An Open Letter To Those Claiming Oppression From Wearing Masks

Your insipid twaddle is tiresome. You are not being oppressed.

• Oppressed are people of color who, every day, face a double standard and do not have access to the same opportunities you have because you are white. While you flash the confederate flag around you show your intent to keep hatred and prejudice alive.
• Oppressed are the poor who bear a disproportionate burden of this public health crisis. Traditional low wage workers were barely making it before this disaster. They don’t have the option of working from home. They may not even have a home.
• Oppressed are the six million Jews sent to the gas chambers during World War II because some lunatic decided they were an inferior race. It is tragic on every level, including the level that had thousands of people blindly following a crazy despot.
• Oppressed are GLBTQ persons in this country who don’t meet your standard for how someone should look or who they should love.

Wearing a mask does not quality as oppression. Privileged, selfish, spoiled, entitled small human beings are far more apt descriptors.

You think that your individual “rights” are more important than the well-being of our nation’s people. There are hundreds of thousands of grieving family members whose loved ones died without them by their side who would beg to differ. Just. Stop. Get. Over. Yourselves.

Your self–righteous, self-important assertions are not becoming. Your rights are not being violated. Your right of free association is not impinged. You can gather with whatever group of nut jobs you choose. You should know, however, you are being played like a cheap kazoo. Your so-called protests are, in many cases, bankrolled by those who have political motivations. Yeah, it’s not that there are that many people who agree with you. They are being paid by high rollers to take up your “cause” for the political favors they will call in down the road. It’s called astroturfing, and the solidarity they show with you is as phony as the grass after which it is named.

Lest you think in error about how your rights are being violated, let me clarify. According to Civil Rights attorney Peter James, “the Supreme Court has long upheld time, place and manner of public gatherings.” The current restrictions are within well-defined parameters and are perfectly legal. According to James, “Public health and safety, especially where it comes to highly infectious diseases, has been upheld as a compelling governmental interest that can override fundamental rights including the right to free exercise of religious beliefs.”

It is also perfectly acceptable for store owners to set limits on what can be purchased and when. They are free to set their own policies and determine how these policies are carried out. For example, store owners have the right to limit your purchase of toilet paper for your whole town, should everyone get dysentery at the same time. Store owners also have the right to deny you entry into their store if you refuse to wear a mask. Deal with it. Don’t go to a store jonesing for a fight and start recording so you can demonstrate how oppressed you are. It makes you a laughing stock. Don’t go to a store and spit in a cashier’s face because you refuse to wear a mask. It is a disgusting behavior under any circumstances, all the more now as it might be deadly. You might take heed that someone who recently did this has been charged with a felony.

What is curiously absent in your whiny assertions about your rights is a moral conscience. During World War II people willingly (for the most part) lived with rationing. It was for the good of the war effort and people were united around it. Currently, we need to be united around a common cause–saving lives and stopping the spread of the Corona virus. If you are utterly unable or unwilling to see this, you are indeed a sad human being.

The limits you are being asked to obey are for the good of people as a whole–social well-being over individual “liberty.” You are simply being asked to “take one for the team.” It is in the best interest of our country for you to get off your self-righteous soap box and follow the rules. Put on the damn mask. The loved one you save may be your own. The longer you insist on your silly little protests, the longer this virus is going to spread unchecked.

You should know that blathering on about your “rights” makes you look arrogant and unconcerned about anyone other than yourself. No one wears that look well. I would like to believe that you are better than that, but your behavior suggests otherwise. Prove me wrong, please. I dare you to put forth a better self. I challenge you to subvert your own self-centeredness with gestures of magnanimity that benefit everyone.

I have no idea what your political affiliation is and I do not care. What may interest you, however, is that there is wide bi-partisan support for not opening everything too soon. According to the Atlantic Monthly, roughly sixty percent of Americans are concerned about opening too soon.  You are not in the majority.

There is a need for social unity over individual assertion of rights and liberties. People everywhere are counting on every one of us to put forward our best selves.