Some Republican legislatures and governors have acted to forbid mask and vaccination requirements, usually giving one of several rationales: requiring masks and/or vaccination infringes on personal freedoms; people will do what’s best for them; local authorities know what’s best [except when they disagree with Republican state officials].
These reasons all ignore the very basics of government. ALL working governments place restrictions on their citizens in order to maintain the common good.
Those legal requirements are necessary because, without them, and often despite them, there is always a significant percentage of the population that will act against the common good and/or their fellow-citizens individually, either through ignorance, stupidity, greed, self-interest, or malice, or some combination thereof.
Despite the considerable rhetoric against masks and vaccinations, there is NO statistical credible evidence that masks impose harm on healthy individuals or children over a certain young age, and no evidence that vaccination harms healthy adults or children.
There is considerable evidence that mask-wearing dramatically reduces the spread of COVID and that vaccination virtually eliminates hospitalization and death from COVID, with the exception of immuno-compromised individuals (a very small percentage of the population).
So… why are all these Republicans opposing public health measures that would benefit their constituents and save the lives of many? Even as emergency rooms and ICUs are filled to overflowing in largely Republican-led states?
Could it be that those Republicans have forgotten that government exists for the protection of everyone? Or is it that they’re also suffering from an associated malignant mental condition that only appears to strike Republicans – Covidiocy?