The Constitution, the Right and Face Masks

Over the last few weeks, I have been asking, very publicly, that my city enforces the state mask mandate. The order could include fines, but so far the police have been extremely reluctant to issue citations. So I took my one person loud protest to my Mayor’s Facebook page. Why? Health orders, like any other regulation or law, have zero teeth if they are not enforced. And in the midst of a global pandemic, a ticket will be effective.

We continue to act as if this were a game. While we do this, 166 countries, so far, have closed their borders to Americans. Granted, most Americans will not notice since a minority hold valid passports. So not being able to travel will not affect most people’s lives, and we are highly provincial and insular people. So there is little curiosity as to how former hotspots, like oh Italy, are doing. Well, they wear masks. They wash their hands, they continue to social distance, and they have contained the virus. It is to the point that they have mostly opened their economy and mostly gone back to some normalcy.

Like other places, they take this seriously. Most critically, they do not see a health order that will help buy time until a vaccine is found, as a terrible infringement in daily life. In fact, wearing a mask in many parts of the world is not just common sense, but patriotic. They also have a higher trust in…