So I was reading about face mask mandates and some Republican woman who opposed them did so on the grounds that people ought to be able to choose for themselves.
As she explained, Republicans believe in personal freedom…up to a point.
If you want to have an abortion or marry someone of the same sex or feel like smoking a joint or kneeling during the national anthem or protesting racial injustice or (fill in the blank with stuff Republicans don’t like…I only had so much room in the cartoon) then the Republican belief in personal freedom gets a little squishy.
That led to the cartoon you see above.
Anyway…
Thinking about mask mandates led me to think about seat belts and here’s what I was thinking.
The history of seat belts
So I was thinking that the government requiring us to wear face masks is comparable to the government requiring us to wear seat belts and it turned out I was right in the wrong way.
And here’s what I was originally thinking: when they were first introduced in 1968 seat belts were controversial because lots of people didn’t want government telling them what to do, even if it was for their own good.
Up until the introduction of seat belts our only protection against impaling ourselves on a rocket-shaped radio dial was a parent throwing their right arm across out chests which probably wouldn’t have done all that much to stop our forward momentum unless our dad was Arnold Schwarzenegger.
But even though some people didn’t like seat belts, we all got used to wearing them and lived happily ever after…didn’t we?
Nope.
According to the CDC, back in 2009 over half the people who died in car wrecks were not wearing seat belts. Turns out the number one thing seat belts do is keep you inside your car during a collision and getting ejected from your car is a real good way to hit a telephone pole face first and wind up dead. Nevertheless, back in 2009 — despite 41 years of evidence that seat belts work — some people still refused to wear them.
Have we gotten any smarter in the last 11 years?
Nope.
Just last year the Maryland Highway Safety Office website (it’s surprising where you wind up when you google stuff) posted an article called “15 Common Excuses for Not Wearing a Seat Belt (and Why They’re Wrong)” and excuse number 15 sounds familiar:
15. “You can’t tell me what to do in my own car.”
Here’s what the badasses at the MHSO had to say about that.
“Yes, we can. Seat belt laws are in place to protect you, as well as others in your car. There’s a subset of people who don’t wear seat belts who think it’s no one else’s business, because not wearing a seat belt doesn’t impact anyone else. But it can and does, sometimes quite literally. People not wearing seat belts become a projectile in a crash. It’s common for unrestrained back seat riders to fly forward, crash into someone in the front seat, and kill them.”
So next time you see someone not wearing a mask or social distancing, feel free to think of them as an “unrestrained projectile.” I know I will.
Like I said earlier, it turns out I was right in the wrong way: seat belts are like face masks…many of us are still too dumb to wear them.
Stay clear of the unmasked, Lee. Unless, of course, you qualify for the quality of health care offered to the man holding down the chair in our Oval Office.
My BIL won't wear either. He's hard core.