Americans: Demanding our Rights, Shirking our Responsibilities.

Americans. We love our individual freedoms. Our rights. We’ll tell you about them all day long. We’ll fly our “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, though I would bet that 90 percent of those flying them couldn’t tell you its origin story. But it sure makes us feel like “Patriots” doesn’t it?

Somehow, we forget that with all of those glorious rights come responsibilities. Perhaps most Americans never took a Civics course. Perhaps it was so long ago, most Americans don’t remember. Or perhaps, maybe Americans have become an extremely selfish, entitled lot who can’t be bothered to face a little inconvenience for the greater good. We have responsibilities as citizen. Being good citizens and acting in the best interest of the society falls within those responsibilities. Wearing a mask is an inconvenience. It’s a downright pain in the ass, isn’t it? But if being inconvenienced twenty or thirty minutes at a time could help bring an end to the pandemic, wouldn’t it be worth your most gracious and noble sacrifice? For full disclosure, I HATE masks. I don’t want to wear one, but I have returned to the classroom and have had to put one back on. I’ll be wearing it eight hours a day next week. And it makes me pretty angry, to tell you the truth. Mostly because this whole mess should be done by now. But no. Some people’s “rights” are more important than an entire society’s collective need to get back to normal. If you think wearing a mask in public is oppression and that you are being tread upon, you are fortunate that you don’t know what oppression really is. And you most certainly have never been tread upon….

What if you had a loved one who was immune compromised? Maybe they’re going through treatment for cancer or some other disease. I’m sure if they asked you to wear a mask while you visited them, you would do so with few or no questions asked. Whether you personally questioned the efficacy of the mask or not, you would most likely wear it, because you love that person. But we won’t do that for strangers. And that makes us small, selfish people.

Sadly, like everything in American society these days, a health issue was politicized to the point that common sense completely disappeared. I’m honestly a little flabbergasted by the number of Americans who will take their health advice from someone simply because they are a Republican or Democrat, and totally discount medical experts. It’s lunacy.

You are not being tread upon. You’re not being oppressed. Put on a damn mask and lets finally get through this mess.