George Floyd was horrifically murdered, effectively suffocated to death by a knee covered by the dark blue cloth of a police uniform. His last muffled words “Momma” and “I can’t breathe” go deep into our psyches.
Watching the George Floyd video, we screamed for justice at our computers and TV’s. Humans are generally wired to come to the rescue of our fellow humans in danger, but we were helpless to intervene as we watched what we knew by then to be his last breaths. Millions, if not billions, of hands around the world wanted to reach back in time and pull that knee off of George Floyd, but our hands were tied, and our screams muted.
Then we watched images of the last breaths of our vulnerable elderly suffocating to death at the hands of the coronavirus that had travelled from China. Helpless again we watched images of our elderly with their ventilator mask covered faces gasping for breath as the coronavirus attacked their lungs.
We scream through our computers and TVs at the heavy handed lock down tactics of faux maskers like Gov. Cuomo who, presumably unwittingly, sent coronavirus cases to our vulnerable elderly in nursing homes. The media, like CNN, blithely ignore this fact and work with Cuomo to construct him as a hero. We scream at their talking heads about the injustice, but they talk over us without even a pause in the programming.
Then came gas mask wearing rioters burning down buildings and looting stores, protecting their lungs from the tear gas of repercussions as the police bravely defend our democracy. All this while the vast majority suffocate in 24/7 mainstream media masking the true identity of the violently anarchist Marxists who have little to do with black lives mattering. #JusticeforGeorgeFloyd’s last breath is no longer trending.
Those law abiding citizens for whom George Floyd’s life really mattered are now confronted with whether to wear a mask or not. As it happens, the law allows individual local governments to decide this critical issue. The spectrum runs from an opportunistic swipe at civil liberties from the Marxist Democratic Left requiring masks even where it makes no sense, like in your own home, to a thoughtful approach that protects the vulnerable and our civil liberties.
Still, the rise of masked vigilantes trying to enforce laws that only exist in their sometimes legitimately concerned, and other times hypochondriac, minds wanting to control everything and everyone around them is putting law abiding citizens in peril. Where there is no law or store policy requiring masks, the police should be arresting these masked vigilantes harassing people who may also be dealing with a medical issue preventing them from wearing one, even where masks are required.
Are we lawbreakers if we don’t wear a mask and possibly cause harm, especially to the vulnerable, elderly? If we do wear masks, is the psychological impact to effectively agree to muffle our screams at the injustice?
In my opinion, follow the law where law makers have established a law. Where law makers have not made a law and have left people with the liberty to choose to follow their “guidance” or not (under threat of a constitutional challenge), those people should not have to put up with masked vigilantes harassing them.
If a store feels strongly enough to lose business over a mandatory mask policy, respect their position and shop elsewhere. Likewise people living with a person vulnerable to Covid, like the elderly and those with comorbidities, and they choose to shop in a store where there is neither a law nor a store policy requiring masks instead of shopping online, the police should take action against such masked vigilantes harassing law abiding citizens.
President Trump has provided rational guidance that respects individual freedoms in a democratic country: wear a mask when you can’t socially distance, and where appropriate, like a hospital. This allows individual liberty to breath while not risking the lives of vulnerable people. The best, well known prescription to calm our human bodies is to take long deep breaths. 2020 has so many ironies.
We live in Western democracies that are the most prosperous, responsible, and free nations in recorded history, and where we have taken care of our nations and each other so that we can breath freely and deeply.
Breath that in while being seen and present, with a mask if necessary, shouting protests to peacefully defend our Western democracies.
