Nobody complains when their kid’s school conducts mass shooting drills.

Nobody complains when their kid’s school installs metal detectors and requires everyone entering the school to go through them.

Nobody complains when their kid’s school installs bulletproof classroom doors, doors that are locked from the inside at the start of class.

Nobody complains when their kid’s school hires poorly paid security guards with guns. (We don’t have armed guards at the school where I teach, but the school’s mascot is a ferocious cartoon bulldog.)

Nobody complains about ads in their kid’s school newspaper for bulletproof backpacks and hoodies.

But what happens when people go to big box stores with their kids to buy those bulletproof backpacks? Clerks stop people at the door and tell them that they have to put on face masks in order to enter the store. Then people go nuts. They shout that this is tyranny and say that they have a Constitutional right to go into a store without wearing a face mask. Sometimes they also physically assault the store clerks. Then they are thrown out of the store and have to buy their bulletproof backpacks elsewhere. We don’t have any big box stores here in Berkeley, but you can buy bulletproof backpacks at Bed, Bath, and Beyond at El Cerrito Plaza. Bulletproof Backpacks.

The Constitution. There is nothing in the Constitution about face masks. It is amazing what some people think is in the Constitution. For example, the majority of Americans believe that the Constitution requires that the President has to be born in the United States, but that isn’t true. The President of the United States can be born anywhere in the world. Lots of presidential candidates were born in foreign countries. John McCain ran for president against Barack Obama. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which was never part of the United States. Ted Cruz ran for president in 2016, and he was born in Canada. George Romney, Mitt Romney’s father ran for president in 1968. As a child, George Romney faced a lot of discrimination because he was born in Mexico. When he went to school in Los Angeles, other children taunted him by calling him ‘Mex’, but when George Romney ran for president, the fact that he was born in Mexico was not an issue. In 1968, the frontrunners for the Republican nomination for president were Romney and Nixon. The Republicans chose Nixon. After Watergate, a lot of them regretted that they didn’t pick Romney.

Mark’s Face Mask Advice. If you don’t wear a face mask because you fear that your brain won’t get enough oxygen and that you will become irrational, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but that horse is already out of the barn.