It’s time for Alabama’s Governor, Kay Ivey, warmly and lovingly referred to as Governor MeeMaw by her constituents, to step up and join the ranks of 15 other Governors. Governor Ivey needs to follow the sciences of disease control* and economics, along with the lead of those other 15 Governors, and eliminate Alabama’s nonsensical statewide mask mandate.
According to AARP, as of February 12, 2021:
Thirty-five state governments currently require people to wear face coverings in public to curb the spread of COVID-19. The District of Columbia and Puerto Rico also have mask orders in place.
As it stands right now, Alabama’s face diaper (thanks Streiff) mandate remains in place until March 5, 2021. Ivey said (emphasis mine):
“The mask mandate remains the one step that we can all take in order to keep some balance in our daily lives and stay healthy and safe. Quite frankly, we’ve run out of ways to underscore the importance of taking this virus seriously. And, ironically, it’s not very complicated – wear your mask, wash your hands, sanitize the places where you are, and if you’re experiencing symptoms, please go get tested and wait until you receive the results before you interact with others.”
Here is the complete (as amended) order.
“[R]un out of ways to underscore the importance of taking this virus seriously”? Madam Governor? Ma’am? Last I looked, the purpose of a state edict that directs my personal behavior generally needs to be for some cogent reason. Your governing mandate doesn’t allow you to mandate my behavior merely to send a message about the importance of some government policy or another…especially a political message.
If my adopted State of Alabama was in the thrall of some leftist harridan like Governor Grinch Whitmer or some elderly abuser like Andy “The Bully” Cuomo, I would certainly not be averse to ascribing malice to Ivey’s continued and proven harmful mask mandate. I might be naïve, but I’m not inclined to do so in this case. I believe that this is easily explained by the MeeMaw factor.
First of all, here in the great State of Alabama MeeMaw is a term of endearment, not disparagement. After all, everyone here (except for Doug Jones supporters) loves our MeeMaws. They load us up with candy & cookies and then send us home to toil under the brutal tyranny (or so we see it) of Mom & Dad. MeeMaws are awesome. MeeMaws are also fiercely protective of their grandkids. Sometimes that protective attitude extends to doing irrational things, because although those aren’t necessarily helpful, they couldn’t hurt so, why not?
The problems with this overprotective attitude are manifest and numerous. First of all, we are adults, American citizens. We don’t require, and it’s certainly not the business of, government to mandate mask wear in public spaces. Second, as this particularly contagious flu has gone on, we’ve figured out that there is pretty much no appreciable difference in infection and mortality numbers between mask mandates and free states.
As time has gone on, it appears the more targeted the approach, the better the results are. Florida, with no mask mandate, yet with the highest percentage of elderly folks in the nation, is way behind New York in fatalities, which as we know, under Cuomo’s direction, has gone full-on Karen with its lockdowns and mask mandates.
Looking at this from more of a strategic level, and outside of Alabama, the continued panicked response of our National Command Authority, under the doubtful leadership of IPOTUS Biden, now has a consideration of a travel ban to/from Florida under serious consideration. To his great credit, Governor DeSantis ain’t buying into that one.
This, along with mask mandates by 35 governors and the DC Mayor, sends a message of fear to our enemies. It also, as I’ve mentioned previously, lets them know exactly what they need to do to bring our economy to a screeching halt, as we’ve already allowed it to do, and IPOTUS Biden seems to be doubling down on it.
MeeMaws, bless their wonderful hearts, focus too much inward and at the tactical level. MeeMaws would never have allowed our sons to do what they needed to do on “bloody OMAHA” Beach in World War II. MeeMaws browbeat military senior leaders during one phase of our operations in Iraq. This led to changes in how we performed convoy security, which in turn, led to higher casualties during operations. When we finally had the courage to ignore the MeeMaws, we went back to the aggressive terrain domination that our doctrine called for. Our convoy casualties then dropped by over half.
We love you, Governor MeeMaw. Please join the 15 other Governors who have exhibited common sense about this disease that has less than two percent Infection Mortality Rate…if that. Also, please take a tip from Governor DeSantis of Florida and prohibit localities from undermining any such decision. I would encourage all my fellow Alabamans to write a nice, respectful note to Governor MeeMaw and ask her to make this decision forthwith. We are Alabamans. We got this.
(*A Heritage Foundation report titled “Mask Mandates: Do they work?” concluded, “Although mask-wearing may reduce transmission rate, it has not prevented cases from spiking either here or abroad. Governments should pursue additional strategies. These include adopting better measures to protect nursing home residents and enabling nationwide screening through the widespread use of rapid self-tests.”)
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