The party of stupid

Banning masks is just as heavy-handed as requiring them.

Credit: https://www.vperemen.com

Growing up, I heard a story about a Ku Klux Klan march in Wadesboro in the mid-1960s. School integration divided the county and the Klan wanted to show its strength. However, the state’s anti-mask law required them to march hoodless. According to my father, when the hoods came off, people realized the Klan was made up of a bunch of misfits and losers.

Now, in the story I heard, the anti-mask law was a local ordinance put in place in the early 1900s to combat a spate of banditry in the area. Nevertheless, the anecdote and the point are still valid. Transparency illuminates truth.

Republicans, though, are trying to bastardize the anti-mask law that was suspended during CIVID. They claim they are just trying to return to normal in the post-pandemic era. In reality, they are virtue-signaling to their base and pandering to stupidity.

Republicans refuse to allow an exception to the law for health reasons. They don’t have a good reason. They just want to stick it to woke liberals. In their view, masks are a symbol of the fake pandemic.

The GOP is honoring those who killed their parents and grandparents by denying the severity of COVID. Masks helped prevent the spread of the disease and can certainly help prevent other problems for people with respiratory problems. Despite the GOP denial, the science is now complete and we know that masks do reduce the spread of the COVID and other respiratory diseases.

The bill is really a reactionary response to the mask mandates imposed during the height of COVID. Republicans spent the pandemic in denial about COVID’s severity and pushed back against government regulations meant to curb its spread. They politicized the pandemic and paid a serious price. According an NPR study, “…[P]eople in counties that voted strongly for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election were ‘nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19’ as people in pro-Biden counties.” The bill Republicans are pushing through the legislature right now is the epitome of wearing your stupidity on your sleeve.

They also don’t see the irony in their bill. Passing a law that prevents wearing masks is every bit as heavy-handed as imposing mask requirements. Both measures are examples of government limiting our freedoms. The bill is just another example of Big Government conservatism.

I was never a fan of mask mandates. I thought that we should leave that decision to people and businesses. If stores or restaurants wanted to require masks, that’s their prerogative. I also thought the government should have a public health campaign educating people about their benefits. But banning masks without a health exception is just stupid.

Republicans are just pandering to their ignorant base. The only people who feel that strongly about masks these days are right-wing culture warriors. They are still in denial about the scope of the pandemic, the effectiveness of vaccines, and the value of masks in preventing the spread of the disease. Of course, these are the same people who were taking horse dewormer to prevent a disease they didn’t believe existed. They are the ideological descendants of the Kluxers who marched in Wadesboro 60 years ago.