OPINION:
Face mask mandates are coming back and this is the situation: Fight them, resist them, mock them and demand the bureaucrats who issue them stand down and step aside — or America will soon see its next nationwide lockdown and loss of liberty.
The face masks are the gateway for tyrants.
Here are five reasons to fight the forced face masking, beginning with the science — the stuff the forced face-masking lefties say they oh-so-always support: They don’t work.
“The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?” wrote Bret Stephens in a February piece for The New York Times.
For The New York Times.
Of course, regardless, despite that it was published in The New York Times, the face mask tyrants were quick to dismiss the piece and attack the author, even though the piece relied on data from a comprehensive report on the efficacy of masks for reducing COVID’s spread — and not just one of those quasi-science reports that pulled together bits of select non-randomized information to push politically motivated agendas. No. Rather, the piece cited a study that came from what’s widely hailed as a gold standard of scientific study, a British nonprofit called Cochrane.
The Cochrane report concluded that “wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza-like illness.”
Like COVID.
Stephens not only cited this study. He also cited the statements of the study’s lead author, Oxford epidemiologist Tom Jefferson.
“There is just no evidence that [face masks] make any difference,” Jefferson said, as Stephens wrote. In The New York Times.
And as for the touted benefits of N-95 masks over cloth masks, or in the case of Hollywood Stupid, crocheted masks?
“Makes no difference — none of it,” Jefferson said, Stephens wrote. In The New York Times.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the left’s go-to for politicized, weaponized science, was confronted with the facts on face mask failures during a September CNN interview during which he was asked about Donald Trump’s vow to fight COVID-tied mandates. And he responded as the politically weaponized scientist he is: with a smirk and doubling down of his deceptions.
“There are other studies,” Fauci said, “that show at an individual level, for individuals, when you’re talking about the effect on the epidemic or pandemic as a whole, the data are less strong. But when you talk about as an individual basis as someone protecting themselves or protecting themselves from spreading it to others, there’s no doubt that there are many studies that show that there is an advantage.”
What the freak, Fauci. That this fraud is given such a broad platform to spew his obfuscating malarky is both maddening and damaging.
But the real science is in and the real science simply supports what common sense already said: A minuscule virus isn’t going to be stopped by face masks, particularly when those face masks are forced onto the faces of people who pull them down to eat, stuff them in pockets to drink, shove them into glove boxes while driving and fit them haphazardly over their mouths but beneath their noses, gaps galore, when they do have to wear them.
It’s stupid. It’s stupid personified. And the data clearly show how stupid it is.
So Reason Number One to resist the forced face mask: They don’t stop the spread of the virus.
Here are the remaining four: Face masks are not American — they’re truly an Asian cultural thing. Face masks are the outward show of obedience to government. Face masks promote a lie, and worse, the willingness of Americans to participate in a lie, which has the soon-enough consequence of watering down the lie and ultimately, replacing the truth for the lie. Face masks keep the hysteria and fear alive and well.
There are more reasons: face masks have the not-so-subtle effect of silencing dissent; face masks ultimately turn the nation from one of individualism, populated by individualists into one of collectivism, populated by people trained to suppress the desires of self and elevate the good of the state; face masks teach our children to comply; face masks inhibit breathing, cause facial rashes and can contribute to respiratory health problems.
Take your pick.
The reasons to resist the face mask are many.
The reasons to wear one?
Only this: to advance communism and Marxism. Leftists who want to crumble America’s Constitution and strip citizens of their God-given liberties need only see the masks on faces to get the nod for additional intrusions onto freedoms — to get the message that fear can be manipulated once again for political gain — to get the go-ahead to urge and implement more lockdowns, more controls, more regulations, more restrictions.
The face masks are the gateway to total loss of individual liberty in America. Before going along to get along, it’s best to think of the consequences.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
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