This week, a federal judge in Florida finally struck down a federal mask mandate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An extensive number of executive branch agencies have acted in an authoritarian manner throughout the COVID-19 era: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration infamously attempted to cram down a vaccine mandate on every private employer in America, a policy struck down by the Supreme Court; the CDC blocked evictions for over a year based on the premise that millions would be thrown from their homes if they didn’t take action.
But the CDC’s travel mask mandate has been particularly annoying for Americans, given the fact that all over the country, Americans have either been vaccinated or acquired natural immunity, and there is no evidence whatsoever that cloth or surgical masks do anything against the omicron variant of COVID-19.
Nonetheless, the CDC pressed forward this month with a new extension to its mask mandate, despite the fact that the CDC simultaneously argued that beginning in late May, it would relieve Title 42, a regulation designed to allow Border Patrol to turn away likely illegal immigrants at the border. That regulation was rooted in the premise that a COVID-19 emergency negated the legal requirement to process asylum seekers. The White House provided zero justification for the CDC’s extension; instead, White House press secretary Jen Psaki struggled to explain why toddlers on planes should remain masked, but attendees at the White House press room didn’t have to. “I’m not a doctor,” she spat.
Of course, Psaki’s lack of medical background hasn’t prevented her from announcing that the best standard of medical care requires minors who are gender confused to receive puberty blockers on the path toward genital-mutilating surgery. But Americans shouldn’t expect consistency from their moral betters in the White House.
Upon the announcement of the judge’s ruling striking down the CDC mask mandate on the grounds that the CDC hadn’t actually bothered to follow its own regulatory procedures, the Left went into spasms of apoplexy. Public figures began posting pictures of themselves donning masks on planes: former Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett tweeted, “Wearing my mask no matter what non-scientists tell me I can do”; Roland Martin tweeted, “I don’t give a damn what some grossly unqualified Donald Trump judge said. I’m double masked and wearing goggles on this Nashville to DC flight. I had COVID in December. Y’all can KISS MY ASS about me not wanting it again. And any fool saying they don’t matter is a damn liar.”
Now, it should be said that nobody has actively banned anyone from wearing a mask. It is your choice to don one, as epidemiologically useless as such a gesture may be. But those on the Left seem to be under the wild misimpression that anything not prohibited is now mandatory — an act of pure intellectual projection springing from the Left’s insistence on collective rulemaking. For those on the Left, individual freedom represents a threat to everyone; to allow individuals the ability to choose therefore undermines the entire scheme. Those on the Left simply project this mindset onto everyone else. Thus, they believe that anyone who opposes mask mandates wants to force everyone to unmask.
This is untenable but predictable: for those on the Left, the collective is the irreducible unit of politics. There are no individuals. And anyone who disagrees is, in the words of Robin Givhan of The Washington Post, “childish and selfish.”
Or perhaps — just perhaps — the most childish and selfish among us are those who beg government agencies to exceed their statutory authority in order to ensure that we all mirror their favored priorities. Perhaps those who have spent two years declaring their authority over every aspect of Americans’ lives ought to consider the possibility that we’re happy to let them ruin their own, but that we would prefer they leave us alone. And most of all, perhaps the COVID-19 paranoiacs ought to spend just a moment considering whether there is a space between mandatory and prohibited where others might be granted a smidgen of liberty.
GOPUSA Editor: When asked yesterday if travelers should wear masks Biden said, “its up to them”. Later in the day Biden’s DOJ said it may appeal the Florida judge’s ruling.
Ben Shapiro, 38, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and editor-in-chief of DailyWire.com. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers “How To Destroy America In Three Easy Steps,” “The Right Side Of History,” and “Bullies.” To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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To all the obedient sheeple who have fallen in love with government mandates—there doesn’t have to be a mandate in place in order for you to wear a mask if you want to wear one. Knock yourself out—there doesn’t have to be a law requiring it.
“Of course, Psaki’s lack of medical background hasn’t prevented her from announcing that the best standard of medical care requires minors who are gender confused to receive puberty blockers on the path toward genital-mutilating surgery. But Americans shouldn’t expect consistency from their moral betters in the White House.”
………. Huh? “moral betters in the White House”??? Do you mean the unborn baby killing, sexual perversion, gender swapping, transsexual and LGBTQ indoctrination of children beginning at age 6, supporting and forcing others to accept moral betters??
I’ve been a fan of Ben Shapiro for quite a while and I’m confident the “moral betters” line was sarcasm.
OH it was definitely sarcasm, from ben.. NOTHING what so bloody ever, coming from this Dumpster fire of an administration is moral.
And if masks protect (which they don’t but the left thinks they do because that’s what the gubment says), wear your mask (I don’t care and it’s your right). If you are the only person in the world wearing a mask, you should be protected. Right? WRRROOONNNGG.
That’s the thing.. TO THESE SHEEPLE, they think ‘letting folks CHOSE for themselves” is wrong, THEY FEEL That everyone should be FORCED to do as they are…
Strange it is how even New Yorkers forget the in Scription on the Statue of Liberty in the harbor
““Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to BREATH free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The Democrats pathetically obsess and focus on the homeless who they American tempest toss into a sea of unbreathable masked American political criminals as soon as they cross the border, forgetting to turn on the lights so WE THE PEOPLE can see who is entering the golden door. The right of Eating free for the Liberal Democrat supersedes the right to Breath free, and the existence of a Golden door presupposes the need and existence of a WALL. Denying a person the right to breath will kill them off a lot sooner that denying them the right to eat. Therefore, those whom the Democrat gods seek to destroy, they first mask up, which saves the cost of having to feed them, support them and fulfill their unfulfillable political promises of socialist heaven on earth. I do believe that masking people up and forcing them to live only off the air of their own selfish air recycled essence, is required Socialist indoctrination 101 which would make one realize how Joe got so selfish and self-centered in his old age. I hear he now prefers breathing his own recycled bad breath to sniffing a women’s hair. Sure helped Jen Psaki breath a lot easier, or not quit earlier.
THEY only care about that phrase, when it SUITS them, re open borders..
I would love hearing from Mr Roland Martin who stated he had COVID in December… being a good Democrat, was he not masked and vaccinated before then? If so, why is it going to make a difference now? Geez… such sheeple. It never seems to occur to these people they have been lied to during his entire so-called pandemic.
she is a red head flaming LIAR!
She’s a gubment sycophant, a mouthpiece. She says what she reads in your big book. She is SWAMP SCUM.
Agreed. SHe could be brunette, red headed, blond or black hair. SHE IS STILL walking scum.
I still see people driving by themselves with a mask on. Also people walking outside by themselves masked. I couldn’t care less. Get your 4th and 5th booster if you want to, just leave me the “F” alone.
I had to laugh at one guy, who said on local tv, he’s AWAITING a 4th and 5th booster… Then when asked “if it becomes a yearly one, will you be so eager to take it” and he said Heck yes..
AND DOLTS LIKE HIM, vote.