Dear Editor,
Your recent letter writer is apparently not getting the reaction to her weekly missives that she desires (witness the longer, more strident, and IN CAPS in case we missed HER POINT letter). So, risking that no one will come threatening me with their long guns for offering my opinion here’s another side of the mask “debate” for local citizens to consider.
First of all, there’s the issue of rights. Somehow in all the noise generated by the 24-hour “news” cycles, we’ve lost sight of the fact that rights entail not only one’w own rights, but the rights of others. Rights are fundamental to our democratic republic, enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, outlining what is allowed activity by citizens ... and what is owed to citizens by government (which is us) and by fellow citizens (emphasis on fellow). Anyone’s “right” to not abide by a science -based health directive to wear a mask in public in this time of frighteningly escalating coronavirus cases stops at the distance it takes to spray someone else with one’s possibly infected bodily fluids.
Second, the analogy of requiring car insurance to protect others as compared to wearing a mask in public is not quite accurate. A more precise comparison to refusing to wear a mask would be having unprotected sex with numerous strangers. Just as the unprotected exchange of body fluids with someone you don’t know during sex includes everyone they’ve had sex with, unmasked spraying of one’s body fluids onto everyone near the sprayer potentially exposes them to everyone who’s recently sprayed the sprayer, as well as who sprayed them, and who sprayed them. Think of it this way: wearing masks might possibly leave open a bed in the ICU for even someone who became infected by not wearing a mask.
third, there’s the problem of where people are getting their “facts.” Being of the Baby Boomer generation myself, it’s become abundantly clear that folks my age have waaaay too much time on their hands to sit and explore the sewers of the internet. If you’re reacting to a “news” item, a post or a video that instantly frightens you, enrages you, or otherwise elicits strong emotion, do you just accept what you’re being fed and repost it for all your equally aggrieved friends to see and share? Or do you consult a fact-checker site or at very least type the “facts” of the shocking item into the Google search bar to see what other sites might agree with the information from the site you’re looking at?
In addition, do you ever question what those “news” organizations that get you so hopping mad every single hour of every single day get out of eliciting that reaction from so many people? Their ratings, determined by how many people are willingly allowing such garbage to be spoon-fed into their brains -- and consequently big advertising dollars -- depend on their viewers just becoming instantly outraged and never, ever stopping to question what’s causing the outrage du jour.
As local obituaries start to fill with people who died of coronavirus or complications of coronavirus, I offer my thanks to the families for not hiding the cause of death of their loved ones and also my deepest sympathies. And in closing, I ask that those refusing to wear masks please just stop a moment and think about those of their friends, families, acquaintances and even innocent strangers.
Chris Williams
Green River
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