Is it just me, or does the current furor over “mask mandates” seem trumped up?
For as long as I can remember, Americans have been able to accept both that: 1) I have a right to wear or not wear whatever articles of clothing I like; and, at the same time, 2) a business owner has a right to refuse me service, and an employer can fire me, if I don’t wear the articles of clothing they like. A rule requiring shoes, or shirts, or jackets, or ties, is not seen as violating my constitutional rights. Schools can require students to wear a blazer or a plaid skirt. Why are masks different?
Another example: the sign in the bathroom requiring employees to wash their hands is not seen as a violation of an employee’s constitutional right to prepare other people’s food with filthy hands. We do not see demonstrations, or governors interfering with local health boards, on account of this rule. But, somehow, requiring employees to wear a mask or get vaccinated is a constitutional outrage. Once again, why are masks and vaccines different?
Is it that protecting customers from e-coli is OK, but protecting them from COVID is not? Or is it that, with COVID, the business owner’s rule is informed by a recommendation from the CDC, rather than being based on the owner’s whim? Is that really a reason to interfere with a business owner’s or employer’s right to run their business as they see fit (within the bounds of the law)?
The law has not changed. A state’s power to require vaccination during a public health emergency has been clear since the 1905 decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts. There is no question of a state’s reasonable basis for the rule; numerous COVID studies have shown that counties with a mask mandate having better public health outcomes than counties without a mandate. Same with higher rates of vaccination. But I am less concerned with the law and the science than with the conviction some people have that they don’t have to follow rules laid down for the benefit of all if they think, however wrongly, that their constitutional rights are violated. What was once a lunatic fringe position has gone mainstream, and I don’t know why.
I understand the anarchist position, however goofy, that there should be no rules, so that everyone can be totally free. But I don’t understand why a rule requiring shoes is OK, but a rule requiring masks is not. I don’t understand why a board of health can require hand-washing, but can’t require mask-wearing. Somebody help me.
