Why Do I Still Have To Wear This Stupid F#ck!ng Mask?

I understand why we did it. This was my first global pandemic, and I expect it was the first for most of the world as well. We didn’t fully understand what caused the disease, much less how to stop it. Wearing a mask made sense. At first.

But over time we found out an inconvenient truth: The masks. don’t. work.

And for that matter, the vaccines don’t work, either. At least, the masks and vaccines don’t work in the ways we were told they do. If we got the vaccine, we were told, we wouldn’t get COVID, because, you know, science. Same thing with the masks: first, it was “wear a mask so you don’t get sick.” Then it was “wear your mask so you don’t get others sick.” Now it’s “wear your mask because we told you so.”

But why?

I got the vaccine and I still got COVID. I socially distanced and I got COVID. I wore a mask and I still got COVID. I followed the rules for the shutdown and I still got COVID. So I’m fully vaccinated, I socially distanced, I “shut down,” I wore the mask, and I’ve had COVID. What is this stupid piece of cloth across my face supposed to be doing for me at this point? What was it ever doing for me at all? Even Dr. Fauci, the voice and face of the COVID fight in the United States, admitted (despite dubious “fact checking”) at the very beginning that the masks most of us wear don’t work against COVID.

Mask mandates are a joke. People know they don’t work, and they regularly see the people in charge of implementing them completely disregarding mask policies whenever it suits them. This isn’t, and has for a long time not been, “about the science.” That is unless it’s about “the science of control.” Once relinquished, the rights of the people–any rights, of any people–are hard to get back. Once obtained, the government–any government–is loathe to give them back. That’s where we are now.

The ridiculous mask mandates require the group at the literal lowest risk of infection–children, and to a lesser extent members of the military–to signal their obeisance to a requirement based on something everyone knows isn’t true. In this case, the falsehood is that the masks most Americans wear actually “do something” in the fight against COVID. This ridiculous proposal, combined with the utter hypocrisy shown by political and medical leaders eschewing their own mandates, is only going to continue to harm trust in local, state, and federal governments. More importantly, it’s going to be yet another nail in the coffin of the American experience, as this issue continues to divide us.

So let’s review the bidding: The masks don’t work. The vaccines don’t work the way we were told they would. The lockdowns don’t work at all. We are all going to get COVID. Many of us have already had it. Some of us had it and didn’t know it. A few people even got COVID more than once. At this point, mask mandates are doing nothing other than causing harm, and Americans across the country are starting to ask the all-important “why?”

If my mask is for my protection, then let me take my chances with my vaccinations, booster shots, and my natural immunity. If my mask is for “others’ protection,” then let them wear a mask, or socially distance, or lock themselves down indoors. Let me, and the rest of the world, get on with our lives. Enough with the stupid f#ck!ng masks.

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Scott Faith is a veteran of a half-dozen combat deployments and has served in several different Special Operations units over the course of his Army career. Scott’s writing focuses largely on veterans’ issues, but he is also a big proponent of Constitutional rights and has a deep interest in politics. He often allows other veterans who request anonymity to publish their work under his byline. Scott welcomes story ideas and feedback on his articles and can be reached at havokjournal@havokmedia.com.