Should local governments mandate masks to limit the spread of the coronavirus? Many states and municipalities have already done so, prompting debates on the Right about whether this is a proper exercise of government power or a step too far.
While the federal government does not have the constitutional authority to issue a nationwide mask mandate, state and local governments do have a broad “police power” that legally allows them to pass such regulations to protect public health and safety. The political question remains whether this is the best policy. Libertarian and conservative critics who say no and cite “freedom” miss the mark.
Despite the controversy over these rules, when localized, mask mandates allow for municipal authorities, depending on the needs of their communities, to limit the spread of the virus through the proper exercise of government authority. Still, the various right-of-center arguments against mandates are all worth taking seriously. For example, some libertarians have vocally opposed them on criminal justice grounds.
“Mask mandates are dangerous and unjust, regardless of which level of government imposes them,” wrote Reason’s Christian Britschgi. “We, as a country, just witnessed two months of protests predicated on the idea that police are often unnecessarily punitive and violent when enforcing the law. That would include the Atlanta Police Department, whose officers have recently been involved in a number of high-profile, highly controversial uses of force. This very same police department that would be expected to enforce the city’s masking requirement.”
Meanwhile, some prominent conservatives have made a liberty case against local mask mandates.
“Tyrannical governments have issued mandates that everyone in virtually every place wear masks,” Republican Rep. Andy Biggs, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, wrote in an op-ed. “Their authority to do so is dubious.”
“Do not force me to wear a mask,” Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk said in an anti-mask rant on his podcast. “I’m not going to do it.
It’s that simple. We have a huge civil liberty issue here. Why do you have the authority to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body?”
While mandating that citizens wear masks does involve some degree of forced discomfort, it is not just an issue of individual liberty. Why? Well, because wearing a mask is not a matter of protecting yourself from COVID-19, because that’s not what masks do. Rather, masks limit the wearer’s spread of droplets that infect others.
Mandating masks is about limiting your ability to infect other people in public without their consent. In this sense, mask bans are similar to laws banning drunk driving. Sure, such laws technically “infringe” on your liberty to drive drunk, but that limitation is justified because the action in question endangers others. Critics who cite individual freedom as cause to oppose mask mandates are on weak ground. The government exists to prohibit people from violating the rights of others. Arguing it should not do so isn’t liberty. It’s anarchy.
As far as criminal justice concerns, it is fair to worry about issues with police enforcement of mask mandates. The emergence of snitch phone lines encouraging people to report their neighbors for not wearing masks, for example, is disturbing. However, the prospect of potential police abuse alone isn’t enough to make the case against an otherwise valid law that protects people. That would be a case against any law at all. And it’s extremely unlikely that the additional human harm caused by the police enforcing mask mandates could outweigh the thousands of lives potentially saved by containing COVID-19 through masking. Remember, Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said that the adoption of universal mask-wearing and other preventative measures could get the pandemic under control in four to eight weeks. It’s now overwhelmingly clear that masks work.
Critics are completely right to complain about the inconsistent messaging about masks at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak and how authorities initially dismissed mask-wearing. They were wrong. But there is now overwhelming consensus and evidence showing that masks do help contain the spread of the coronavirus.
Here’s a summary of some of this evidence from the University of California, San Francisco:
“Another study looked at coronavirus deaths across 198 countries and found that those with cultural norms or government policies favoring mask-wearing had lower death rates.”
Masks work. Local mask mandates can be a part of the COVID-19 policy response that will allow us to reopen the economy and revitalize life.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a freelance journalist and Washington Examiner contributor. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not represent the views of his employers.
