So what does enforcement look like under this law, fines, jail?

Seems like a slippery slope to me, first you tell people to wear masks, next thing you know you'll be telling women what they can do with their own bodies.
Um, wait, who is it that is refusing to wear masks? Remember, if a mother dies of Covid-19 within the first 20 weeks or so of pregnancy the baby dies with her. Also if you die, then prying your gun from your cold dead hands won't be all that hard.

Good Afternoon Charles,
No, there shouldn't be a law requiring people to wear face masks largely because it would be unenforceable. Police, county, city or state aren't going to cite someone for not wearing one. There probably would be not a few. And fining the violators would be absurd in these financially strapped times. A law would simple be untenable especially with summer coming and more humans out and about.

Regarding Europeans and the taking of the land of the Native American, I'm reminded of something Andy Weir wrote in "The Martian", 'They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially ‘colonized’ it. So technically, I colonized Mars.' That's mentioned by the astronaut marooned on Mars. You are aware that was conducted by the Tribes against each other before the arrival of the European in North America?

Finally, a friend of mine with a Libertarian bent once told me regarding a mandatory motorcycle helmut wearing law in Illinois. He said "I'm against it as I believe wearing a motorcycle helmut is sound and sensible. I would wear one. I just don't want the state of Illinois telling me to." I respectively disagreed. A similar argument is made regarding mandatory usage of seat belts. In both cases, wearing them saves lives and the laws are enforceable.

I elect to wear a face mask. But I'm not sure wearing one will save lives from COVID-19. And no, I don't want King County telling me to wear one.

No reason to complain, masked folks can still kiss each other in public.

These diatribes are so tiresome. Wear a mask, don't wear a mask, I don't care. I'm wearing one. If you don't wear one and die, good riddance.

Masks are only to protect others when you, even though you have no physical symptoms (hint: if you lose your senses of smell and taste, you have it), are contagious.

If we require masks, it will be used against POC, and to harass Asians. At least that is what is happening all up and down the West Coast.

But transit should give out free masks. I'm thinking ones from Diablo, Tokyo Ghoul, Rainbow Sprite Alliance. Not the boring ones.

And police should have some to give out free too. With cool Don't Talk To The Cops logos.

@4 Nothing a little creativity couldn't fix.

Just fine violators 0.07% of their combined IRA, 401k, and other retirement accounts.

I'm sure you'll agree it's high time we had a little innovation in the criminal justice system, no?

People are really losing their shit over having to wear a mask. In the last 2 minutes I've read 3 different stories:

Men break man's arm after being told to wear masks at Target.
Men shoot workers at McDonald's after being asked to leave.
Man has to shut down his business because customers show up and refuse to follow any rules, demanding to be served immediately and treating the one employee on site to verbal rape (and this was an ice cream store, FFS, hardly an essential business).

We have a lot more problems than the virus that's killing people.

In the comments section (https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/05/11/43644217/do-americans-not-like-wearing-face-masks-because-it-makes-them-look-asian/comments) on Charles's post yesterday, "Do Non-Asian-Americans Not Like Wearing Face Masks Because They're Identified With Asians?", I was lambasting our public transit authorities that they'd rather see the decline of our transit system than mandate masks. That was just before we got word of this new "requirement" that isn't really a requirement.

Obviously, I think it's a step in the right direction. Obviously, I'm on board with Charles's critique that it doesn't go far enough.

In answer to the tricky question of enforcement as asked concisely @1, here's an interesting idea. Simply require that the violator leave at the next step. Now, if the violator refuses at that point, then they're liable for the refusal. But that's a different story.

@3 -- what if The Nanny State
told you you could NOT wear one.

Would you wear one then?

@15,
The short answer is "it depends". If the Nanny State obliged US citizens/visitors to NOT wear masks for reasons of ID/security for example, at ports of entry and I DID, I reckon I would be cited or worse by security agents for violations. But, I'm not sure where you're headed nor am I trying to win a rhetorical point. I was merely refuting my friend, Charles.

Many years ago in Africa in the Peace Corps, I was issued a motorcycle and a helmet. Oh, and guidelines. One was we, Vols must wear a helmet when riding. Seemed reasonable. However, over the course of my first year, I discovered it was quite dangerous to ride at night as many of the towns/villages didn't have power for lights at crossroads. It was DARK all right. So, I made it a personal rule not to ride at night. Eventually in my second year, PC added another guideline, "Don't ride your motorcycle at night". It wasn't necessarily my suggestion.

Charles has point about "Americans' individuality". Americans and perhaps others don't like to be told what to do etc. even if the rule is sensible (mandatory helmets, seatbelts etc.). On the other hand, some states, Saudi Arabia for example, wouldn't allow women to drive or leave their compound without the male of the household's permission. Granted, that's not Nanny State stuff. It's repression. But still, there's a lot of weird laws out there.

I believe WEARING a mask against COVID-19 during the pandemic sensible. I just don't think a law is necessary to compel people to wear one. Heck, it's getting extremely difficult to enforce social distancing.

@16 -- Thanks.
I'm not sure where I was headed either.

But
fuck me
I gotta Get that Book.
The movie did NOT do it Justice.

THANKS, Chas!

The Wind in the Willows
6 CD set -- ordered. Plus
book. Gawd i Love Libraries!

Bank robbers agree with Mudede: City should require people to wear face masks in indoor public spaces, especially in banks.

First Hill bank held up by face-masked man | CHS Capitol Hill Seattle
https://bit.ly/3dAmLog

I’ve tried to read several of your articles but I’ve never been able to finish one. Too much fluff. Edit more!

Seattle culture's brand of social liberalism is deeply authoritarian. When I moved away from Seattle to Phoenix I expected to find myself in a conservative, authoritarian dystopia. Imagine my surprise in discovering a city whose downtown culture was every bit as liberal as Seattle's, but which also embraced a thoroughly libertarian philosophy. Seattle never met a law it didn't like.

There are several problems with a municipal facemask law. First, the city is not empowered to create laws. A city can enact ordinances, but the authority to create law rests with the state. Second, what is to be done with violators? Should they wrestled to the ground and thrown into a crowded jail? Finally, does such an ordinance even make sense?

Ordinances should exist for a definite reason, whatever your politics or views on individual liberty. And there is no clear reason for such an ordinance regarding masks. Masks and social distancing only slow the spread. They are not prescribed to prevent or eliminate a pandemic: that is not possible. The disease will run its course according to its characteristics, herd immunity, and the laws of statistics. The point of masks and social distancing is to slow the spread enough so that the medical infrastructure is not overwhelmed.

A vaccine may not be forthcoming, or may take so long that society collapses. In the meantime, a temporary mask ordinance might slow the spread of this contagion but we must come to accept a terrible fact: some of us will become statistics, and who that is will depend not on city ordinances but the risks we ourselves are willing to take in order to procure necessities.

How about if you're at risk for this virus, or think you're at risk, or are afraid of getting the virus, i.e. living, you stay home. We're not in this together. It's no different from any other disease. You're at risk? Protect yourself.

@23 The necessary law you're groping around trying to put your finger on is not the one requiring restaurant customers to wear masks, but the one requiring restaurants to turn away customers without masks.

The existing precedent, as our furious professor points out, is the law requiring bars to turn away visibly intoxicated customers. Note that responsibility here is expected from the business owner, not the customer.

@25 I guess that works fine, for those rich enough to hole up indefinitely.

But for people who don't have savings, nor nice white-collar jobs they can do remotely (and that's half of all Americans) you're suggesting that those at risk ought to simply choose between exposure and starvation.

Mandating face masks is like mandating everyone take homeopathic medicine - completely ineffective. A slight reduction of the number of virus particles leaving your face doesn't reduce the level of contaigion at all.

@28 Not entirely true.

With no other prevention in place, you're more or less right. But when added to social distancing, masks do seem to decrease the risk of transmission beyond the effects of social distancing alone.

This might seem strange, but you can make sense of it by imagining the mask, while not reducing the count of "virus particles" released, does reduce the max and/or average distance travelled (n.b. this may not be the mechanism at work, it's just an exercise to forestall rejecting evidence that "doesn't make sense").

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/should-you-wear-a-face-mask-heres-all-the-data-we-have/

@21:

ZOMG! You're absolutely right! I mean, it was sheer genius on the part of that bank robber to wear a mask - I'm simply flabbergasted that no robber has ever thought of doing that before now!

@24:

You have got to be kidding - I mean, I presume you've heard of Sheriff Joe, yes?

"Seattle Should Pass a Law Requiring People to Wear Face Masks in Indoor Public Spaces"

Right, because the police just don't have enough laws on the books to justify interacting with he poor and minorities in a violent way. What Seattle needs more of in this moment of crisis is another reason to justify violent interactions and to lock people in filthy cages where there are no masks, so hand sanitizers and social distancing is impossible. That will solve our pandemic problems. Oh, wait a minute...........

In a police State everything that is not illegal becomes compulsory. I wear a mask in public because I think it's the right thing to do. By making it mandatory, you remove my ability to do the right thing on moral grounds and replace virtue with the threat of police violence. Sure, historically that always ends well.

Mr. Mudede incorrectly thinks that American's worship the individual and gives us a Freshman level philosophy 101 overview to support this. He doesn't seem to understand that pandemics existed when the wrote the Constitution and as far as I know there is no amendment that says "and we will disregard all of the above in cases of pandemic."

The truth is that American's love their Constitution and show complete contempt for the Constitutional rights of others.

Whenever I feel and urge to involve myself in someone else's business uninvited through either the police (the default choice of resolution for most Satellites) or personally, I like to stop, take a deep breath, think carefully about my options, then mind my own fucking business.

While I think masks are a good idea, our top public health officials are correct in what they have been saying since February, that there isn't any really definitive evidence showing there are benefits of wearing a mask. Yes, I'm sure it's easy to find some study to link to that has the words mask and benefit in it, but there isn't any kind of real scientific consensus around this. Of course, lack of evidence of a benefit isn't the same as evidence of a lack of benefit, but I'm not really seeing why a law to enforce something that might turn out to be useless or have very little benefit would be a good idea. An ordinance requiring people to wash their hands and cover their coughs would have much more scientific consensus behind it.

As far as Mr. Mudede's typical "here's a problem, here's why capitalism is the cause of said problem", I'd say this is far more because of the mixed messaging people have gotten. We've gone from having public health officials saying masks have no benefit to talking about them like they're some kind of silver bullet.

d

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