But if wearing masks really is tyranny (I can't go there, it's too absurd, but IF ICE REALLY WERE HOT ... do you understand how utterly absurd it is to arguing from a completely nonsensical assumption) then businesses should not be allowed to enforce it either.
Trees don't grow on money
The difference between governments and businesses in this issue is that government uses force against it's citizens to enforce its edicts where the businesses simply says "We're happy to have you stop by but we do require you to follow our rules. Have a nice day!".Originally Posted by ApatheticNoMore
It's the difference between you telling guests that you don't allow shoes to be worn in your house and the local government making the wearing of shoes indoors illegal.
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
When it is health related it’s reasonable for governments to be able to mandate masks.
Perhaps the anti-maskers prefer to do away with Public Health altogether. No more vaccines. Bring all those eradicated diseases (yes, they are out there dormant-my state has a known area where smallpox lies). I mean, why on earth would I give a shit if you get sick right? Not my problem.
The fact that 516K humans are dead in our country alone, and people are still pissing and moaning about masks and not filling every table in restaurants, having big gatherings, refusing to social distance .......this mentality is completely beyond me. I guess 39 years in science with expertise in Infection Prevention doesn't help me.
In my county, which has had notably low covid case counts given our circumstances, we've been aggressively managing the covid situation since the very beginning.
We found, early on when we tried not issuing formal regulations and relied on businesses to do their own policy/policing, that we got a lot of pushback. From the local business community, oddly. They were having trouble with angry customers, who were blaming the business. By issuing an official order, the business owner could shrug, point at the order from the County Health Officer, and say "blame him, not me". This reduced tensions considerably, and I believe produced better behaviour.
It also made it much easier to have consistent messaging at each business, when the approximately 900,000 tourists descended on our 5000-person island, as usual, during the summer season, even though we had used advertising dollars to suggest strongly that people not come here for vacation, as that was against the state regulations at the time, and we had no capacity to serve them. Now when a tourist showed up at any shop, they saw basically the same notice on the door, with the same message, logo, font, and so on. (These were not required, but the businesses snapped up the sample message we put out and ran with it.)
As a result, we had almost no infections sourced from the tourist influx, which was remarkable.
YMMV, but in this quite libertarian-leaning community, we ended up having the first mask requirements in the state. For compliance, well, since we have basically no law enforcement here, and the public health officer and emergency management folks were busy dealing with more serious issues, we relied on most people basically behaving properly, and some community social pressure. There are a few businesses here, for example, that will likely perish, as most locals will no longer support those stores because of their notably-crazy behaviour during the pandemic. Some are already belly-up.
I believe scientific term for that is 'an assumption not in evidence'.
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
that's all very well for their customers, but what about their employees who have to be exposed to the virus by unmasked customers and have very little choice in the matter. I bet a lot of them breath a sigh of relief when a law is passed mandating masks (hooray I don't have to face additional (and the risk is not zero even with masks), EASILY preventable (as the mask part is the easily preventable part), risk of disease today just because my employers have been pathetic about enforcing masks). Why maybe I can even have a nice day today!The difference between governments and businesses in this issue is that government uses force against it's citizens to enforce its edicts where the businesses simply says "We're happy to have you stop by but we do require you to follow our rules. Have a nice day!".
Trees don't grow on money
That part doesn’t baffle me so much. It’s the part where you want to define Taco Bell or Safeway as a municipality.It's pretty simple actually, it's just an individual freedom sort of outlook on life. I guess it's only downside is that it's constantly under attack by those who'd rather use government force to control, restrict and demonize, but I think that may also be one of it's most endearing and noble characteristics.
The term, I believe, is "Assumes Facts Not in Evidence", and it is from the lofty realm of law, not science :-)
Another example of an assumption not in evidence. I believe that my desire to set the terms for my interactions with a business must also allow the business to do the same with me. We can both then choose whether to do business with each other or not. A municipality or county or state or national government issuing edicts for how we both will interact removes both our options.
I know it makes it easier on a Safeway or Taco Bell to enforce its terms if it can be backed up by government force, and a lot of people seem to appreciate others being forced to do certain things, but I'll bet no one appreciates the threat of government force in everything. And we should all be able to agree or disagree on the scope of 'everything' without being mis-represented.
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
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