Good afternoon, Marysville! Even if your week’s been bumpy, here’s hoping you can ride the Sun’s relative velocity into the weekend.
☀️Apology > Amnesty
What are we trying to do here? We're trying to think about living as the light of the world and the salt of the earth in Marysville. Or stated a different way, by the mercies of God we recognize that all the world is an altar and we're not to conform to the priorities and practices of this age, but rather to be living sacrifices that prove what is good and acceptable and perfect. We want to do God’s will.
That means we shouldn't require others to wear masks. It also means we should expect those who did demand and pressure and guilt others into mask-wearing to give a public apology.
Now there are a lot of ways in which Christians ought to walk more wisely, and a YES/NO/MAYBE on masks might not be first on the list, at least not this summer. Our “elite” and “approved” scientists, doctors, and alphabet agencies have given us a reprieve. And the peasants rejoiced. It's been said that a lie makes it around the world twice as fast as the truth, and it seems that apologies have a quarter of the news-cycle power that soft-tyranny enjoys. This isn't about rubbing our rulers faces in how wrong they were, but I mean they did mandate that we cover our faces for over a year (while they played the part when they knew the cameras were on).
I'm not a doctor, but I am literate and can read what doctors write. I'm not a public-policy maker, but I am part of the public, and in the United States that means (at least on a legally-binding paper somewhere) that our government should be more restricted in what they can enforce on us; the default is our freedom from their rules not their freedom to pile on rules.
My concern here is not whether or not you wore a mask, but whether or not you required that others wear one. I'm not the first one to point these things out, but again, we're trying to discern what is right. (Aren’t we?)
Is it right for only one side of the debate to be censored? Why did YouTube and social media sites only ban and remove arguments against masks (and mandatory vaccine policies)? Why did the WHO and the CDC change their positions mid-panic, from knowing that masks cannot stop transmission of respiratory viruses? And these are just some of the questions.
The results of studies confirm that masks did little to nothing to stop COVID transmission, if not actually causing more damage. One of the most dependable clinical trial groups are part of the Cochrane network. Their key message on masks and respiratory virus as reported in January: “We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed.”
Even the New York Times published an opinion questioning the value of masks:
The last justification for masks is that, even if they proved to be ineffective, they seemed like a relatively low-cost, intuitively effective way of doing something against the virus in the early days of the pandemic. But “do something” is not science, and it shouldn’t have been public policy. And the people who had the courage to say as much deserved to be listened to, not treated with contempt.
The mandates were manipulative, and not methodical as science claims to be. Masks were anxiety-theater, and we were all forced on stage. For further reading, I highly recommend this collection of links from The Free Press, this reminder about “what you should never do when you’re ignorant” as related to the plea for “pandemic amnesty” from Douglas Wilson, and this thread of lessons from Michael Foster.
Part of testing what is good and acceptable and perfect is seeing what went wrong and—at the least—not doing that again.
☀️City Feedback Requests
Marysville has posted an Economic Development Survey “to assure population and employment growth occurs in a way that complements the community’s vision.” Click here to read more about the survey and then take it.
Here is an Online Open House with info about “traffic backups around the I-5 exits on 4th Street or 88th Street NE” and the Corridor Improvements Project. Click here for more info and to provide comments.
☀️Local Events
Food Trucks at Comeford Park - two more to go! More info here.
National Night Out - Tuesday, August 1, 6:00pm at Jennings Park - See the city’s announcement here, and the Sun’s coverage of last year’s event here.
All-Comers Track Meets - one more to go on August 3. More info here.
Rummage Sale - Friday and Saturday, August 4th and 5th, 9:00am - 5:00pm, at Evangel Classical School - 9015 44th Dr. NE. All proceeds benefit the ECS Trip Fund.
☀️Friday Fun
Very powerful:
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Thanks for sharing the masks article, I'd missed that on the Free Press.