ray_parkhurst wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:06 pm
rjlittlefield wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 6:38 pm
ray_parkhurst wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 6:10 pm
Freedom is more important than security.
My grandpa used to say that "
One man's freedom to swing his fists around ends at the other man's nose."
I hate strawmen such as this. I'm not advocating freedom to inflict harm. If you know you are contagious, and you go out into the world without a mask, you are liable for any injuries you cause. Let's go back to the core principle of freedom: you can do anything you want as long as it is not illegal or intentionally causes others harm. If you have a fever, or a cough, or have tested positive, or know you have been in contact recently with someone who has tested positive, then if you go out without a mask, you should be held accountable. This is basic stuff, and it's hard for me to imagine why it's so difficult for folks to understand.
Let me suggest that you hate
simple summaries like the fist and nose, because you don't really have a coherent response. In the case of public smoking, you know as well as I do that it would be impossible to ever trace lung damage to any specific offender. So, as a matter of practice, the phrase "you are liable for any injuries you cause" would be carte blanche to smoke wherever and whenever the smoker wanted to. As it happens, the citizens of Washington decided we were tired of that, so we passed a law that made it illegal. You've repeatedly said "as long as it is not illegal", so maybe you're fine with our anti-smoking law. But then I note that Washington's mask regulations are rooted in laws that were put in place by elected officials, with the approval of the people, specifically to handle situations that could not have been predicted in detail when the laws were made. I expect this is the case in other states as well. There may be valid constitutional arguments against those regs, but if so then that's for the courts to decide. Deciding it on the street is called "putting oneself above the law", and while I agree that it's a popular activity, I also believe in calling a spade a spade.
This is basic stuff, and it's hard for me to imagine why it's so difficult for folks to understand.
With respect, even basic stuff has nuance that is worth considering. To inject some levity, I note that one of the cases on the Washington State Supreme Court docket for 2020 essentially asked the court to decide whether a snowmobile was or was not a "motor vehicle". Why? Because the complainant had stolen one, had been charged and convicted of "theft of a motor vehicle", and was trying to get off on grounds that it wasn't that, as defined by state law. Sound amusing? The ruling went against the complainant, but the vote was 5-4, with the majority opinion running 14 pages and the dissent another 7. You can read it
HERE.
I sympathize with your difficulty in imagining. But in my view that difficulty says far more about your imagination than our understanding. It seems that we see some shades of gray that you do not.
--Rik