Unlike so many others, I don't do wear the mask to protect the health of someone else or the health of myself. I firmly trust that as this virus moves throughout the population (sooner better than later), individuals will either build up an immunity to it or die. I believe that mask use, "social distancing", and curbs on commerce designed to "flatten the curve" only serve to destroy an otherwise healthy economy and empower evil people with copious amounts of time to devise nefarious ways to dominate others and destroy our sacred American liberties. I firmly hold that everyone will eventually be exposed and either survive their exposure or not and we should not allow any time for terrible people to find ways to capitalize on people's fears.
I see the mask as a symbol in our complicity to allow fear, deception, and duplicity to control us. Every reputable source available has reported on the ineffectiveness of the mask in blocking the virus, making the mask nothing more than some strange symbol of obedience to an either ignorant or pandering emergency authority. I reject such authority and the managed hysteria that drives it. For this reason, I detest the mask and only wear it because I am compelled to do so as follows.
The Threat of My Employment
It has been made very clear that I must wear a mask in the office as a new condition of my ongoing employment. I avoid this issue currently by working from home, but that situation is likely to change at some point. As a state-funded entity, my employer is just as compelled as I am to behave this way, though administrators may also cheer the state mandate individually. However, when you see me wear a mask in my work setting, it is because I am compelled to do so under threat of state-dictated employment termination.The Threat of Citation or Detainment
As time has passed, suggested actions against the virus have been strengthened into mandates with real punishments. Although I have not seen anyone prosecuted for "mask mandates" in my town, I have seen such emergency orders used to accost citizens and prosecute them elsewhere. I have largely avoided this threat by choosing to remain in my home as much as possible. I do not do this because it is a recommended method to "flatten the curve" but to avoid entanglements with law enforcement and a larger circle of purtanical "snitches" that may lie in wait to report me.The Priestly Ability to Serve
I also wear the mask when I perform my priestly duties and serve in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Though exception allows me to avoid the mask by staying away from church buildings, I would feel derelict in my duties to God and his children if I took such an exemption from service. In this case, I only wear the mask in church to attend the priestly service I perform under covenant with God.The New World Religion of the Mask as a Replacement for American Exceptionalism
Over the last ten years, I have watched my country change into a place I can hardly recognize. The mask serves as a poignant symbol of the new government-established and compelled "public health" religion that has infused our land.Liberty and a pluralistic society have not just disappeared, they are routinely belittled and punished in this time of ideological opportunism born of fear. Our national value of having different peoples living together in peace is simply no longer acceptable to agitating cultural squatters who seek to "divide and conquer" the United States and its founding principles.
Our Constitution that defended my liberal values of equal freedom from government coercion and equal justice and laws that pertain to all is flatly ignored in the perverse names of the newer demands of "social justice" and "public health". I have little allegiance to a system that officially separates people into groups and then showers such groups with either special privileges or cruel repressions, all praised by legislatures and stamped with an executive seal.
Recent weeks have seen urban centers terrorized by mobs and the reluctance by many "leaders" to re-establish order. Even elected officials join in the action to politically pander to "disgruntled" groups. Again, this is not the America of ten years ago and it is made much more like the squalid, corrupted, and enslaved parts of the world every passing day. Where will Central America's refugees go for real asylum in the future when our country is just as ruined as theirs?
Our independence has been buried and our revolution from foreign oppression is ultimately recorded as a loss. We have extinguished the "shining light on the hill" and watched as our families and communities are plunged into a repressive state darkness under the guise of a "saving" mask and other actions. The soul of The United States of America has simply died and this foundling tyranny that still bears its name is a cruel mockery of our founding. I would rather perish defending the principles of our liberty than die cowering in some corner, trusting to some purported salvation from schemers and a bit of fabric on my face.
