Juneau, Alaska – At Tuesday’s Haines Borough Assembly, the town’s most outspoken civil libertarian thanked leaders for not mandating face masks, as has been done here and in Anchorage. “Freedom is the most important thing we have,” he said.
That was incorrect, of course. It was Thom Jefferson who nailed our inalienable rights right on the kisser and in the order of their logical sequence: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Dead men enjoy no freedom and slaves who pursue happiness get the lash.
During war and other moments of bodily threat, we surrender civil liberties gladly. A momma whose son’s a submariner doesn’t need a long explanation for keeping mum about where she thinks he’s hiding in the ocean.
The issue with COVID are differences in the perception of the threat. Down here in Juneau, the perception is strong. People wear masks on the street and in cars. Masks are required for entering stores and public buildings.
I forgot to put one on at the supermarket and a shopper scolded me.
Juneau is a town of rule-makers and rule-followers. Way back when summertime helicopter tours were proposed for Haines, friends in Juneau told us there was no way of stopping them. The FAA controlled airspace and that was that. In Haines, we put the question to a plebiscite, asking citizens in an advisory vote only whether they supported such tours.
When the votes went thumbs-down to helicopters, the tour guys dropped their plans. Perhaps better than their big-city brothers, people in small towns understand that the straight flush of the law is topped only by the royal flush of public opinion.
But if the incidence of voluntary mask-wearing is any indication of public sentiment, it appears that most people in Haines already support the idea of covering their faces. So why is the assembly dragging its feet on a government mandate?
For one, there’s an election coming up and “yes” typically gets more votes than “no.”
Also, people opposed to a mask requirement tend to be types with short fuses already, and who wants to anger an angry man?
Finally, there’s a question of enforcement. Will police patrol stores writing tickets for exposed chins? Will people rat out their neighbors for eschewing a face covering?
Turns out, enforcement isn’t an issue. It rarely is. We follow the speed limit not so much because we may get caught (typically, a slim chance) but because the consequences of speeding aren’t so good. It’s the same reason we follow rules prohibiting gunfire downtown. There’s little future in hurting others or ourselves.
In Haines we’re playing a game of libertarian roulette, with masks required in public buildings, but optional elsewhere. Some businesses require them and others don’t. We’re free to patronize the merchant whose perception of the COVID threat matches our own. Lovely. We’ll find out later whether this was a patchwork approach to public health or a sieve for community contagion.
Possible clues include that our town’s few COVID cases originated with “essential workers,” ones that Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy deemed too important to be burdened by quarantine requirements, and the fact that towns that maintained the strictest standards – some in defiance of Dunleavy – are clean of the virus.
Also, it’s worth noting that there are alternatives for citizens adamantly opposed to masks but required to wear one anyway. I saw this on a shopper at Fred Meyer: An American-flag mask overwritten with this message in black magic marker: Fuck this mask.
Viva your freedom, baby.