Last week I watched the local news coverage here in Nashville about how heated a Williamson County school board meeting got. Parents were arguing in favor of, but mostly against, a proposal requiring kids to wear masks in school.
Williamson County is the one right next to the one we live in, Davidson. It’s Red, pro-Trump, Pro-Life…basically, extremely conservative.
I alternated between being appalled at the behavior of some of the parents (most of them) and chuckling. It was good entertainment.
Wayne was asleep at the time, but the next morning I said, “You should’ve seen the people at the school board meeting in Williamson County last night. OMG. People lost their damn minds!”
He shrugged it off. We don’t have kids, we’re masking. What does it matter to us if kids wear masks in schools or not?
However, he follows a newsletter from Heather Cox Richardson, who mentioned the Williamson County School Board incident the next day. He sought out the footage and finally understood what I was trying to tell him about how nuts the anti-maskers got.
I was also surprised the school board voted in favor of masks. But I knew it wasn’t the final say because there were people in our state legislature who said they’d call on Governor Lee to call a special session to join other states like Texas and Florida who have banned mask mandates if schools instituted them in Tennessee.
Governor Lee bypassed that, though, and went another route. Yesterday he issued an executive order that parents can opt-out of any school mask mandates, once again proving he doesn’t understand anything except politics.
Nor do the constituents who support him. Which, sadly, is the majority of Tennesseans.
They just want to echo Trump’s misguided rhetoric about how this treads on our freedoms as Americans.
Does it though? Really?
The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor threatened our freedom as Americans. What if people hadn’t rallied around the war effort, had been selfish asshats and said, “Nope. I’m not giving up gas, sugar, having my lights shine at night any time I want. I’m not going to enlist in your military or let my loved ones do it either. Go pound sand, Uncle Sam!”
Who knows what would’ve happened, but it didn’t because people understood we were up against something novel. Something bigger than each of us individually. They understood sacrifices were necessary until things could be made right again.
We’re sure not doing that now. COVID-19 is the enemy. Not republicans. Not democrats. If we could pull together instead of fighting against each other, we could all get some relief and peace of mind again.
But nope. It’s been made into some crazy political issue.
And the kicker is these same parents are going to bitch when COVID-19 infects the teachers and their kids, shuts down the schools and makes everyone go virtual again for a while.
And they’ll be the ones sobbing loudest for prayers if, heaven forbid, the worst happens and their child gets so sick they end up in an emergency room. Could it have been prevented if they’d just encouraged their kid to wear a mask? Who knows? Let’s hope they don’t deal with that worst-case scenario.
Then again, it’s also like smoking. It’s bad for you. Those who do it know it. Yet people still do it. They have that right. The warnings fall on deaf ears. The negative health results aren’t immediate. It’s easier for them to deny they’ll have to deal with any consequences. Cancer and lung problems only happen to other people. It can’t happen to them, after all.
That’s the same mentality people have had during this pandemic. They won’t get it. Nothing bad will happen to them. And it may not. They may be asymptomatic. But they could spread it to someone else. They wouldn’t like being infected but it’s okay if they do.
It’d all be so much easier if it was a zombie outbreak. People could see the results of their bad decisions immediately.
The other thing they don’t realize is they’re setting a dangerous precedent. By their logic, why should any of us follow the rules then? For instance, why should I stop at a red light? Why shouldn’t I just keep going? Why should I pay attention to traffic signals at all?
As we all know, they’re there for a reason. Safety.
If they don’t want to mask themselves or their children, fine. Don’t.
But then they have to realize they also have to own all of the consequences that come with their anti-vax and anti-mask decisions. They make their bed, they have to lay in it.
And don’t expect any sympathy. Whether that’s because they have a sick kid at home they now have to take time off work to care for, or their kid is still healthy but there’s an outbreak in their school that forces it to go virtual for a while again, or they find themselves in the hospital with a loved one.
However, on the other hand, I’m hoping some savvy Pro-Choice attorneys are making note of all of this anti-mask/anti-vax hubbub. Especially in cases where laws are passed in favor of supporting rights for those to make health decisions about themselves without government interference.
Because it will once again prove the coronavirus has settled the abortion debate. If they have the right to choose not to wear a max, women have a right to choose what happens to their bodies. Interfering in that decision is a lot more invasive and intrusive than asking someone to just wear a mask.