Mandate to wear a mask? Oh, the tyranny!

Several hundred people flocked to Scottsdale last week to join with Councilman Guy – yes, you can, too, breathe – Phillips to protest government tyranny.

It seems we in America are enduring a reign of terror unlike anything we have ever seen. A diabolical plot unleashed upon us by puppet politicians who are being played by the deep state which has an agenda to turn us all into ... well, I shudder to imagine their nefarious plan.

Today, we must wear masks. And tomorrow?

Fortunately, we have people like Scottsdale’s Phillips to lead us to the light, to free us from the shackles of facial confinement so that he can make an absolute fool of himself in front of the whole world.

“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,” he moaned before ripping off his mask and rolling his eyes. It was a shameful display, given that those were George Floyd’s final words last month, as he died under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.

Fortunately, we have people like Daniel McCarthy, a Republican so far to the right that he’s challenging Sen. Martha McSally in the GOP primary because she’s too liberal for his tastes.

McCarthy called the countywide mask mandate “a communist insurrection.”

Fortunately, we have people like Rep. Andy Biggs, who declares that mask mandates are government tyranny.

“As we look at the fork in the road, something seemingly so simple as a universal mask mandate symbolizes where we can choose to go: on a path of renewed freedom or down the path of untethered government control of every aspect of our lives, which will surely lead to ruin,” he recently wrote.

Arizona is not the only land of “patriots,” standing ever at the ready to fight this commie-inspired cover-up ... of their faces.

In Palm Beach County, Fla. – another community battling an alarming spike in COVID-19 – irate protesters recently decried the “communist dictators” otherwise known as county commissioners who were preparing to vote on a mask mandate.

“You are going to be arrested for crimes against humanity,” one woman warned. “Every single one of you has a smirk behind that little mask, but every single one of you are going to get punished by God. You cannot escape God ... not even with the mask or 6 feet.”

Onward, Christian soldier.

Onward, to your car where you will, no doubt, put on a seat belt, as the law requires. Then drive home at a reasonable speed, as the law requires. Maybe you will stop along the way to pick up

takeout at a restaurant that must comply with government regulations on how to prepare food and maintain sanitary conditions.

But wearing a mask, as the law in many places now requires?

As the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has, for two months, recommended?

As public health officials across the land have begged us to do, saying it’s our best hope for limiting the transmission of the coronavirus? That it will save lives? That it’s the quickest path to getting us through this nightmare?

As one reader, Eric, recently wrote to me: “Liberty or we’re all slaves Laurie. The long-term downslope the country is in due to overwrought government imperils us all far beyond that of any transient germ ... I am an adult. If you wish to dress like you are going to the moon feel free.”

I get it. “Give me liberty or give me death.” Right, Eric? Right, Andy? Guy? Daniel?

As Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

The problem is, it’s not you who will likely do the dying.

Yet united you stand on this Fourth of July, true blue Yankee Doodle dandies, resolute in your refusal to temporarily give up this tiny slice of liberty in order to purchase safety — not for yourselves but for your fellow countrymen and women, the people for whom this disease can be a death sentence.

Personally, I hate wearing a mask. It’s hot, it’s embarrassing and it hurts my ears. But I hardly think freedom will wither and die if I knuckle under to the “tyrants” who are trying to slow down a once-in-a-century global pandemic until life can return to normal.

Just wear the freaking mask.