Remember back during the dark times — the COVID pandemic — when the evil Galactic Empire — various governing bodies here in the U.S. — being led by the vile Emperor Palpatine — Joe Biden — were forcing people to strap paper diapers to their faces or else lose their jobs and not be able to go out and interact with other human beings unless you brought along a measuring tape to ensure you were standing in the magical safe space created by the Force that protected you from getting the coronavirus?
I don’t miss those days. Do you?
Probably not, but there actually are some who are nostalgic for the lockdown period. They, of course, are clinically insane, but that’s beside the point.
And unfortunately for those who long for the not-so-good old days, masks are no longer mandated. In fact, some states are now going the opposite direction and criminalizing the wearing of masks. My, how the turn tables.
via MSN:
State legislators and law enforcement are reinstating dormant laws that criminalize mask-wearing to penalize pro-Palestinian protesters who conceal their faces, raising concerns among covid-cautious Americans.
Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are poised to overturn Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s recent veto of legislation to criminalize masking. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said this month she supports legislative efforts to ban masks on the subway, citing an incident in which masked protesters on a train shouted: “Raise your hands if you’re a Zionist. This is your chance to get out.” Student protesters in Ohio, Texas and Florida have been threatened with arrest for covering their faces.
Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are poised to overturn Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s recent veto of legislation to criminalize masking. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said this month she supports legislative efforts to ban masks on the subway, citing an incident in which masked protesters on a train shouted: “Raise your hands if you’re a Zionist. This is your chance to get out.” Student protesters in Ohio, Texas and Florida have been threatened with arrest for covering their faces.
I’m sorry, but the irony of all this is too rich. From once mandating everyone cover their faces in masks, to now wanting to outlaw them in order to prevent people from engaging in violent, racist crimes just hits the funny bone. I find it amusing because one of the reasons so many of us were against wearing masks in the first place was this very thing.
Usually, when you see someone enter an establishment wearing a mask, there’s a good chance you’re about to get robbed or worse. When masks were mandated, well, you lost the ability to pick out the good guys from the bad guys. Talk about vindication.
Decades-old laws against masking — often crafted in response to the hooded terror of the Ku Klux Klan — are on the books in at least 18 states and D.C., according to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. Lawmakers in some areas passed legislation to create health exemptions during the coronavirus pandemic while other authorities vowed not to enforce the statutes.
Immunocompromised Americans and civil libertarians who have long criticized mask bans as a cudgel against protesters of police shootings, economic inequality and environmental injustice say the bans are being revived because covid is no longer treatedas a public health emergency. Coronavirus levels in wastewater are reaching high levels across much of the Sun Belt and Florida, early indications of a summer covid wave, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Those in Congress who are chomping at the bit to get those mask mandates reinstated — yes, these lunatics do exist. Find out who they are and vote ’em out of office, please and thank you — say that new pieces of legislation would not target individuals who are considered medically vulnerable, nor those who are attempting to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses.
Critics of bans on masks are whining that putting these restrictions in place will further ostracize those who continue to strap diapers on their ugly mugs and make them targets for harassment by both police and fellow citizens.
The day after the North Carolina House of Representatives passed its anti-masking bill in June in response to pro-Palestinian protests at the University of North Carolina, Shari Stuart said a man confronted her for wearing a surgical mask when she walked into an auto service center in the Raleigh area to get an oil change. After she tried to explain that she has Stage 4 breast cancer and a weakened immune system, Stuart said, the man called her a “f—ing liberal” and insisted masks were now illegal. He later coughed on her and said he hoped the cancer would kill her.
Stuart, who spoke with a local television station about her experience, stated she’s concerned that harassment of this kind would only get worse if mask restrictions are codified into law, despite the fact such bills contain language that permits the wearing of a “a medical or surgical grade mask for the purpose of preventing the spread of contagious disease.”
“People are still going to think you are breaking the law if you’re wearing a mask. They don’t care what’s wrong with you,” Stuart said in an interview with The Washington Post. “I’ve thought I should wear masks with something printed on it like ‘immune deficient’ or ‘cancer patient.’ But we should not have to do that.”
And no backlash against this kind of bill would be complete without somebody playing the race card.
“Anytime you see these kind of laws where we are mandating a certain thing someone can do with their body, who is going to be most affected by that? Black and Brown people,” Diana Cejas, a Black pediatric neurologist in Chapel Hill, N.C., who wears a mask in part because she claims to be at greater risk from respiratory illness due to scar tissue around her airways caused by cancer treatment. “At the same time, I’m not going to let it deter me from trying to keep myself safe and my patients safe.”
Many Republicans think all of this is whole lot of fuss over nothing.
“Bad actors have been using masks to conceal their identity when they commit crimes and intimidate the innocent,” state Sen. Danny Earl Britt Jr. (R), who is one of the big sponsors of the legislation, said in a statement. “Instead of helping put an end to this threatening behavior, the governor wants to continue encouraging these thugs by giving them more time to hide from the consequences of their actions. I look forward to casting a vote to override this veto and allowing those with actual health concerns to protect themselves and others.”
Listen, even New York Attorney General Letitia James, a flaming anti-Trump Democrat, is all in on mask restrictions.
Yaacov Behrman, a rabbi who favors masking restrictions with exceptions for public health, said he was recently harassed by a group of pro-Palestinian protesters, including some in masks who shouted “Zionists are not welcome here,” while he walked by the Brooklyn Museum wearing a kippah, a head covering worn by some Jewish men.
New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) has encouraged retail businesses to make customers pull down their masks when they enter to dissuade robberies. “I think now is the time to go back to the way it was pre-covid,” Adams said in a radio interview this month.
It’s time for folks to get a grip and let go of the past. The days of COVID are over. Move forward like the rest of us. Also, someone who is harassing someone on the street because they are Jewish and is allowed to get away with it because they are wearing a mask is protecting criminal behavior and not amount of health fear can justify that.