Photos taken from the open sources
I've explained already why masks are not needed to prevent Covid-19, except for some specific cases like staying in places where maintaining social distance is not possible. But you may ask why I am so anti-mask? Even if masks are not needed for the majority of people, wearing them will not hurt, you may say, so why don't just stay on the safe side?
The
answer is, because masks DO hurt. They hurt our body (as British medics found out, wearing face masks provokes dermatitis), but, which is even more
important, they hurt our dignity. Wearing masks is a humiliation. I
do not see much difference between wearing a face mask and wearing a
slave collar. Or between this and this kind of masks:
Yes, masks worn by medical personnel as a part of their professional outfit are completely OK. Just as it is OK to be stripped naked in an ambulance vehicle or in a hospital when needed for treatment or for examination. But it is definitely not OK to be stripped naked in public places, like streets and stores. Some sexual perverts may enjoy being humiliated this way, but not normal people. As I keep saying, we are not dogs - we don't need muzzles!
Actually, masks are only a part of the main problem of the modern world (and by "modern world" I mean "Western world" first of all), and this problem is not Covid. This problem is loss of dignity. The problem is, how easily the people of the modern civilization - contrary to their predecessors - surrender their pride, their values, their rights, their freedom for the sake of so called safety and security. How cowardly and weak the nowadays civilized people became, how obedient to any, literally any stupid and paranoid requirements and limitations, just to avoid any kind of threat, be it real or exaggerated. And mostly it IS exaggerated. I could have said that I prefer to die with my open face than to live in a muzzle, but I just don't need to be that dramatic. Despite all the worldwide hysteria, the chances of dying from Covid-19 are low (compare it, for example, to Spanish flu which killed up to 100 millions of 1.9 billion of total world population a century ago). And, as I've explained already, if a Covid patient keeps 6-feet distance and covers his mouth and nose only in cases of coughing and sneezing, he does not need a mask to keep others safe (from the respiratory way of infecting). On the other hand, masks do not decrease the risk drastically, as we can see in Europe where masks are enforced in almost totalitarian ways, but the pandemic still rises. So, the choice is not even between humiliation and death. The choice is between humiliation and some theoretical probability of a risk - not a zero, but still a rather low probability - and even in such a case the majority chooses humiliation.
But again, the problem is not just with masks and Covid-19. Look, for example, how humiliating the traveling by airlines became. We are treated as prisoners, literally! We have to surrender all our properties, empty pockets, put the belt out of the trousers and walk through the search barefoot and holding hands up! I personally have nothing against walking barefoot, but only when it is voluntarily - otherwise it's a humiliation. And tell me, how many people were ever killed by a bomb in a shoe? The answer is, zero! There was only one attempt of such a stupid attack (you cannot put enough explosives in a shoe for a real blast!), and it was prevented. And because of this single failed attempt billions of people all over the world have to walk barefoot through the guards, as in a medieval prison!
We see it everywhere. Both the government and the private corporations violate our rights and our dignity, treat us all as criminals because only a tiny fraction of us actually are, "for our own security", and we obediently accept it. I am absolutely sure that, if tomorrow wearing slave collars is also made mandatory - "for the public safety", of course - the majority will comply, just as with masks. And soon they will begin to decorate their collars, to make them "stylish" and "fashionable", to post their collared photos in social networks and so on. There will be no resistance. They will accept it as the new norm.
Actually, the worst things in human history were committed under the slogans of safety and security or by the organizations which had these words in their name. (KGB, for example, means Committee of State Security.) Those who give up liberty to purchase safety not just deserve neither liberty nor safety, as Franklin once wrote, but actually get neither. But while the authorities always try to restrict people's rights and freedom and to subdue their will, the problem is, again, that probably never before here in the West these attempts met so little resistance. The worst plague - or cancer - of the modern civilization - I mean so-called "political correctness" and all trends associated with it - is also the result of the same major problem of losing dignity. It's giving up liberty, the truth, the common sense, the very idea of right and wrong, of norm and pathology - in a contemptible hope to avoid any confrontation with any aggressive minority. The obedient acceptance of any demands of such minorities (and their advocates), whatever absurd they are (and whatever actually weak that minorities are). That's not kindness, that's not humanity - that's just pure cowardice. The despicable descendants of their mighty ancestors, the white Europeans who had created the human civilization, literally kneel to the black bandits and looters, accepting any humiliation in a hope to buy safety. And you know what? It does not work. All attempts to appease an assaulter, be it an aggressive country or a stupid thug, always fail. If you lose your dignity, you lose everything. And the only way our civilization can survive is to regain our dignity and fight back.
So, back to masks. I am not saying we should ignore any risk and go berserk. But we must distinguish the really needful countermeasures from the paranoid ones. Again, "better safe than sorry" logic leads directly to the idea to handcuff everybody because some people are criminals. There are too many entities nowadays which want to take care of our safety (the way they understand it), without even asking for our opinion. But nobody will take care of our dignity except for ourselves.