Quote:
Originally Posted by LoveLakeLife
Why say “precious individual liberty” with such seeming sarcasm? Is there a more apt adjective? No one needs government to tell them to wear a mask. If someone wants to wear one, they can.
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My cynical use of "precious individual liberty" was intentional. Americans stand out against other countries for their insistence on 100% individual freedom even if it hurts others or hurts the country. They use a simplistic understanding of the Constitution to justify this. This is an aberrant and juvenile understanding of freedom. It baffles people in other countries where "patriotism" includes concern for the common good and willingness to give up a small amount of personal freedom to protect others.
It's beyond me why some people think they should have the freedom to spread COVID-19 to others. Unless you get tested frequently, you don't even know whether you have it, so if you go into a store without a mask there's no way you can truthfully claim you're not spreading the virus. The suggestion has been made repeatedly in this forum that vulnerable people like those over 60 should just stay home---i.e., give up their Constitutional freedom to circulate freely---so that others (who mistakenly think they're not vulnerable) can go around without a mask. In other words, their freedom to spread the virus is more important than my freedom to go out in public and my freedom to live. This is beyond absurd.
This battle of "my freedom versus your freedom" arises in a society that has not taken care to educate people about civic responsibility beginning in childhood. You can't reverse social narcissism later in life; it becomes more entrenched as people feel justified in hurting others to hold onto
inconsequential freedoms like not wearing a mask. That's right: compared to not killing other people by spreading the virus, wearing a mask is an inconsequential freedom. I don't like wearing a mask. I like infecting innocent people far less.
My version of patriotism is loving my country enough to want to see it survive!