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Do you fail to see why, or do you fail to agree? There are many people out there who would be happy to tell you their reasons before you even ask. > why is thi

Do you fail to see why, or do you fail to agree? There are many people out there who would be happy to tell you their reasons before you even ask. > why is this the hill so many people are determined to die on? As someone who hates emoting facially, I love the mask norm. However it's also important to remember the popular phrase "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." This phrase is popular because it expresses the way many Americans, including myself, treasure freedom above all else, so any sacrifices of freedom should be done slowly or not at all if possible. Compulsory mask-wearing is as anti-freedom as compulsory haircuts (Chinese queue, Russian beard tax). Your argument is insincere or uninformed because it can be used to justify huge changes in society by singling out a minor facet of a larger issue, calling it a tiny hill that's not worth dying on, then moving on to another minor facet, until the whole landscape has been traversed.

tablespoon 5y ago
> However it's also important to remember the popular phrase "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." This phrase is popular because it expresses the way many Americans, including myself, treasure freedom above all else, so any sacrifices of freedom should be done slowly or not at all if possible. That's a bad quote to reason from. The key word there is actually "essential" and is left totally undefined. This also demonstrates America's Achilles' heel, because that sentiment can easily be twisted into an argument against any kind of responsibility or sacrifice. I know many non-Americans, and the pandemic has disillusioned them towards America. They used to admire it a lot, but now they've seen so many Americans use liberty-rhetoric to justify acting in stupid and selfish ways that they think much less highly of it and those so-called ideals. America was supposed to prove the value of its ideals by being better at handling the pandemic than other countries, instead it's used those ideals as a justification for its failure, which is not a good look from any angle.

tablespoon 5y ago

> However it's also important to remember the popular phrase "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." This phrase is popular because it expresses the way many Americans, including myself, treasure freedom above all else, so any sacrifices of freedom should be done slowly or not at all if possible. That's a bad quote to reason from. The key word there is actually "essential" and is left totally undefined. This also demonstrates America's Achilles' heel, because that sentiment can easily be twisted into an argument against any kind of responsibility or sacrifice. I know many non-Americans, and the pandemic has disillusioned them towards America. They used to admire it a lot, but now they've seen so many Americans use liberty-rhetoric to justify acting in stupid and selfish ways that they think much less highly of it and those so-called ideals. America was supposed to prove the value of its ideals by being better at handling the pandemic than other countries, instead it's used those ideals as a justification for its failure, which is not a good look from any angle.