NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE
Imagine this. You go to your local restaurant and are seated with your family perusing the menu when a commotion erupts near the hostess podium. Curious, you look up to see a middle-aged man wearing nothing but boxers, his ample belly hanging over the elastic, one bare, callused foot stomping with great indignation. The anger on his face is palpable as the words issue from his mouth in a vituperative stream, “But it’s my constitutional right!”
Much to his chagrin, he is not seated, while you and your family share a collective sigh of relief. Laughing, you wonder what possessed the man to believe it would be acceptable to sit in a nice restaurant dressed only in his boxers. It is off-putting to his fellow patrons if not illegal.
Who has not come across that sign from time to time in various storefronts and eateries, the proprietor ensuring there is some level of decorum in his place of business? No shirt, no shoes, no service. And unless you are as rude as the man in the above-imagined scenario, you respect the admonition as well as your fellow customers rather than bellow about your rights, your freedoms as an American to do what you want, when you want, how you want. No one is going to dictate anything to me!
And yet that is precisely what is happening in the culture wars during this pandemic in which a simple piece of cloth has become the next battleground of the republic. Somehow a simple intervention to safeguard oneself and more importantly, others, has become a rallying cry of liberty.
As individuals, we have different roles and identities. A parent, a spouse, a teacher, a baseball fan, an athlete, an artist, whatever creates that blend to make us who we are. Our identity as an American, however, should be unique in that it cannot exist apart from the social contract that connects us. It is purportedly built on a set of ideals and principles and truths that hold us together. That is not to say there will not be dissension, differing perspectives, and philosophies, as respecting those differences is precisely an essential aspect of democracy, but it does assert that implicit in such a system is the need to safeguard the rights, liberties, and opportunities of one another. A simple example being red lights; I am not free to drive endlessly much as I may wish. We stop in order to accommodate others, taking turns…
