https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/21/880832213/yes-wearing-masks-helps-heres-why
The consensus in healthcare is that wearing masks in public venues is effective against the spread of COVID 19.
We have laws against dumping raw sewage and other toxic effluent in our common waterways. What’s the big deal about preventing your own sputum from infecting the common air during a pandemic?
Would we tolerate someone pouring toxic waste and chemicals in our waters by calling it an expression of freedom? Would we tag such people as having the right to do so? Or would they be shamed, as well as arrested and charged with endangering public safety?
Has a sense of entitlement encouraged those who refuse to wear a mask? Are they supported by leadership that mocks and shuns mask wearing?
I think so.
IMHO
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
RE: “Would we tolerate someone pouring toxic waste and chemicals in our waters by calling it an expression of freedom? Would we tag such people as having the right to do so?”
Yes, we would, until such time as we could establish demonstrable harm to someone else.
RE: “Or would they be shamed, as well as arrested and charged with endangering public safety?”
They might be, especially in a society based on the principles of witch hunting. It is to avoid such things that we establish laws based on reason.
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So we need for people to suffer from toxic waste, get cancer, die or get sicker on a demonstrable scale over years of study. Until then you will comfortably dump your waste into the Lafayette River.
Of course, we have already determined that toxic waste and sewage are a public health hazard and very damaging to the environment.
We also know that wearing masks protects others from your infections, which you might not even know you have with the long incubation period.
I find your reasoning to be very cavalier, selfish, oafish, ignorant of what we are dealing with and actually a bit dangerous.
But that might just be me. But I find that a responsible citizen would have some regard for the health and safety of others as affected by their actions. And for those that don’t, we should use ordinances to enforce what should be modest behavioral changes.
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RE: “I find that a responsible citizen would have some regard for the health and safety of others as affected by their actions.”
I agree, but note that witch hunters make exactly that claim. How do you preserve yourself from becoming a witch hunter?
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You’re equating responsible citizenship with witch hunting. A cheap shot at those Americans who care about our nation and it’s citizens.
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RE: “You’re equating responsible citizenship with witch hunting.”
Not at all. I’m equating witch hunting with irrational statements, such as claiming to know what a “responsible citizen” is without being able to show cause and effect in individual cases.
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“Yes, we would, until such time as we could establish demonstrable harm to someone else.”
If toxic waste and chemicals, already proven to be harmful to others, are dumped, there would be no reasonable consideration for those who do that with “having a right to do so”. The laws are already established.
Your comment is nonsensical.
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My comment points out that demonstrable harm to others is a necessary pre-condition for restricting someone’s freedom. Yours assumes that the harm is already demonstrated.
That’s the very kind of witch-hunter style of thinking that I condemn.
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Harm has been demonstrated.
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RE: “Harm has been demonstrated.”
Has it? Can you document a case in which a specific individual was harmed because some other specific individual didn’t wear a mask?
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I am done.
You can research that it doesn’t work. The article I posted has a lot of studies on the efficacy’s of masks.
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Pick any one of the churches where people did not wear masks and 60% of the people there came down with the virus. How about the party in Arkansas (I believe that is where the big pool party was Memorial Day weekend) where several people tested positive afterwards. 16 young people went out in FL without masks and they all contracted the virus.
It is not about witch hunting. It is about people taking responsibility for their own health and safety and of those they interact with.
I could have easily called the health authorities on the gym across the street from my work that NEVER shut down even though the state mandated that those types of establishments be closed. (I even asked for opinions here on if I should).
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RE: “You can research that it doesn’t work.”
I’m not claiming that masks don’t work. I believe they do (In fact, I posted the first article on this very site claiming that they do).
Instead, I’m claiming that no one has a social responsibility to wear a mask because it cannot be shown that society is harmed by any particular instance of not wearing a mask. The harm can only be assumed or inferred.
But treating assumptions and inferences as truth is what witch hunters do, and therein lies the danger we should be aware of.
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What Len said.
It is not a witch hunt to find polluters who dump KNOWN toxic chemicals and sewage.
Again, your comment is nonsensical.
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RE: “It is not a witch hunt to find polluters who dump KNOWN toxic chemicals and sewage.”
As I said, you are assuming that the chemicals and sewage are known to be toxic. But even knowing that chemicals and sewage can be toxic, the polluter must be assumed innocent of any wrongdoing until a specific harm is shown. The general principle of toxicity is, by itself, insufficient to rob the polluter of his rights.
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Your continued science denial is noted. YOU JUST DON’T GET IT!
…”, the polluter must be assumed innocent of any wrongdoing until a specific harm is shown”…
KNOWN harmful chemicals and sewage are known to cause harm. Your legal brain is worse than your science brain.
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RE: “Your continued science denial is noted.”
No science denial here. If a polluter disposes of his pollution in a way that harms no one, would you penalize him?
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“If a polluter disposes of his pollution in a way that harms no one”…
Explain how that is even possible. It’s not and you can’t.
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RE: “Explain how that is even possible.”
I don’t have to. The burden is on you to show that your judgement of others is justified.
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“I don’t have to.”
You mean you CAN’T. Any harmful substances dumped illegally will cause harm, be it to an individual, a community, or the environment. Which will in the long run have a negative effect on people.
Like I said before: You just don’t get it.
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Condemn away, my good man, condemn away.
We know where you stand in the face of already demonstrable and effective means to reduce the spread of COVID to manageable l evens.
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Are you accusing me of some sort of personal insufficiency? If so, that’s the problem I’m talking about.
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Not insufficiency , just irresponsible and putting your personal convenience ahead of your fellow citizens’ health risks.
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RE: “just irresponsible and putting your personal convenience ahead of your fellow citizens’ health risks.”
Who are you to say, and on what basis?
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We are gong around in circles. You are what you are and believe what you will.
If you need documentation in triplicate with a notary to insure that your not wearing a mask is fine in a pandemic of a highly contagious and dangerous disease, then do so.
After all, it is all about you.
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As I said before, trying to place the blame for people who dont wear masks on a political party is plain ignorance. If there was even an iota of truth, there are more Trump and GOP supporters than I thought and that group contains a very large swath of young people in their 20s and 30s. It’ll be a land slide in Nov.
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What has made mask wearing political?
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You did, numerous times. Really???
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Sorry, it was political long before I commented on it.
This isn’t about you or me, this is about those who would argue with a minimum wage store clerk because they don’t feel like wearing a mask.
“My freedom is more important than your health”.
Now, we know that Trump disdains wearing a mask, mocks those who do and that is what makes this simple health measure a political football. His fans live and breathe Trump so when he comments, they all listen.
That is how all this reached a ridiculous status.
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Like I said before, if all the young people refusing to wear masks are all freedom loving Trump supporters, he will win by a landslide. Give it a rest.
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“It’ll be a land slide in Nov.”
Yep, four years of Biden, followed by eight years of either Harris or Demming. Or THEN.
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