Alan Magazine’s “stop signs” analogy was a simple, good one at the Town Council meeting and vote on face masks Friday. Unfortunately, it nonetheless went over many people’s heads.
Restrictions, on your “freedom” to drive hellbent through an intersection, are there to prevent the inevitable accident from someone not taking care to enter that intersection carefully enough to avoid one. When a town decides there is sufficient traffic and danger, a stop sign is installed, requiring everyone to follow the same rules for everyone’s safety. Intersections out in the middle of nowhere may not need one.
Arizona Covid-19 cases are now going through the roof because too many people are deciding not to stop at the stop signs that medical experts tried to put up. When our town considered mandating face masks, I heard grown adults throwing tantrums, claiming they were offended by being told what to do by signs around town, even when it is for their own and the public good, again substantiated by the spike in cases we are seeing in Maricopa County. Are those people offended by stop signs “infringing on their personal freedoms?”
We are not out in the middle of nowhere, with many people coming and going in and out of the Valley every day, and the risk here is something to take very seriously and is not “overblown.” Many people who work in our stores, especially the supermarkets, do not live here, for example, making those establishments particularly dangerous, considering also the amount of people going in and out. When you live in a society you are responsible for your own well-being and those your behavior may affect in a negative way. That’s how a society maintains itself, not through blatant, selfish disregard of a real danger.
