Fine, Mask Me
Never let it be said that I am unwilling to compromise. It is safe to say that no agreement seems imminent in the great mask and shutdown debate of 2020, if one can call millions of people screaming “Screw you!” at each other a “debate.” It all becomes so ridiculous at times that I find myself wishing the masks were also sound barriers.
We have been hearing for most of plague time that the masks are almost supernatural life-savers. The most common — and therefore irritating — social media virtue-signal is a repeated exhortation to “Wear a mask.” This is especially de rigueur among elected Democratic officials who have virtually nothing else to offer society.
OK, mask people, if they are so wonderful at keeping the COVID monster at bay, I have one question: why can’t we reopen all the businesses and just have everyone wear masks?
I have to be up front here and admit that I took this idea from my dear friend and colleague, RedState Editor-at-Large, Kira Davis:
Keep the masks and open everything else. People are surly about masks bc they are watching their livelihoods dry up around them due to arbitrary and unreliable leadership on this. Open everything and require masks. Eezy peezy. It's a compromise that can work for us all.
— Kira (@RealKiraDavis) July 21, 2020
As soon as I saw that I began to rethink my position. I haven’t been adamantly anti-mask, I just don’t think that they’re as magical as the cultish pro-mask types think they are.
I have, however, been very opposed to the shutdowns because I think — and there is a lot of evidence to back me up — they were avoidable and have done nothing but ruin people’s lives. I also think that mask mandates, after everyone has been more or less forced to stay at home again because so many places are closed, are nothing more than petty, tyrannical power moves by the dictator class that this plague has spawned.
There is some wiggle room for me on the masks, however, even though women wearing them now think men are pigs if we look at their eyes.
Petty Tyrants, Set Your Businesses Free
A lot of the things that many of us (YES, I’M GUILTY) complain about right now will be quickly forgotten once this coronavirus nightmare has subsided (it’s never going to go away completely). Destroyed livelihoods are not, sadly. Yelp recently reported that 55% of the businesses listed on its site that have closed have done so for good.
In Tuesday’s Morning Briefing I featured a heartbreaking story about venerable neighborhood mom-and-pop businesses in New York that have been ruined forever.
If a mandated face covering is the irritation I have to put up with on the off chance that we can still salvage some businesses and lives, then I have zero problem doing that right now. There will always be plenty of government overreach battles to fight and hills to die on. I can let this one go for a while.
I Won’t Miss The Ugly People
Let’s face it, humanity has been catching a real break having a lot faces kept partially hidden from public view. There is an old saying about Washington, D.C., being “Hollywood for ugly people” and, hoo-doggie is that true. Being spared the smirking visages of Chuckie Schumer and Granny Boxwine is something I wouldn’t mind lasting a little longer.
But seriously, if masks work as well as — ahem — experts and their scold warriors say they do, let’s all wear them while we’re out in public supporting our recently re-opened locally owned business. It’s a small price to pay.
Especially when compared to the delivery fees and driver tips I’ve been hemorrhaging since March.
Is Gretchen Whitmer Satan, Stalin, or Both?
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PJ Media Senior Columnist and Associate Editor Stephen Kruiser is the author of “Don’t Let the Hippies Shower” and “Straight Outta Feelings: Political Zen in the Age of Outrage,” both of which address serious subjects in a humorous way. Monday through Friday he edits PJ Media’s “Morning Briefing.” His columns appear twice a week.
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