story doesn’t really prove anything. Never mind that you are apparently comparing school aged children with grown adults. Kids are going to pick on people who are different whether that’s wearing or not wearing a mask or something else. Because they are kids and don’t always know any better. What’s the excuse for the adults?

As far as “ just let everyone do what they want to do. It would help if the government would quit telling people what to do” it’s really not that simple. We live in a society which means people cannot do whatever they want particularly when it impacts other people. That’s what makes things like vaccines and masks tricky. Your decision doesn’t only impact you but potentially random people around you. It’s the same reason indoor smoking is prohibited almost everywhere. We can’t let smokers “do what they want to do” because it gives non-smokers around them lung cancer.

As far as the government “telling people what to do” I’d argue a global pandemic is one of the best cases where that should happen. Of course I’d also argue that our federal government really didn’t do enough especially early on. The messaging was mixed and confusing from almost the get go. Most mandates came from states because the federal government refused to take action. And most state mandates were not enforced with any sort of consistency. Most stringent enforcement came from employers and other non-government entities. In fact outside of transit and schools I’d argue most Americans have “done what they wanted” since very early on in this whole thing.

That’s why I chuckle when I see someone complaining about “lockdowns” in this country. Because the closest thing we had to a lockdown was at the very beginning when certain types of businesses were closed. But as far as the average person there was never really any sort of restriction on where they could go. No one was forced inside their homes or anything like that.

I’m not a huge fan of mandates but I also maintain that if people had more empathy and weren’t misled by overwhelming amounts of misinformation then they wouldn’t have been necessary. Just like in theory you shouldn’t need a law against smoking inside (or really most crimes); people should know better. But unfortunately that’s not realistic.