Opinion: Don’t Let The Masks Divide Us

Conservative News DailyAugust 3, 2021

As renewed lockdowns and mask mandates become increasingly common, elected officials have succeeded in causing further division and polarization in the United States.

Americans can now effectively look at one another and see a tangible difference which often leads them to draw the conclusion that perhaps that person has a different ideology than they do (if they are not wearing a mask), but also to make the assessment that they might be physically harmed by that person’s decision not to wear a mask.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revised its mask guidance last week, sending many Americans into a flurry of confusion, anger, and frustration. After a year of lockdowns and anxiety, with little clarity about the future, Americans have had enough. This is especially true when the so-called “science” on which the experts are basing their policy reversals seems to not only be inconsistent but directly contradictory to past guidelines.

In May, President Joe Biden told Americans that if they were fully vaccinated, they no longer needed to wear a mask. He and his administration changed that position this week, saying the flip has to do with a new strand of the virus — the Delta variant. Biden said there could be another virus in the future, sending the message to Americans that this kind of back-and-forth policy-making could go on forever.

Not only does this change in policy do serious harm to the nation’s trust in government institutions, but it undermines the administration’s ultimate goal of getting people vaccinated. Many Americans will not only be less inclined to get the vaccine if they are told that it doesn’t change their lives for the better, but those who got the vaccine will be less likely to follow such instructions and make similar decisions in the future.

The mask has now become a political statement. When CDC guidance allowed vaccinated individuals to stop wearing face coverings, the assumption could be made that people who were still wearing masks had decided against getting the vaccine — even though many Americans most likely stopped wearing masks once this guidance was decided, regardless of their vaccination status. At this point, someone who has decided not to get vaccinated has done so at their own freedom and own risk.

If I hand you an umbrella in a rainstorm, and you refuse to take it, it is not my responsibility if you get drenched.

The same goes for vaccines — but now those in charge of our scientific and political establishments have created a way for Americans to potentially visibly identify those who disagree or agree with them. The mask is now political.

This is bad for the country.

In his essay, “Live Not By Lies,” Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn pressed his peers to avoid living their life by the lies of others. He wrote about this practice as the best way forward, the best way to push back against oppression.

He wrote:

Our way must be: Never knowingly support lies! Having understood where the lies begin (and many see this line differently)—step back from that gangrenous edge! Let us not glue back the flaking scales of the Ideology, not gather back its crumbling bones, nor patch together its decomposing garb, and we will be amazed how swiftly and helplessly the lies will fall away, and that which is destined to be naked will be exposed as such to the world.

Solzhenitsyn offered a piece of understanding to people who were afraid to speak out against the lies that surrounded them:

We are not called upon to step out onto the square and shout out the truth, to say out loud what we think—this is scary, we are not ready. But let us at least refuse to say what we do not think!

Do not repeat things that you do not believe to be true. Find out the facts for yourself, and push the truth out in the smallest of ways. Wherever you fall in the mask and vaccine debate, don’t let it divide us.

We must not allow the ruling political elites to divide us further in the name of “science.”

We must not adhere to the notion that a person who does not agree with us, who does not make the same choices that we do, is dangerous and will harm us.

This does not end in a good way.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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