat.”

The message is simply this: “I care about my health and the health of my family, friends, and fellow Americans.” That’s it. That’s the message.

Of course, you can add more messages if you like. You can wear a mask that says something additional. You can put hearts on it or pictures of cute kittens or put photos of the coronavirus on it. But the main message is the same: “I care about human life.”

And, if you don’t wear a mask in situations where it’s appropriate, it also sends a message.

The message says, “I care more about my momentary comfort than I care about your life.” Just remember, if you want to walk around in public wearing that message, you can expect people to respond accordingly.

Let’s suppose someone has been very careful for months. They rarely go out. They go to the grocery store once every two weeks, wear a mask, wash their hands frequently. So far as they know, they have come in contact with no-one who’s sick. One day they go the grocery store and meet YOU. And YOU decide that YOUR comfort is more important than anyone else’s life so you don’t wear a mask. The shopper goes home and two weeks later, his parents both get COVID19. Two weeks after that, they both die. One of the shopper’s kids had just finished chemotherapy for leukemia. That child got sick with COVID19 and died as well. The shopper could not be with any of his or her loved ones in their last moments.

How do you think they will react when they go back to the store and see you again — and once again, you’re without a mask?

How would you react if your loved ones were killed by COVID19 and you could trace it back to someone not wearing a mask in a place where it was required?

Would you say, “Oh, well. Everyone should be free to do what they want. After all, everyone dies eventually anyway. At least, people can go to the beauty parlor and go bar-hopping. Who cares if kids fighting cancer or grandparents die?”

Character is revealed by choices under pressure.

What choices are you making? What messages are you sending to your fellow Americans? You can choose to do whatever “Der Fooler” tells you to do. You can choose to believe whatever “Der Fooler” tells you to believe. If you do, then, you may as well buy a Trumputin mask and wear it 24×7. Because your face, your individuality, your identify no longer means anything. To you, your life means nothing, because it means nothing to Trump and Putin. To you, the lives of your loved ones mean nothing, because you are going along with actions dictated by Putin and Trump — and those actions are predicated on the lives of Americans meaning nothing.

Trump is unmasked as a puppy of Putin.

You are unmasked as a puppy of Trump. 

You are not a “freedom fighter” because you refuse to wear a mask any more than a tramp who defecates in the path on a public park is a “freedom fighter.”

You will have zero freedom under a Trumputin dictatorship. 

You will have zero freedom when you’re lying face down in a semi-coma with a ventilator stuck down your throat.  

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