As evidenced in the responses to my prior letter, the Covid mask issue is an emotional one for many people. However, concern and patriotism do not address my two main points:
1. A spike in reported cases is the logical conclusion to artificially keeping them low for an extended period of time. To react to this spike by putting more restrictions in place just extends the duration of the crisis.
2. A great many of us see our rights being burned away in the bonfire of the anxieties. To impose restrictions by definition takes away individual rights.
In regard to my second point, choosing to wear a mask is neither patriotic nor unpatriotic. Supporting someone else’s right to wear or not wear a mask as their conscience dictates is patriotic. Travel restrictions, mandatory vaccines, governments restricting how many family members can gather for Christmas and Thanksgiving, banning church gatherings, and trying to forbid opinions, or as we like to call them freedom of speech, to fit a convenient interpretation of a narrow portion of the science is unpatriotic. This is not what prior generations fought for, but what they fought against.
Benjamin Franklin said it best, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”.
As a final thought, if masks work, then yours will be sufficient. If they do not, not even mine will be enough.
— Stu Goodner, Boulder
