Demonstrate your patriotism and wear a mask

“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”

Mark Twain

AUBURN, Maine — I wear the mask for the greater good — and to satisfy a fantasy of robbing a train with two of my favorite outlaws — Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Every time, I wear my designer cloth mask, it makes me feel empowered and positive knowing that I am a putting a dent in the spread of COVID-19.

Butch’s Wild Bunch gang never complained about donning a mask, especially when they were intimidating railroad engineers with six-shooters. Butch and Sundance understood that masks were tools of the trade to knocking over the 5 p.m. Evening Express and absconding with payroll money. 

It was part of their job description and it explains why they thrived as outlaws.

But here in America, some citizens foolishly believe it his or her constitutional right to refuse to wear face coverings. You want to demonstrate your patriotism: Wear a mask.

In the Pine Tree State, no mask means no shopping or being served at a restaurant. Businesses are just following the governor’s guidelines. The other day I nearly stiffed armed another shopper who ignored the six-foot, distance marker and tried to stand right next to me as I paid for my items.

I am not a germaphobe, but I don’t want to visit an ER, so backoff while I am in line. Let’s say you survive a serious bout of the coronavirus, but then there are the after-effects of the pathogen like lung transplants, losing a leg or taking months just to get back to normal.

All it took was a bit a research on the internet to prove that we should all wear the DAMN mask without bitching about our constitutional rights — because those rights don’t exist. It is a worldwide outbreak and it continues to kill. The federal government has done a poor job protecting its citizens. Science has the final say in this matter and we should all be listening to the sage advice of Dr. Fauci and the CDC.

According to the American Constitution Society, and I am quoting its Web site:

“In the face of that devastating pandemic, the judicial branch seemed to adopt a non-justiciable, political question-type approach to local health measures in an emergency. Typical is the Supreme Court of Arizona’s pronouncement, “Necessity is the law of time and place, and the emergency calls into life the necessity … to exercise the power to protect the public health.” In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court had called for just such deference in Jacobson v. Massachusetts. In the midst of a small-pox outbreak, local authorities could mandate vaccination on penalty of a fine for refusal: “Upon the principle of self-defense, of paramount necessity, a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members.” 

“But In South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, the Chief Justice John Roberts affirmed the central position of Jacobson v. Massachusetts:

“Our Constitution principally entrusts “[t]he safety and the health of the people” to the politically accountable officials of the States “to guard and protect.” Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11, 38 (1905). When those officials “undertake to act in areas fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties,” their latitude “must be especially broad.” Marshall v. United States, 414 U. S. 417, 427 (1974). Where those broad limits are not exceeded, they should not be subject to second-guessing by an “unelected federal judiciary,” which lacks the background, competence, and expertise to assess public health and is not accountable to the people.”

The judges are pretty smart guys who know it would be foolish to pass themselves off as experts in epidemiology — although that hasn’t stopped many of our leaders in D.C.

So when someone makes this claim, I cringe knowing you really don’t have al legal leg to stand on when you try to make this futile case.

We are still riding the first wave of a deadly pandemic because leaders at the federal level dangerously dismissed the coronavirus like the common cold.

The mask interrupts the spread of COVID-19 and we all should be wearing it for the other guy, who should be wearing it for you.

So please wear the mask or we will continue to pay the consequences in this life-and-death struggle with a pathogen that doesn’t give a damn about your politics.

Think of yourself as the Lone Ranger. People will shout in the grocery store, ”Who was that masked man?”

It was you doing the right thing for all of mankind.