I know a man that lives with a stoma after he had laryngeal cancer (a hole in his neck that he breathes through) and wearing a filter of some kind to protect himself is a fact of life for him.
Those of us lucky enough to not have a stoma do get a nose with hairs in it that help filter air, and a mouth and throat with saliva wetted surfaces that help keep dust etc. out of our lungs. Without these, we would be wearing a filter all the time too.
In a lecture on the subject of particle filtration I attended, the speaker got all of our attention for asking for a show of hands- who here picks their nose? Some of us raised our hands, some didn't. He said that those who didn't should probably check, they may have a clogged filter.
I filter my well water. When I first installed the system, I was changing the filter constantly. I had to decide- do I really want that fine of a filter or could I live with a little sand and iron in the water? The answer? I put in three filters, starting with a coarse filter and another intermediate filter before the final filter that was always being changed. I still have to change filters a lot, but the coarsest one is cheap compared to the rest and the finest one lasts many many times longer between changes.
All this talk of filtration and filters and I haven't said anything about politics or personal choice or COVID.
My point is this: If it was sunburn you were worried about, you would wear sunscreen. If it was Noise you would wear hearing protection. If it was rainwater, you might get an umbrella. Still no political speech.
Masks are just filtration used to stop a naturally occurring thing from being harmful to you or others (in this case because they may need the extra layer of filtration between your exhalations and their intakes if you are unlucky enough to have COVID). Still no talk of politics, slavery, personal choice, nationalism, freedom, liberalism, personal rights- none of it.
You have to ask-where why and how did this political discussion get started? Who wants it? How do they benefit? Why does something that makes this much sense and cant be argued against rationally have so many people willing to go against the same rational arguments for filtration that they accept when it comes to protecting their car's air intake stop short and refuse to accept that it applies to their own health?
For an American, the answers to these questions might be the longest-lasting impact of Corona and COVID. We are being manipulated into an US and THEM mentality over masks. OVER MASKS!
I thread banned myself from this thread awhile back but here I am again. I have my opinions bout who benefits from this politicization and I don't want to post his name online ever again without including all of the adjectives that go with it. And I don't want to politicize this discussion.
Some days, I just can't help it and the first responder in me wants to do what is necessary to save lives to the best of my ability. So here I am again, in spite of my own imposed thread ban, just to say- Please wear a mask. Don't fall prey to an irrational argument against them.
