‘People who wear masks are criminal’

For the record: the New York governor and attorney general who support the re-criminalizing of masks are registered Democrats:

State legislators and law enforcement are reinstating dormant laws that criminalize mask-wearing to penalize pro-Palestinian protesters who conceal their faces, raising concerns among covid-cautious Americans.

Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are poised to overturn Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) recent veto of legislation to criminalize masking. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said earlier this month she supports legislative efforts to ban masks on the subway, citing an incident where masked protesters on a train shouted, “Raise your hands if you’re a Zionist. This is your chance to get out.” Student protesters in Ohio, Texas and Florida have been threatened with arrest for covering their faces…

….Meredith Cann, a telehealth psychotherapist in Manhattan who largely serves immunocompromised and disabled people, said she has prospective clients seeking mental health care because they are terrified after hearing Hochul’s and Adams’s calls to limit masking.

“Average everyday people are going to hear what our governor and mayor are saying: People who wear masks are criminal,” said Cann, who receives weekly injections of an immunosuppressive drug for a chronic condition. “We are afraid for our quality of life and our ability to just exist in public.

I don’t doubt Lil’ Benito in Tallahassee has already put lawyers and aides to work writing the legislation for a similar phenomenon in Florida. Distinguishing a person wearing a mask for health reasons versus the minority of a minority who cover their faces to spit anti-Semitic drivel, as one source quoted points out, is a mug’s game. Maybe you’re cool if you’re over 65 or younger than 16, a woman, or like me hang out in public libraries.

I don’t see any other way of writing this: we are fucked when the next pandemic comes. Cowards who use fear of their constituents to hide their contempt for science, our leaders have buried enough legislative landmines to keep their successors behind barbed wire. At the moment a COVID wave is rippling through the West and Florida (the state with the prettiest name!). Although I’ll admit I’m not as intransigent a masker as I was even a year ago, I still carry one everywhere and wear a mask in class and on public transportation; but legislation like New York’s would target healthy youngsters like moi who wear them on occasion in coffee shops or large gatherings in tight spaces. And we have no guarantee that when swine flu hits again our leaders would shelve these laws.