In my community there is a raging debate regarding the mandated use of masks as part of response to the current COVID-19 pandemic. It seems like a large and very vocal percentage of our community is looking upon this as an absolute and complete violation of all their civil liberties. Personally, I view it as a small inconvenience that serves a greater good and is completely supported by medicine and science.
Any suggestions as to how one can respond to those who militantly feel otherwise?
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I would like to know, as well. That describes a lot of people – just look at almost any news source. So it’s not just local to your vicinity!
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In my experience, they aren’t interested in the science. Their beliefs are based on emotions, so try to approach conversations by listening to them and trying to understand the emotions they are experiencing. They might come around if they feel they are part of a community where everyone is making sacrifices for the good of others. Or not . . .
My snarky side would ask them why they stop at red lights if they don’t like being told what to do, but that probably wouldn’t go over well.
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Politics and conspiracy theory are involved, as well, and you know how easy it is to change someone’s mind in either of those aspects. 
I think we’re stuck. I communicate via Facebook with a second-cousin who lives in the U.K., and she is really sorry for us.
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Yeah, I know . . .
Have your cousin in the UK send some sympathy my way. I’m trying to find some good in this somewhere, but it gets a bit tough.
The UK has 5G conspiracy theories, if that’s any consolation.
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The 5G nonsense is here, too, of course, via the echo chamber pot they all drink at. I know one here, and I look at her Facebook page occasionally, but not for too long.
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Good discussion on masking.
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One option is to keep your distance from the unmasked.
You can’t make them put on masks, but you can steer clear of them.
Perhaps they will get Covid, recover, and contribute to herd immunity.
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I have come up with only one explanation for so many otherwise intelligent people acting so stupidly when it comes to wearing masks. And my explanation is based on who actually BENEFITS from
this mask fiasco:
This is Putin’s work making the right wing suspect the left wing that it is all part of a conspiracy.
Since Trump should be motivated to have a smooth a re-opening as possible (and masks would be the ideal way to accomplish this) – I conclude that Trump’s Russian bots are the key reason we have so much controversy over the one element of our program that would actually work!
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This presentation was transformational. Thank you for referring it.
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I’m looking forward to watching it!
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It makes me cautiously optimistic!
That conversation was excellent! Such an important perspective. Also full of useful advice about how to have these conversations. I’ll have to look up the papers she was talking about and I hope her new ongoing research that they mentioned comes out soon.
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I finally got it watched, piecemeal. I kind of wish I had discovered the transcript before three-quarters of the way through it, but their social interaction was good (that at the end was fun 
). Yes, we should spread this around!
Here’s the page with the video and the transcript on it, if anyone cares (of course it’s linked in the info under the video on YouTube, and if I had seen more than the two of his videos that I have now, I might have remembered that):
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Is there by any chance a correlation between the areas where people protest against mask and the areas where there have been mass shootings in the schools? Are these just the places in this country where people will defend their right to kill lots of other people as they choose?
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I would think that would not be the case, as no one defends the actions of mass shooters, who tend to be loners and socially impaired individuals, but I do think the rhetoric that creates the divisions in society, as alluded to by Dr. Collins in his Templeton speech, is responsible for encouraging both those on the right and left to value their ideas over people. Therefore, their may be some overlap.
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yes just the rights of people to the weapons by which they do so
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Or if they get COVID and die, making the herd smaller, and thus contribute to herd immunity.
Yeah Larry, keep your distance!
For what it is worth, to play devil’s advocate…
What if various local or state governments decided that masks are so beneficial, serving a greater good… and what if it were completely supported by science and medicine that continual use of masks would indeed mitigate future flu seasons and would in fact save lives in the future that would be lost from common influenza…
And thus for decades after COVID vaccine is developed and the disease is entirely eradicated, various local and state governments mandated that we continue to wear masks at all times and limit restaurants to 25% and all the rest in order to save lives and minimize the deaths of all future flu seasons?
In such a scenario, it could still be accurately said that mask wearing was “a small inconvenience that serves a greater good and is completely supported by medicine and science”, no?
But nonetheless, at some point, I think we would all start to recognize that there is a line that can be crossed wherein there would in fact be a violation of civil liberties.
If so, then perhaps we might recognize that the core disagreement is really about when, exactly, mask wearing becomes a violation of civil liberty, rather than suggesting it categorically is not or could not be such.
Thus I suspect your disagreement with those you mention is really about where that line is, rather than whether there is such a line? If you approach them that way, recognizing that mask mandates could indeed be such a violation of civil liberty, but you might explain why you don’t think this particular case rises to that level, you may get more traction in your discussions that if you claimed that mask mandates are not and could not ever be a violation of civil liberty in any conceivable scenario?
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