American Blasphemy

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.