Many Americans, including President Biden, believe that wearing a mask in public should be mandated by law. Violators should be subject to criminal prosecution. Wearing a mask, the argument goes, will protect the wearer, as well as those around him.
If this is true, and there is substantial evidence supporting it, then why aren’t we simply given the facts and be allowed to decide for ourselves? If wearing a mask really is in our best interest, then why wouldn’t most people choose to wear a mask voluntarily? Why aren’t the mask advocates willing to use persuasion instead of force? Because, the mask advocates say, most people aren’t rational.
There is certainly an abundance of evidence that most people aren’t consistently rational. From the prevalence of religion to the belief that America was founded on racist policies, from conspiracy theories that the COVID vaccine is a means to inject tracking devices into individuals to the belief that mankind is destroying the planet, irrationality runs amok. So? It is not the purpose of government to mandate rationality. Nor is such a thing even possible. Forcing individuals to be rational is a contradiction in terms.
Rationality means considering all of the relevant facts—the full context. Rationality means using persuasion to convince others to act as we desire. Rationality means respecting the freedom of others to disagree. Force means threatening others with harm if they don’t act as we desire. Force is used when one is unable to convince others to act voluntarily. The wielder of force demands that others act as he thinks proper.
In regard to mask mandates, the full context goes beyond public health. As with any policy that utilizes government force, one must keep in mind numerous moral/political principles, such as the purpose of government and the nature of rights. To exclude these issues from consideration and focus solely on public health is to drop the context.
Government’s proper purpose is to protect our rights, which means, our freedom to be rational. This can only be accomplished by protecting our freedom to act on our own judgment, so long as we respect the freedom of others to do the same. Government should intervene only when we threaten the freedom of others to act as they choose. Irrationality is a threat to others only when force is used, when one physically prevents others from acting as they choose. In and of itself, the refusal to wear a mask is not a threat to others. The refusal to wear a mask is a threat only if the individual is infected, and that fact must be proven.
Government does not arrest individuals simply because they have the potential to rob a bank. It must have evidence that a particular individual actually engaged in bank robbery. A free and just society presumes innocence until guilt is proven. Mask mandates treat individuals as “guilty” with no evidence. Such mandates treat all individuals, including those who are not infected, as a threat to others.
We recognize that arresting people for bank robbery without evidence would be irrational. Yet, the advocates of mask mandates want us to believe that everyone is a threat to others, and they do so without any evidence. That many defend that position based on the claim that most people are irrational is worse than ironic. It is irrational.