Submitted by Jon Howe, San Juan Island.

An unmasked crowd of people, some wearing T-shirts that said “unvaxed,” defiantly walked around in our local grocery store the other day, to protest our current mask mandate.

It is law enforcement’s duty to enforce compliance with current masking requirements.

Similarly, it is law enforcement’s duty to stop and arrest a drunk driver.

What is the parallel?

If someone does not wear a mask at home or within their circle of friends and family, fine. They are entitled to their personal and private choice. Asking them to wear a mask in public does not infringe on that freedom at all. They have a right to not wear a mask and to drink alcohol in the privacy of their own home. BUT when someone gets drunk and then goes for a drive, can we all agree that their choice is no longer personal and private but public? As a drunk driver endangers the public, so also a potentially infected person who refuses to wear a mask in public endangers the public.

There are countless parallels. If you want to be naked at home, fine. But are you free to go naked at the grocery store? Does the expectation that you will wear clothes (like wearing a mask) in public infringe on your rights? (Not that nudity endangers anyone.)

Asking people to wear a mask does not infringe on rights. It’s not a big deal, nor a political issue, nor should it be. It’s a simple precaution, a health issue…based on the available science. Is science perfect? No. But it’s the best tool we have. Better than fear and suspicion. To the best of our knowledge, there is a virus and it is spreading. Through the air, we are told, from an infected person’s breath and some infected people show no symptoms.

Sadly and understandably, we have perfected a culture and climate of distrust. Too many times, governments, corporations and industries have proven themselves to be dishonest, unethical, greedy and even criminal. It’s a favorite movie theme: the fierce individualist exposes and subdues the big bad business. So of course conspiracies thrive. Who can we trust?

What if there is no virus? What is the worst vaccinated thing that can happen: that the vaccine kills off most of the human species? Could there be a globally coordinated plan to profit from the pandemic and depopulate the planet? And what is the worst unvaccinated thing that can happen if there is a virus: that the virus is here longer than it has to be and many more of us die than have to. Which is the more believable scenario? Which is the better risk?

Perhaps the worst thing that can happen, either way, is that we are pitted against each other.

If you don’t wear a mask, nor get a vaccine, fine. Please simply stay away from the rest of us. And when you can’t do that (i.e. at a grocery store or in a school), please wear a mask during that brief contact. No big deal.

If you don’t think covid is real, if you don’t wear a mask or get a vaccine…yet you get covid, you have every right to deal with it in the privacy of your own home rather than endangering the doctors and nurses and other patients at the hospital.

Protesting is our freedom of speech. Go for it. Exercise your right to it.

But protesting by potentially endangering other peoples’ lives is not anyone’s right.

Be well.