The mask mandaters are testing the waters again
Timothy P. Carney
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Here’s a little history from my former county: In fall 2020, Montgomery County, Maryland, barred all in-person learning in public schools, tried to bar all in-person learning in non-public schools, and attacked as “arrogant” and dangerous those non-public schools that fought to stay open.
In fall 2021, Montgomery County allowed children to go to school with their classmates, but it implemented a draconian quarantine rule: Any child who showed a single symptom of COVID-19 (including exhaustion or a headache) was sent home for 10 days, along with all of his close contacts.
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“Anything you feel … except absolutely perfect, you have to go home,” County Executive Marc Elrich said.
In early 2022, the county continued to mandate masks on children despite admitting that children wearing masks made no difference. The county kept stricter quarantine rules for young children after abandoning them for older students. Also in 2022, the county executive tried to mandate vaccination for children if they wanted to go to nature centers or museums in the county.
If you pay attention to these massive crackdowns on the freedom and happiness of children, you notice a pattern: Progressively, the county government lightened its touch until it eventually adopted the policies advocated by the government’s detractors.
Every loosening of the lockdowns and the mandates came because of public opposition to the lockdowns and the mandates. Every time the lockdowners lost, they grumbled about it and became less ambitious in their policies and hopes.
This made me realize something about local tyrants: One should never compromise with them. At first, when the county in 2020 was trying to close our private schools, I was ready to accept the mask mandates, distancing rules, and so on in exchange for being able to open.
As the fights continued, I realized that was an error. The proper stance was the total rejection of all government intrusions on our liberty. It was trench warfare. Giving in on masks left the politicians within striking distances of capacity limits, vaccine mandates, or closures. At one point, when asked why he wasn’t imposing lockdowns or capacity curbs, Elrich sighed that he had enough of a fight protecting his mask mandate and pushing for his vaccination mandate.
It is in this light that we should react to a Montgomery County school imposing a limited mask mandate.
You may think this sounds like no big deal, but you have to remember that after three years, nobody has found evidence that mandating masks limits the spread of COVID-19. What’s more, at this point, nobody thinks that COVID-19 spread within an elementary school classroom is really a public health crisis that requires masking.
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The proper response is for every parent in that class to say, “No, actually, my son will not wear a mask.” With some resistance, parents will find that the mandaters will back down.
Absent resistance, this sort of mandate will spread: a gradual expansion of mask requirements and then efforts at booster mandates and a return to social distancing and remote schooling in certain circumstances. If they can get away with unproven interventions on young children, there’s no reason they would stop there.