This week, during a flight back from Europe to the United States, an otherwise friendly stewardess approached me and my row mates on multiple occasions to make us fix our face masks. She took to the intercom to remind us that federal law demands that we comply with the mask mandates lest we imperil our fellow passengers amid the deadly global pandemic. But the stewardess made an exception to the life-saving mask rule, which she permitted us to violate on a few occasions to enjoy the meal, drinks, and warm chocolate chip cookie served along the route. Still, as soon as we had licked the last cookie crumb from our lips, the masks had to go back on.
A similar policy prevails today at many restaurants, which demand that customers muzzle themselves from the front door to their tables to the bathrooms but not once they have taken their seats. Presumably the virus travels just as surely at the dinner table as it does at the hostess stand, but different rules apply to each. The virus, it seems, poses sufficient danger to merit reordering our most basic social interactions but not enough to ask that we forego a plate of tapas.
Dr. Fauci displayed similarly perplexing behavior at the Washington Nationals’ home opener last July. The esteemed epidemiologist made a point to wear a mask as he dribbled the first pitch alone on the mound in the nearly empty stadium. But he removed his mask to chat as he sat shoulder to shoulder with friends in the stands. Sixty feet from the nearest soul, Fauci feared spreading the plague; inches from his pals, he threw caution to the wind.
Two days before my death-defying transatlantic journey, former president Barack Obama danced the night away with several hundred friends at a maskless rager on Martha’s Vineyard. Although public health officials have encouraged the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike to mask themselves in crowds, since both groups seem to spread the Chinese coronavirus at roughly the same rate when infected, the liberal establishment suspended its salvific work for a few hours to bump and grind with Jay-Z and John Kerry.
Perhaps Obama and his buddies hadn’t read the latest edicts from the priests of public health. Perhaps Fauci feared more for his baseball than for his friends. Perhaps restauranteurs and stewardesses, as well as diners and fliers, really do value a few tasty morsels more than they do their own lives. Or maybe no one really believes any of this. As the masks and the mandates enter the five-hundred-thirteenth day of fifteen to slow the spread, how much longer does the ruling class expect everyone to keep up the charade? The people cannot forever be told to eat cake, and neither will they remain content with cookie crumbs.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.