Freedom is the ability to do as you wish, go where you want, think what you want, eat whatever and when you want. Enjoy hearing the music you want to hear, and look at the art with which you identify. No one can tell you what you can or cannot see, hear, or touch. Basically, you can live your life without being told how, why, and by what means you may do so. This concept came from the Age of Reason. Descartes, Spinoza, Voltaire, Kant, Rousseau, Jefferson, Washington, Paine, and many others laid down the foundation that man is his own master. Our brain knows what is best for us. But there must be boundaries. You cannot go around taking what is not yours, destroying things others have built, killing indiscriminately.
Those actions are characteristics of the uncivilized! We must adhere to the rules of life. This is how evolved forms of government regulated what civilized people can and cannot do. We have rights, but we also have responsibilities.
We do not have the right to harm other people by our actions unless we are under threat of bodily injury, and that includes getting infected by potentially lethal organisms. If you are going to sit next to me for whatever number of hours shoulder to shoulder, sharing the same breathing space, I want that you are as least likely to harm me by infecting me with your “cuties” as possible. That means you must be vaccinated, and you must wear a mask.
Much has been said about the effectiveness of masks. The largest study has been done and published. It is a peer-reviewed study conducted by Yale and Stanford University. Three hundred fifty thousand people were involved. One-third of the study group wore masks, and two-thirds did not. The mask wearers decreased the spread of Covid by 11%. Statistics would suggest that if all participants had worn masks, the benefit would be 33%. This is proven beyond doubt, and the numbers are very convincing. That is a significant benefit of masks. Of course, it would have been better to be 100%, but that is not how nature works. That folks is the best it can get, and I will take that because it is better than 0%.
Your body, your choice does not extend to giving me Covid-19 if possible. If you find it so onerous to wear a mask, find another means of transportation or get your own plane. I wore a mask for half a century almost every day as a practicing surgeon, as a protection for you so I would not give you my bugs, and I am still alive. Why would you not do the same courtesy for me? That is as far as your freedom extends. The Constitution and Bill of Rights do not mention your right not to wear a mask when it has been scientifically proven at a 33% efficacy! And the Stanford Yale study is as good as science gets. You have the right not to believe it, but the CDC’s rule of wearing a mask in a closed space is still applicable as long as we are in a pandemic and 500 people a day die of Covid. It supersedes your opinion. They give us the rules. A single judge also does not have the right to nullify that ruling. He is a judge! Not an infectious disease expert and does not have the moral, legal, or intellectual standing to overrule the CDC, an organization of 15,000 people (1,700 of whom are real scientists) charged with overseeing the public’s health. I am glad that the Justice Department has appealed the decision of a misguided judge.