Sen. J.D. Vance authors bill to ban any return of federal mask mandates

[Hans Blaster]

He's calling their bluff.

Not really. A senator in the minority has approximately a 0% chance of getting their bill to a vote anywhere if the majority just doesn't want to deal with it. I'm sure it will die in committee with no actions ever taken other than to send it there like the way most bills die.

 

[FireDragon76]

This is a very, very bad idea.

Vance is also either stupid or intellectually dishonest.

 

[hislegacy]

So, how's this work? Which days do Republicans like low-level autonomy with a small federal footprint and which days do they like strong federal control?

Stopping the ability of the Federal Government’s control over individuals is now strong Government control?

 

[iluvatar5150]

Stopping the ability of the Federal Government’s control over individuals is now strong Government control?

...

reads article on Edge

...

ah, well, that's what I get for only reading the headline. I was out of free articles on Chrome.

 

[hislegacy]

...

reads article on Edge

...

ah, well, that's what I get for only reading the headline. I was out of free articles on Chrome.

Done that myself my friend.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

But isn’t a ban against mandates, tantamount to mandating what options future public health officials have to work with?
Sounds great!
Let’s limit our options before we know what the dangers might be!
Brilliant.

No, a ban against mandates simply means that top-down icontrol cannot be implemented. All rational people follow what makes sense anyway, which is why I indicated that older people did not have to be told to distance; they did it naturally, where possible, because it made sense given the stats then - and now, as older people were about 80% of the deaths, last I read.

Recommendations and evidence that a suggested tactic actually works, not just "we say it works so believe us" - something sorely lacking in the last go-round - will be sufficient. It must be difficult to require micromanagement to run your life effectively. Most of us do not.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

Im talking about banning the mandate. Its a tool that could be really important regardless of how you felt about it in during covid.

Mandates are never important when it comes to bodily risk. Remember all that my body, my choice stuff? No, a brand new drug with zero long term data can never be mandated as a principle. If it's legitimately desirable, it does not require propaganda and people will line up to get it.

 

[durangodawood]

Mandates are never important when it comes to bodily risk. Remember all that my body, my choice stuff? No, a brand new drug with zero long term data can never be mandated as a principle. If it's legitimately desirable, it does not require propaganda and people will line up to get it.

This proposed law is not about a drug mandate. Its basically about a thing you wear. It more of a regulation about behavior, which is a completely reasonable thing to regulate in the emergency situation of a dangerous communicable disease.

 

[dogs4thewin]

Vance is "owning the libs" by dispensing with public health.

Republicans have become a death cult.

Where did that bill say that A anyone BUT the federal government could not have mandates. Whether states? local governments or even private businesses and two where does the bill forbid the wearing of masks if you feel that you need to wear one for your safety?

 

[dogs4thewin]

I preferred the death cults of yesteryear who at least had the decency to only kill themselves and not try to take the rest of us with them like this one is doing.

Again how does this apply to anyone OTHER than the federal government?

 

[Hans Blaster]

This is a very, very bad idea.

Vance is also either stupid or intellectually dishonest.

I'm going with "B" here. He *wrote* a book. It was bad enough when he was one of those Fin-Tech bros, but then they switched to spreading chaos and anger about public health measures. (At this point I must stop because the appropriate invectives involve long strings of banned words.)

 

[Arcangl86]

Again how does this apply to anyone OTHER than the federal government?

The bill explicitly bans enforcement of mask mandates, regardless of source for transportation and education, which really are the only places they are still a thing.

 

[dogs4thewin]

The bill explicitly bans enforcement of mask mandates, regardless of source for transportation and education, which really are the only places they are still a thing.

but does it only apply to the federal government? Yes or no? Education is usually run by the state or actually in k-12 cases local government or either privately ( who may or may not receive government money) Transport same deal the federal government does not run ground public transit in the vast majority of cases that is a local thing usually not even by the county, but by the city ( unless it is transit solely for a certain public school usually at the post-secondary level.

 

[Arcangl86]

but does it only apply to the federal government? Yes or no? Education is usually run by the state or actually in k-12 cases local government or either privately ( who may or may not receive government money) Transport same deal the federal government does not run ground public transit in the vast majority of cases that is a local thing usually not even by the county, but by the city ( unless it is transit solely for a certain public school usually at the post-secondary level.

No it doesn't only apply to the federal government.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

He's calling their bluff.

“we’re going to hold them to their word.”

The senator said Democrats have signaled they’re not interested in bringing back mask rules, so “we’re going to hold them to their word.”

...is signaling that they're not interested in instituting any mask mandates for the currently circulating virus them "giving their word that they're not ever going to want to institute a public health measure"?

Combined with the fact that this proposal seems to be very narrow:
The bill would prohibit the president or any federal official from issuing a mask requirement on domestic air travel, public transit systems, or primary, secondary and postsecondary schools.

...and seems to be specifically focused on masks.

To go even further, many of the mask mandates that were in place were coming from state level governments and not federal.

All of these things would seem to point to it being a "virtue signal bill".


And I noticed he used to rather interesting language to describe it.
“We tried mask mandates once in this country. They failed to control the spread of respiratory viruses, violated basic bodily freedom and set our fellow citizens against one another,”


While the efficacy of masks can be debated in good faith (I happen to land on the side of "if you were just wearing a cloth mask or cut-up t-shirt, you weren't accomplishing much...it's N95 or nothing), that's clearly not what Vance is doing. He's attempting to link backlash and compliance refusal to a failure in efficacy.

(evaluation of the average time transmission would take in close proximity based on mask types)

As I noted before, if two people are wearing either surgical or cloth masks, the end result isn't much different than if they were wearing nothing at all. (you catch it in 26 mins instead of 20 mins...negligible)

But that's all moot if Vance is going with the angle of "mask mandates made people angry at each other" and is conflating that lack of usage with lack of efficacy.

By those standards, any public measure could be labelled as ineffective or polarizing if a large enough group of individuals themselves opt to not follow it, and get angry at the people who do.

One could say that drunk driving laws don't work by the same standard, therefore, let's scrap sobriety requirements.

To overlay his quote on this:
“We've tried sobriety requirements for driving in this country. They failed to control the issue of drunk driving, violated basic bodily freedom and set our fellow citizens against one another,”

 

[dogs4thewin]

No it doesn't only apply to the federal government.

OH OK that makes sense as to what the issue is. Even if I may or may not agree with that. If they would change it to allow more local governments to mandate it I might like it better.

 

[Arcangl86]

OH OK that makes sense as to what the issue is. Even if I may or may not agree with that. If they would change it to allow more local governments to mandate it I might like it better.

Yeah the way the bill reads is that it does two things. It prevents the federal government from implementing a mask mandate. The other thing it does is prevent transportation or educational institutions from enforcing one, regardless of source.

 

[dogs4thewin]

Yeah the way the bill reads is that it does two things. It prevents the federal government from implementing a mask mandate. The other thing it does is prevent transportation or educational institutions from enforcing one, regardless of source.

To that I say then if those places are all that is left then really a small percentage of people are all that are directly affected because no one is making you use public transit and unless you work or are a student at an educational place ( school) you are not going to be affected either which as many parents are pulling their kids out of public schools and then you have post-secondary education which is not mandatory to begin with a fairly small percentage of the population would be directly and honest to goodness forcefully affected by this bill. I may admittedly be a bit bias as public transit is not an option out this far and I personally have completed all the professional education I am willing to more than likely. Although my sister does teach at a school that at one time the district did mandate masks. The fact remains that more and more people are doing online ( which of course masks would not apply anyway education or pulling their kids out of public school system which really I do not know why the federal government would tell private schools they could not enforce anything (especially if they do not receive a dime of government funds as heck even things like common core have worked that way if a state/local school district told the government fine we will pay for it ourselves the federal government or state if it was a state mandate for education usually says fine if we are not supporting you it is none of our business how you run.

However, I do see how some people would reasonably have an issue if the feds are applying that to all levels of government.

 

[Pommer]

As a budding “older person” this makes me feel marginalized.
Thanks, I guess.

 

[Pommer]

Mandates are never important when it comes to bodily risk. Remember all that my body, my choice stuff? No, a brand new drug with zero long term data can never be mandated as a principle. If it's legitimately desirable, it does not require propaganda and people will line up to get it.

Seatbelts, airbags