timschochet
Footballguy
Joe shut the other thread down because some people were being rude. I wasn’t part of that, and many in that thread were raising good points. I want to address 2 of them:
1. In response to my proposal to make mask wearing mandatory, @Ditkaless Wonders challenged me on how I would enforce it. It’s a good question; the Chinese enforced it with drones. That’s too draconian for me. My own answer is a lot simpler: you enforce it the same way you enforce laws against jaywalking or driving past the speed limit: if a policeman catches you without a mask, he writes you a ticket. This obviously won’t eliminate people not wearing masks, but it will serve as a deterrent and reduce their numbers which is my entire point.
In truth I don’t think there will be a lot of trouble enforcing it once it’s the law. I think most people will abide by this when they are told that they must.
2. Both @Ramblin Wreck and @tonydead made arguments that mask wearing should be situational, there are times when it made no sense to wear a mask, and thus it shouldn’t be mandatory. (in the case of tonydead this was a much more reasonable stance than his previous, IMO nonsensical “anti-mask” position.) I understand this principle and I’m normally sympathetic to it. Basically what they’re saying is that people with common sense shouldn’t be punished or restricted just because other people don’t have common sense. It’s a traditional conservative/libertarian argument and it has plenty of merit. But I just do not believe that it can be applied safely to a pandemic situation. The problem is that, unlike almost all other situations where this philosophy might apply, those without common sense in the midst of a pandemic are too much of a threat to the rest of us. Therefore I believe we are forced to adopt the “better safe than sorry” approach, which means we must all face restriction in order to protect all of us.
1. In response to my proposal to make mask wearing mandatory, @Ditkaless Wonders challenged me on how I would enforce it. It’s a good question; the Chinese enforced it with drones. That’s too draconian for me. My own answer is a lot simpler: you enforce it the same way you enforce laws against jaywalking or driving past the speed limit: if a policeman catches you without a mask, he writes you a ticket. This obviously won’t eliminate people not wearing masks, but it will serve as a deterrent and reduce their numbers which is my entire point.
In truth I don’t think there will be a lot of trouble enforcing it once it’s the law. I think most people will abide by this when they are told that they must.
2. Both @Ramblin Wreck and @tonydead made arguments that mask wearing should be situational, there are times when it made no sense to wear a mask, and thus it shouldn’t be mandatory. (in the case of tonydead this was a much more reasonable stance than his previous, IMO nonsensical “anti-mask” position.) I understand this principle and I’m normally sympathetic to it. Basically what they’re saying is that people with common sense shouldn’t be punished or restricted just because other people don’t have common sense. It’s a traditional conservative/libertarian argument and it has plenty of merit. But I just do not believe that it can be applied safely to a pandemic situation. The problem is that, unlike almost all other situations where this philosophy might apply, those without common sense in the midst of a pandemic are too much of a threat to the rest of us. Therefore I believe we are forced to adopt the “better safe than sorry” approach, which means we must all face restriction in order to protect all of us.
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