Why the governors of certain states want to stop schools from mandating masks during COVID-19 - August 2021

If you have a similar point of view as mine, you are genuinely puzzled as to why, during a deadly infectious pandemic, governors of certain states want to stop schools from mandating the use of masks. To me, it's as if governors want to ban the use of fire extinguishers in schools, or the use of bandages. And since this is a history blog, I'll see if I can help with the type of perspective that is usually just about impossible to have while things are happening. I'm going to step back, and exercise a skill that I learned when I was a kid, which I call "point-counterpoint". And it all has to do with accepting a premise.

The premise here is whether the pandemic is actually happening. For many people, it's just an elaborate hoax, and if you can manage to wrap your head around that perspective, everything else will fall into place.

Perspective, and point of view, has helped me to try to understand why Japan would attack the United States in 1941, which in hindsight seems an utterly insane thing to do. And please don't misunderstand me, this is in no way shape or form an acceptance of a behavior, it's just my attempt to see things through their eyes. Historically, the list goes on and on, and ultimately the question is "what were they thinking?", which is usually rhetorical, but of profound interest to me.

If this were a movie, I'd ask you to do what is called "suspension of disbelief". It could be accepting that Gotham City is protected by someone dressed up like a bat, or anything. For the duration of the movie, you accept things, and everything falls right into place. So let's start with suspension of disbelief of COVID-19 as an actual virus that makes people sick, and kills them. If you can do that, you can follow me here.

As someone who has always enjoyed movies about some diabolical plot, I can suspend disbelief, at least for a little while. You can imagine the classic movie trailer voice saying, "In a world..."

If you can imagine a world of diabolical plotting, by evil celebrities, maniacal politicians, and vampire-like bad guys, it would stand to reason that there would be no such thing as a pandemic, that it would be purely invented, like global warming, or the tooth fairy, or the Queen of England. Are you following me here? Only the very bravest would have the courage to stand up to these things! And in addition to resisting themselves, they would recruit other people to help with the resistance.

In this world, the calm voices are always enforcing the evil, while the shouting voices are combating it. The more calm the voice, the more ominous they sound, whereas the more boisterous the more virtuous. History, of course, will tell, but that will take a while. In the meantime, here we are. If my voice sounds calm, and it worries you, I'm so sorry.

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