I head to a big box home improvement store, park in the lot,
put on my mask and walk toward the entrance.
I arrive at the entrance simultaneously with another customer, but he is
not wearing a mask. I am amazed and can
stand it no longer.
“Where is your mask?” I ask.
“I don’t own a mask and won’t wear a mask. No one can tell me I have to wear a mask to
go into a store. That violates my
rights,” he replies.
“Can you play football without a helmet? Or perhaps I should
ask did you play football without a helmet?”
“No, you can’t play football without a helmet.”
“Can you work on a construction site without a hard
hat? Can you drive a car without a
license or insurance or a seat belt? Can
you simply drive through a red light or drive 100 miles per hour if you want
to? Can your kids go to school without vaccinations? Can you practice medicine without a license?
Can you go to a fancy restaurant without wearing a coat and tie? Can you swim naked in a public pool? Can you just not pay taxes?” I query.
He pauses. Looks like
he is thinking, but I am not sure.
“No, you can’t do any of those things unless you want to pay
the price.”
“So, if we know that wearing a mask promotes public safety,
protects you and protects me, and the store asks you to wear a mask, how is
that a violation of your rights in some way different than all those other
things I listed? I don’t wear a mask so
much to protect me. I wear a mask to
protect you. I do not want the water
droplets I exhale to fall on you and increase your risk of contracting the
virus that has already killed 100,000 Americans. So, why won’t you wear a mask to protect me?”
He turned and left.
No retort. There is no
retort. If we understand as a civilized
nation that our individual freedoms must sometimes be limited for the good of
others then we should not have a problem with masks. If we believe that what I want is more important
than the safety and well-being of others then we are practicing a belief system
that is so childish, so selfish that it is almost beyond my understanding. Those who think that way are practicing
American blasphemy. They are disparaging
the core belief system of our nation.
On the way home from the home improvement store I hear on
the radio that our President has declared religious service to be
essential. In other words, they are now immune
to the requirements of social distancing, avoiding large groups in small
places, etc., because they are essential.
I almost wreck my truck. This is
so wrong on so many levels I hardly know where to start.
Our Constitution is very clear: the government shall make no law regarding the
existence of religion. Die-hard
evangelicals have a hard time with that concept because they think we were
founded as some kind of Christian stronghold against the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. One of our core beliefs is that the
government should never, ever tell a citizen what to believe regarding religion. What we believe is private, sacred. Pilgrims fled to American from nations that
adopted a national religion and felt free to persecute those who did not
believe as they were told. Our
forefathers never wanted that to happen here.
So, we have a nation that is constitutionally mandated to stay out of religious
belief systems announce that religious belief systems are essential to our
country in times of a pandemic.
Unbelievable. Talk about recognizing
the establishment of religion!
But it is worse than that.
As the number of Americans who are infected and the number of Americans
who are dying from coronavirus continues to rise we know several things. We should not gather in groups. We should maintain social distancing. We should wear masks. We should wash our hands. And if violating the Constitution was not
bad enough we now have a President who is violating all the science we know
about this virus. How could this be any
worse? If I were interested in making
Christianity extinct in American this ruling is exactly what I would announce.
Somehow we have arrived at this point in our history when a
President trusts the landscape he develops between his ears more than the facts
medical science has taught us to be true.
The Pres thinks it is a hoax, he thinks warm weather will kill it, he
thinks we have it under control, he thinks hydroxychloroquine is effective in
fighting the virus, he thinks ingested bleach will kill it, he thinks internal
ultraviolet light will kill it, and now he thinks to gather a bunch of people
in a small, poorly ventilated space where they sit side-by-side, hug, shake
hands, talk, and sing is an essential operation; and then he goes to play golf
while America gets sicker.
Denying the fruits of science is not how we became a great
nation. Just the opposite. Why have we somehow begun to perceive that
knowledge, expertise, professional experience is worth less than Trump’s
fantasies? In our history this will be
seen as our dark age. When we ignored
science and relied on the guts of a mentally disturbed, lying, vindictive,
thin-skinned, autocratic narcissist. For
those who are believers I would recommend holding Zoom prayer meetings to allow
us to escape from this devil who appears to have arrived to destroy us.
If that offends you, too bad. If you think Trump’s guts and intuition
should mean more than real science then I suggest that you find a dentist who
practices dentistry as we did in the 1950s, a doctor who practices medicine
based on what we knew in the 1950s, throw your smartphone, your laptop, and your
smart TV in the recycle bin, turn off your Roomba, disable your car’s safety
features, and send your kids to school without vaccinations. How can we be so ignorant?
Worse, how can we belittle and ignore our experts? It is beyond my understanding that those who
lack education somehow claim to have a position of prestige compared to those
who have an education. Don’t tell me “college
wasn’t for me.” BS. College wasn’t for me either as I worked my
way through my degrees. It was
hard. It was expensive. It was mind-expanding. It is something I will never lose.
These are our American beliefs. Our population must be educated to
successfully wield the power of democracy.
Our democracy is grounded in human rights including speech, religion,
and protests, but we limit those rights when the practice may harm others. We have from the beginning
valued immigration and diversity. We
have from the beginning fought bigotry, slavery, the reduction of freedoms, and the
promotion of the economic health of all our citizens.
What our current administration is practicing is American
blasphemy and they should be damned.
