Some More News - Some More News: The Dark Motivation Behind The New Wave of Mask Bans

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

Hi. Cities and counties nationwide are banning masks, ostensibly to prevent crime, but in reality are stifling the free speech of protesters and making life even harder for the immunocompromised. Get the world's news at https://ground.news/SMN to compare coverage and see through biased coverage. Subscribe for 50% off unlimited access – their biggest discount – through our link. Hosted by Cody Johnston Executive Producer - Katy Stoll Directed by Katy Stoll Written by Helen Floersh Edited by Michael Swaim Produced by Jonathan Harris Associate Producer - Quincy Tucker Post-Production Supervisor - John Conway Researcher - Marco Siler-Gonzales Graphics by Clint DeNisco Head Writer - David Christopher Bell PATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenews MERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.com Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XTNBMVoFqN8 SimpliSafe is extending its massive Black Friday deal for our viewers. This week only, you can take 50% off any new system with a select professional monitoring plan. Head to https://simplisafe.com/morenews to claim your discount and make sure your home is safe. Ready to cross that last gift off your list? Trade is offering their best savings of the year on gift subscriptions right now, so head to https://drinktrade.com/MORENEWS to send a personalized coffee subscription in minutes.

Ah, Katie wants to do secret Santa again this year. It's not what you think. She just gets really drunk and accuses me of secretly being Santa. Nobody wins. Anywho, hi, it's me again. Is everyone getting good and lubed up for the holidays? Flying home perhaps?

Gonna go back to your small town and rekindle your romance with that hunk from high school? He's racist, you know. That hunk from high school. He's racist, you know. That hunk from high school is racist now, or always was. Just a heads up. Also, and here's some more news, you might want to get caught up on your vaccines or at least bust out a mask at the airport

because guess what? The grossioses are back, folks. Yes, it turns out COVID is not actually over because it never will be. And in fact, it's dropping a hot new variant just like it does every winter. So slapping an N95 over your holes is probably a smart move

if you don't want to spread COVID to your grandma and deprive yourself of the chance to kill her with your own bare hands. She knows why. So mask up is the point here. That is, unless you're going to a protest over the holiday, specifically a protest of the pro-Palestine variety. Some lawmakers, including New York governor Hokel

are now making a push to ban masks a protest after recent demonstrations over the crisis in the Middle East have led to violence and vandalism here. The North Carolina State Senate has passed a bill that would make it a crime to wear a mask in public. The Nassau County Legislature has passed a controversial mask ban, making it a crime for anyone to use a mask or face covering to hide their identity in public. During protests, law enforcement encounters individuals who, because they are masked, are emboldened to act in a more deviant and criminal nature

outside of normal behavior. I am a believer in banning masks that are worn for non-health reasons. Take your mask off. Don't be a coward. Yeah, don't be a coward. Get sick, you wuss. Die like the rest of us, you softy millennials.

How neat. States, counties, cities, and college campuses all over the United States are either considering or have already rolled out mask bans as a way to deter people from demonstrating against a genocide. That'll do it. While unsurprisingly, there's plenty of support for this

among those who equate the pro-Palestine protests with anti-Semitism and people who are bad at science, the bans have alarmed people with health conditions, disabilities, or rightful suspicion that these laws could lead to discrimination against black and brown people. And for irony fans, it seems like a lot of the people in favor of mask bans are the same folks who fought so hard against what they can and can't s We will not lie. We will 100 people showed up at c

their displeasure towards public health order that to be worn in public plac day. That's why I brought who wants to burn their mask. It's time to unmask the governor. Governor mayor. We can't breathe. They were engaging in hyperbole

when we compare what happened in Nazi Germany to what we see right now. God remember those babies so concerned about the government controlling their bodies unless they're a woman who needs an abortion. A lot of meat for irony perverts in this conversation and really just in the entire country. So let's talk about mask bans and how they, perhaps,

are really messed up and overt ways to attack citizens in a way that is actually kind of Nazi Germany-like. But hey, maybe the next president will do something about it, whoever that's gonna be. Oh, I hope it's somebody I like. Mask Bans! Seems bad. Right, I keep blocking that out. Well, maybe he'll be pro-masked now.

What with all that Hannibal Lecter talk. So okay, we should probably look at these specific mask bans to see just how big of a deal they actually are. Maybe we're overreacting. I often react in an overly way. For example, the mask ban in Long Island has exceptions for medical and religious masks. Take that, this video, ah!

So unless you care about your stupid right to protest, this particular mask ban shouldn't affect anybody. Although now that we're jazzing here, I do wonder how that religious and health exception would be enforced. Any plan for that? County Executive Blakeman says police officers will determine who is wearing a mask for health or religious reasons and who has more criminal intentions. If someone's wearing a mask we want our police to have the ability to

question them. Oh great the police are going to handle it thank goodness you know that the totally impartial police with no history of racial or class bias are going to handle that. Surely in a peaceful way that will never escalate to violence as evidenced by their long history of having zero problems with brutality or profiling or domestic abuse or murdering like 20 dogs a day. So glad that is being handled.

And like, how do you even assess medical reasons? If I wear a mask on a bus because I don't want to get sick, is that not a medical reason? If I have a cold and don't want to spread it, do I need a fucking doctor's note for that? Absurd. And so officers can ask anyone to take off their mask anytime they have reasonable suspicion that someone might be doing something illegal. But if you're still, for some absurd reason, worried that cops will abuse this new power to stop anyone wearing a mask, worry no more.

Because they are doing special training for officers to distinguish the difference between wearing masks for religious or medical reasons and wearing them to do crime. A big training too. An entire three page legal bulletin and six slide presentation. I'm sorry, wait, five slides.

If you don't count the title slide. Cool. Well, maybe these specific police in Nassau County are actually really good at their, wait, no. Same as cops all over the country. Possibly worse actually. Got it. Awesome, I feel great and jolly,

not in a Santa way to be clear. Regular jolly. Anyway, so far the mask ban has been used to arrest two people, including an 18 year old who was reportedly carrying a large knife and a pro-Palestine protester wearing a kaffir outside a synagogue. It's impossible to say whether cops would have stopped the first kid, whether he'd been wearing a mask or not.

And as for the protester, it sounds like his only real crime was the made up one of concealing his identity. And this is just one place. North Carolina also enacted a mask ban that initially didn't even have considerations for people with health problems. Thankfully, they revised that. This one was put forth by the state's GOP-dominated General Assembly, which overrode a veto by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper to get it into law. We should note that Cooper wasn't vetoing the ban because of concerns about civil rights,

but because of a stipulation around a campaign finance provision that would allow contributions from federal political organizations to be sent to state and county parties. Boy, politics be stupid. Point is that the Democrats have absolutely no problem banning masks as well, because they're also bad.

Along with giving cops the right to ask anyone to remove their mask, the bill also allows property owners to do so as well. I'm sure that won't be abused. GOP lawmakers have said point blank that it's a response to the use of masks during protests like the ones at the University of North Carolina. It's kind of weird that state officials didn't care that time the Proud Boys showed up in masks

to protest a drag brunch, but maybe they just oops and forgot. Definitely not foreshadowing a systemic double standard that boosts white supremacy since the founding of the United States. I don't even know what foreshadowing is, so how would I do it? Meanwhile, other cities are working on mask bans that apply exclusively to protests, like this one that the state Senate of Texas is looking into. The Senate committee is looking at several drafts of legislation that would ban face

coverings and hoods designed to conceal the identity of those committing crimes at protest. The protesters say it's actually a way to quash their free speech. Yeah, it seems like it's that second thing. As we've pointed out on this show before, protests are supposed to be disruptive. That's the whole point. Speaking truth to power gets messy, and it will make those in power, or those who benefit from it, feel uncomfortable. So it's only, I guess, natural that they would rather pass laws

kneecapping our right to protest them. Like, yeah, I bet being a lawmaker is way easier if you get to do or say anything you want with absolutely no recourse from the American people. What's weird is how easily and quickly they were able to pass these laws and how little most people seem to care. So why is that?

Why was this so easy to do? Well, for starters, you know all those mask mandates during COVID? In many states, those mandates were actually part of an emergency order that superseded earlier laws prohibiting masks, meaning that, in certain contexts, masks were already banned. And at first glance, you might think that you know exactly why they were already banned, or rather, there's a logical

reason that most people assume, and some lawmakers have claimed, which is that we banned masks to fight the KKK. That is the honorable reason to ban masks, just like how today the justification for going after protesters is often lumped in with the claim these pro-Palestine demonstrators are anti-Semitic. For example, the Unmask the Hate campaign, which argues that pro-Palestine protesters are hiding behind masks so they can quote, commit acts of oppression and even outright violence. I and many other reasonable people would perhaps point out

that comparing an anti-genocide movement to a hate group is a big sinister lie. Because yes, I'm not a fan of Nazis or antisemitism. And so it's nice to know that while there were some reported instances, those pro-Palestine demonstrations were largely peaceful and didn't actually have widespread issues with anti-Semitism.

And in fact, the Nazis that did show up had no interest in Gaza. And perhaps it's weird we're suddenly concerned about Nazis only in this one overblown instance. But the broad point here is that the reason, in my opinion, that the average person doesn't care much about mask bans is probably because they assume these laws were originally on the books because of hate groups concealing their identity. So what's wrong with

simply continuing them? Those are strong optics, right? Who wants to be for masking the KKK or Nazis? I don't. Yuckers. Pachooey, in fact. Except I would argue that even though some of these bans were originally related to the KKK, which we'll get to, the spirit of these bans was and has always been about protecting the powerful against our right to protest. In fact, the very first mask ban in the States had nothing to do with the Klan at all. It was in New York in 1845, 20 years before the KKK would be founded. Why? To stamp out protests by people who are being fleeced by their landlord. Classic, classic America.

This would be known as the Anti-Rent War, something we desperately need a sequel to, at least based on the name. What happened was a group of farmers got locked into a shit deal with a stuffy rich landowner and staged an uprising where they wore fake Native American masks to conceal their identity. Not cool 1800s farmers, very insensitive stuff.

What are you, a college kid in the 2000s? So in this case, it was ostensibly a group of racists fighting against a group of wealthier racists because they were all racist. But their cause against landlords was at least something we can all get behind. And most importantly to this video, it means that the first mask ban in America

was specifically an act of rich and powerful people trying to tamp down on protests. The state legislature passed a law that would make it illegal for these farmers to do anything that could hide their identity. This included painting or discoloring their faces to the detriment of children's birthday parties and minstrel shows, and of course, hiding their faces behind masks. The state eventually passed a law siding with the protest, but New York's mask ban remained. It's been used a handful of times over the past 150 years to do things like deny the KKK a marching permit and, surprise, arrest more protesters. The mask ban was cited as grounds for arresting people

who took part in New York's Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011, and again in 2012, when women supporting the banned Pussy Riot stood outside the Russian embassy wearing balaclavas. And it can also be used, it seems, to ban medical masks if needed. And that's kind of wild, right? That in New York, there's just this one 150 year old

catch-all law that can be used to crack down on violent racists and also lawful protesters and also just sick people. That seems like a bad way of doing laws. But what of the laws that were created to stop the KKK? After all, you might be thinking to yourself, well, hey, at least this shows some concern for stopping bigoted violence in America.

Well, shucks, bad news about America. As law professor Rob Kahn has explained, most anti-clan laws were a way for states to performatively distance themselves from extreme racist violence in order to make segregation seem more progressive. It was a political tactic where they could denounce one racist thing

to sell another racist thing. Because of course, lawmakers don't actually care about racists, why would they? A lot of them are that thing. In fact, in at least one state, I won't name names, but it's North of South Carolina, their newly crafted anti-mask law comes with a loophole where clan members could simply get a permit

to wear face coverings. From the bill itself, there is an exception for, quote, any person or persons as members or members elect of a society, order or organization engaged in any parade, ritual, initiation, ceremony, celebration, or requirement of such society, order or organization, and wearing or using any manner of costume, paraphernalia, disguise, facial makeup, hood, implement or device.

Hood, they specified hoods. So just to really break that down, this bill created in 2023, specifically bans masks in public for everyone and in fact removed a part that would have created exceptions for medical issues, but still built in an exception for any organization that perhaps needs to wear hoods,

because that is actually what this is all about. We don't care about the sick, we don't care about protesters, and in fact, we hate those things, but the KKK. They might performatively say they are against the KKK, but only to do a second also racist thing, be that segregation or pushing anti-mask laws that allow cops to ramp up their racial profiling.

It has been and still is about protecting certain people from the consequences of screwing over other certain people, people who are often framed as criminals, which is yet another excuse we've seen for these mask bands, an excuse that we will talk about after this break. Because while it's the holidays, it's also the Honda days. Be right back, right now. Well, not yet, in like a couple minutes.

You know how ad breaks work, be right back. Good evening or afternoon or morning. Why would I assume what time it is for you? What is wrong with me? And speaking of assuming things about stuff and junk, it's important not to assume things about stuff or junk. That's why we here at the Showdy get our news at ground news,

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I'm hosting this year, which means picking up my relatives from the airport, shopping and setting up all the tents in my yard for my parents and family to sleep in. So much work. They're always wh for my parents and family to sleep in. So much work! They're always whining about bears and freezing to death. Whatever. But this year, I have SimpliSafe.

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we discussed how mask bans have been a convenient tool for selectively squashing dissent. But to hear the lawmakers and ban perverts describe it, anti-mask laws are simply a common sense deterrent for crime. For example, even if you don't agree with it, most people probably see the logic in banning ski masks at least some of the time.

Ski masks are illegal in many public places in Philadelphia. The controversial ban automatically became law today and there's plenty of reaction tonight. People like me that go to work and the other people that go to work, that early mornings and late nights, their faces are gonna be gold. So I think certain times it shouldn't be banned,

but then yeah, it should be banned. Right, it's complicated. Ski masks are extremely useful during the winter, or if you're an up and coming Spider-Man, but it might be a bit sus, pishy-ous, if someone is wearing one at the bank mid July in Los Angeles. But counterpoint, is it complicated?

See, for the cops, it would be objectively easier to ban wearing masks. No arguments there. But for the cops, it would be easier to ban a lot of things, right? You know what gets used a lot during crimes? Guns. Or hey, cars do a lot of crime stuff.

Should we ban those? What about hats, sunglasses? Those things objectively limit police ability to identify a suspect. One of the most famous manhunts involved a pair of sunglasses and a hoodie. Seriously, cops are like dogs and babies. You slap a pair of sunglasses on and they think you've vanished into thin air.

Do not test that theory. You know what criminals love to do? Leave their homes. Perhaps we should mandate that everyone stay in their homes unless they're working or at school. Create some kind of martial law enforcement system. I'm being dramatic, I know. I can't help it.

I'm a natural performer. But you see the issue here. Society is a constant push and pull between ensuring safety and ensuring freedom. There are certain regulations we need to follow to participate. For example, requiring people to wear medical masks during a pandemic.

But it's important to know when the authorities are overstepping that balance in the name of stopping crime. And even more important to recognize this before they cross that line. Because while you might not care that much about ski masks, they're not going to stop there. Not sure if you recall, since it happened so many one week ago,

but there was a pretty high profile crime that was just committed in New York where the perpetrator wore a medical mask at one point. And so of course, Mayor Eric Adams, a dude we should totally look to for insight, used the moment to go after medical masks saying, when you go into businesses and establishments, ask people to temporarily remove their mask.

We could, we can close these cases in hours when everyone will cooperate and just say temporarily pull down your mask. You don't have to permanently take it off, but once you get that video, once you get that picture, then you are in a good place. He went on to say that Ubers and Lyft should require this as well. So he's pretty much admitting what we just said. Because yes, it would be easier for cops to solve crimes if everyone did that, because then they get to use facial recognition tools

and whatever other surveillance tactics they need in order to not solve a crime until a McDonald's customer rats somebody out. But again, it would also be easier if everyone gave their social security numbers and fingerprints upon entering any store. A lot of things would make it easier for cops to solve crimes,

but that doesn't mean we should be required to do it. But I suspect that after this recent shooting, we're gonna see more and more law enforcement officials speaking out against medical masks. In fact, we were already seeing it before this. If law enforcement sees a group of young men wearing surgical masks and surgical gloves, walking around a school parking lot during a football game, or at any other time,

I want the police to find out what's going on. That's the mayor of Louisville making the case for banning surgical masks to deter crime. That city recently dusted off a 40-year-old mask ban ordinance, and while some local officials have tried to argue that they're primarily targeting ski masks, well, you just saw that clip. Also, as we've already said, do we really want to trust the cops to limit their power and not the laws themselves? A cop honor system.

Does that sound correct to anyone? Who? Which one of you? But we're actually getting way ahead of ourselves when talking about banning masks to reduce crime. that sound correct to anyone? Who? Which one of you? But we're actually getting way ahead of ourselves when talking about banning masks to reduce crime. Because here's a question no one seems to be asking, do mask bans actually reduce crime?

And the answer to that is maybe, but only in theory, at least for now. There's very little good research on this as far as we can tell. If you happen to find these studies, great, drop them in the comments, copy and paste the entire text in the comments. We will, I mean, we're not gonna put in this video

because the video will come out, but we'll up vote your comment. But from what we've seen so far, it's most likely that mask bands are just another version of stop and frisk in that they add one more excuse for a cop to stop any young person of perhaps the darker skin variety. At least one city seems to know that.

In Chicago, city officials have proposed not banning masks outright, but instead tacking on additional penalties if someone is wearing a mask when they commit a crime. Except if you think about it for a second, that's not going to deter crime either, is it? Do criminals consider extra penalties when committing crimes? I'm pretty sure their plan is to get away with it.

Not to mention that they're probably pretty desperate to begin with. But don't take my word for it. We know for a fact that increased punishment doesn't deter criminals. Just ask anyone against banning guns, right? If masks were outlawed, only outlaws would have masks, right?

How is this not the same issue? Deterrents don't reduce crimes for desperate people who don't even know what the penalties for various crimes are. You know what does reduce crime? Increasing access to services, improving housing, and helping people obtain steady income, either through jobs or government assistance.

You know, all the woke shit. But as we know, America is really bad at caring for people, which is actually how we got here in the first place. It's why people not only have to wear masks for health reasons, but fight for the right to wear them apparently. Like I'm a big softy for freedom to protest and freedom of speech

and the freedom to cover your face for whatever damn reason you want. But the most chilling aspect of these mask bands is how, forgive the pun, mask off lawmakers are from both parties declaring how few shits they really give for people with disabilities. How fucking Nazi-like it is.

Not just now, but throughout the pandemic, throwing countless sick and disabled Americans under the giant money bus to keep our economy running. A country that has unanimously declared that if you have any medical disadvantage, you need to either suck it up or die. And with these bans, they are continuing and increasing a stigma that people who wear masks

already have to face. Anytime Sherri Stewart goes to a small public space, she'll put on her mask. She has stage four breast cancer and a weak immune system. But she had a new experience this morning at a carry car service, where she says she was harassed by a customer. When he confronted me,

I actually showed him my medical ID card and he still lashed out at me like that. She says he threatened her, coughed on her, and said wearing a mask is now illegal in North Carolina, which is not true. You're still gonna get judged. If that law is out there, you're still gonna get people like the gentleman

I encountered today that's gonna have something to say to you and get upset that you're wearing it. Dude, leave the fucking cancer patient alone. She has cancer. If you're wondering how you can tell if someone has cancer, it's actually easy. You don't have to. Just leave everybody alone. If someone is wearing a mask, it doesn't hurt you in any way. And if you feel compelled to yell at them for it, maybe take a beat and wonder what you're actually mad about. If you can't figure it out, maybe go talk to a professional who might. Holy moly.

By the way, North Carolina's mask ban hadn't even officially been passed yet at that point. Given that even during the mask mandates, anti-maskers were doing absurd things like pulling masks off of other people's faces, it's fair to be concerned that mask bans would embolden them even more. How absurd is this? Like, stand back from it and really admire it's fair to be concerned that mask bands would embolden them even more.

How absurd is this? Like stand back from it and really admire what a useless fucking fight we're being forced to endure. That there are people who walk around getting furious at the concept of basic medical protection. Just incredible that you can't just be mad when you're asked to wear a mask, but now you have to be mad when you're asked to wear a mask, but now you have to be mad

when other people choose to wear a mask. Like grow up? I don't know how else to phrase it. Just grow up. Because for people who are immunocompromised, wearing a mask can be a matter of life or death. This is especially pertinent at a time when basically all public health safeguards

against COVID have been rolled back. Some of them possibly never to return again thanks to new laws that severely weaken the government's ability to issue future emergency public health decrees. And so on top of a bunch of freaks trying to assault you and there being no safeguards for the public, if you also have a disability,

you will also have to deal with a bunch of cops trying to assault you, because now they are allowed to do that even more than they were already kind of allowed to do. Coincidentally, we know that at the height of the pandemic, black and Latino individuals were more likely to wear masks to protect themselves from COVID,

despite the fact that they were concerned that masks would make them more likely to face harassment by police. Why might they be more likely to wear masks? Probably because for most of the pandemic, these communities faced disproportionately high numbers of hospitalization and death because they were more likely to work essential jobs

that came with a higher risk of exposure to COVID. Also, this higher incidence of chronic illness stems from worse access to healthcare and is also directly linked to disproportionately high rates of incarceration in these communities, which is driven by over-criminalization, a problem that's exacerbated by racial profiling by cops who now get to approach you for wearing a medical mask.

Fun! It's like one big cycle of fucking over minorities, a di-cicle. A.K.A. an average gay in America. So we have people in low-income situations who were forced to work with the public during the pandemic, possibly getting long COVID from that experience, while also facing harassment from weirdos

who were told to be mad at protective masks. And then after the pandemic, after they sacrificed their own health so that the rest of us could get Taco Bell while we endured our friend's first D&D campaign, the thanks they get is to be further harassed for the crime of being sick. We used them up and threw them away

the moment they became disabled. Because I can't really stress this enough, America doesn't give a shit about disabled people, which is especially wild when you consider that the United States is considered one of the most accommodating countries for disabled people. We suck at it and are still one of the best places for it. That's, that's very not good.

It's quite very not good that a country considered one of the best for disabilities is essentially declaring that they would rather demonize people who have to wear a mask, potentially killing them, than force their police to work a little harder. But if you're watching this and have a disability, I also doubt you are surprised by any of that. It has been an uphill battle, sometimes literally, for people with disabilities to fight for accommodations. Take the Americans with Disabilities Act, for instance.

That was signed into law only after years of activism and protests by disabled people, like this famous demonstration called the Capitol Crawl. We as disabled persons are here today to ensure for the class of disabled Americans, the ordinary daily life that non-disabled Americans too often take for granted. The passage of this monumental legislation

will make it clear that our government will no longer allow the largest minority group in the United States to be denied equal opportunity. Again, literally an uphill battle. It literally took disabled people crawling up the steps of the Capitol to get our leaders to make it illegal to discriminate against them. In 1990, 1990, that's post Tim Burton's Batman, PTBB.

That is how fucking hard it is and was to have a disability in this country and also the world. It kind of makes you wonder if these mask bands go against disabled or sick people's constitutional rights. You know, because that's what they do. Mask bands trample on their right to have equal access to public life. Like literally the right to exist in the world

while protecting themselves without having to deal with harassment or even outright threats from others. This was the logic an organization called Disability Rights New York used when they filed a federal lawsuit challenging Nassau County's mask ban back in August, when they claimed that it not only violates the constitution

but also the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act. That lawsuit was dismissed a month later, however, with US District Judge Joan Asrack, arguing that the bans contained enough exemptions for people with health conditions that they didn't violate their rights at all. Joan ass crack. Of course, this sounds like a case

where the theoretical consequences of a law don't line up with its practical application. And we wouldn't be surprised if more lawsuits on behalf of disabled people are filed in other places where mask bans are being enforced. As they should. People should be mad, not just people with disabilities. I mean, once you hit your 70s, you're nearly a coin flip from getting a disability, mind you. But anyone who cares about dumb junk like freedom and liberty and American values should probably give a turd or two about this.

Spare a turd perhaps, spare a turd for a humble Cody. Of course, this isn't the only reason mask bands are likely unconstitutional. But alas, in order to talk about that, we need to pass another ad challenge. Are you ready? Try not to explode while you watch these hot, hot ads. People are difficult.

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I'm so sorry. Before we were so rudely interrupted, I was talking about how mask bans are a direct assault on the rights of people with disabilities. Not that America seems to care about such things. What America does tend to care about a tad more, however, is the First Amendment. Allegedly, it's how this show exists after all

and why we have a right to protest anonymously. This is something the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of over and over and over again in cases where people would have otherwise been compelled to reveal the identities of those who held certain political opinions. This affects everyone on the political spectrum, of course. It's one of the reasons why you can make a social media

account with a fake name and an anime profile picture and go on tirades about the government without going to jail. That said, things are a little less clear when it comes to masks. Courts historically have disagreed as to whether masked protests are technically protected under the First Amendment.

And where they have ruled that they are, the reason has usually been because they found that the government's rule was either too narrow or that they didn't have enough evidence that masked protests raised the risk of violence and criminal activity. Look, obviously we're not lawyers or even experts on constitutional law.

I tried to get out of a parking ticket once, but got stuck in a tree outside the courthouse. Still, it seems to us that mask bans enacted in response to pro-Palestine protesters would absolutely violate First Amendment rights, not to mention that revealing your identity means putting your job or even your life at risk. But in order for that to be a reality,

we're gonna have to fight for that idea. And that fight is going to have to involve a level of nuance I'm not sure lawmakers are going to want to grasp. For example, there is a website entirely dedicated to documenting the names and social media accounts of pro-Palestine protesters. This really seems like exactly the kind of political doxing

that earlier Supreme Court rulings found was in violation of the Constitution. But this website is technically legal. Thanks to our government's succing, doxing in itself is not an illegal act unless there's a direct threat of violence attached or you've obtained the information illegally. And this website is run by a private individual.

Mind you, a private wealthy anti-Muslim Trump donor individual that may or may not be working directly with the Israeli government to detain anti-genocide activists. But that's a whole other can of worms. Extremely racist worms. This type of doxxing should probably be illegal, right? But in saying that, there are so many things to untangle,

so many qualifiers and gotcha rebuttals. People might say, well, what about a website unmasking KKK members? To which I'd say, hey, that's a fucked up comparison. The KKK is by definition a hate group, one with a long history of crimes against Jews and people of color. Criticizing Israel by definition is not a crime yet.

Any attempt to equate pro-Palestine protesters with the KKK is fallacious and fucked up, which is why certain politicians who've tried to do it have ultimately backtracked. But the law can easily be made to categorize pro-Palestine protesters as a hate group. Like, I would want to argue that if a masked group of people are an established criminal organization, it should be fine to unmask them. But then, what is criminal there? Is protesting without a permit criminal? Does a bunch of college kids flipping a cop car at an otherwise peaceful demonstration

make everyone there part of a criminal group? What about the flip side? What about a group of pro-forced birth freaks protesting outside of a clinic? What if a teenage rape victim is trying to get into that clinic and has to pass a group of these freaks wearing baby masks or whatever? Should they have their identities protected, despite doing an act that one could argue is evil? I'd call them a hate group, but the law might not.

Some other freak might call these people heroes, and that freak has the same constitutional rights as me, this freak. I'm not trying to get all sorkin' about how we must fight for the freedoms of people who hate us, and I don't know, maybe the law is nuanced enough to make these distinctions. Again, I'm not a law pervert. I merely want to demonstrate how easily this conversation

can get bogged down. Ultimately though, the answer seems easy. Unless you're in an officially recognized hate group or physically committing a crime, you should be allowed to wear or not wear whatever the fuck you want, whenever you want to, unless it directly endangers the health of yourself hate group or physically committing a crime, you should be allowed to wear or not wear whatever the fuck you want whenever you want to unless it directly endangers the health of yourself and people around you. Yes, that technically decriminalizes public nudity. Let it all hang, folks.

And you should be protected by the law from other people revealing your face or private information, even if that means a lot of terrible people are also protected. Because freedom and crap, Sorkin, et cetera. The problem is that, much like the philosophy of the aforementioned idealistic crack-loving Aaron Sorkin, this belief is a lot harder in practice. You know, because of these people. We will not comply!

We will not comply! If you forgot, those are the anti-maskers we started this episode with. And they make everything just a little bit harder. Because while I absolutely think people need to be mandated to wear protective masks during a pandemic, I get the emotional response to being told you have to wear something.

They're wrong, mind you, but people take this stuff very personally. And more than that, these people represent another terrible human habit we all contain. At least until our brains get uploaded into Elon's AI metaverse before being accidentally deleted when he forces a programmer to insert the word Doge

into the code. Because you'd think that if these anti-maskers were fighting on the grounds of principle, freedom of speech, Sorkin, et cetera, then they would be just as furious at the idea of a mask ban, right? It seems a little strange that the same political party that espoused arguments against mask mandates

are primarily the ones who are backing the enforcement of mask bans. Of course, it's not a puzzle. The reason is very simple, which is that they never actually cared about freedom, or rather, they never cared about other people's freedom. They have their own definition of what freedom looks like, and it applies only to them. And so in a way, mask bans are kind of a microcosm

for just about everything, especially when it comes to conservatism. It wasn't enough that they refused to wear masks. They wanted to yank off the masks of other people, but that still wasn't enough. So now they want to make it illegal to even wear them. They framed it as freedom up until they used it as oppression.

Just like how it's not enough to have religious freedom, they need religious superiority to mandate that everyone else follow their beliefs when it comes to obtaining an abortion or getting married. It runs through everything they do, all the way to Elon Musk buying Twitter to protect free speech, only to mandate that everyone see and love

and laugh at his tweets. He didn't want to protect free speech, just the speech that called him a cool meme lord. One rich guy hijacking and dismantling a major hub of communication because no one liked him enough. Big Brother is extremely insecure. Everyone is capable of this kind of hypocrisy,

the idea that we want freedom only for the stuff we like. But only some people are in power, and the mask bands really show who those people are. And they are people who want to crack down on protests about the genocide of brown people specifically, while allowing white supremacist groups to thrive. They want to protect the police more than they want to protect the disabled.

They have taken the idea of freedom of speech and freedom from death and made it a tiered system. A special list. You're either on it or you're not. You're naughty or you're nice. Only one guy can make such a list. Only one has that power. I actually get why Katie might think I'm Santa actually.

That's what I think about it. The beard, the suit, the general judgy vibe I give off. Maybe I am Santa and I forgot. Like the long kiss goodnight. Could such a thing be true? That movie's great. Anyway, happy holidays. Hope you killed your grandma or whatever your goals are.

Wear a mask. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Or make your own. Here's a simple, helpful tip. Take a standard sheet of paper, make sure there are doodles on it. Fold once, fold twice, fold thrice, slide on your face. Oh man. I did the tip wrong. You gotta do this.

You do it once and then you do it twice and then you do it thrice and then it stays on. God damn it. Hey everybody, thank you so much for watching the show. Be sure to like and subscribe and leave a comment if you want to. We've got a patreon.com slash some more news. We've got a podcast called Even More News.

You can watch it here on the channel or listen to it at the podcast store. Go in and be like, one podcast, please. Put on the headphones and then you listen to it for about an hour and then you leave that store. You can also listen to this show, Some More News as a podcast at that same store. Or you could watch this episode again

right here on YouTube after you like and subscribe. We've also got a merch store with stuff on it for the holidays. Oh my gosh, this says the name of the show. Sometimes I wear it on the other show that we do for podcasting. You know what? We've got other stuff at that merch store.

There's so many good gifts. We got, we don't have Warmbow Bibles yet, but we're gonna get them, don't you worry. We've got the stuff, you see, just go to the link, okay? Just go to the link. okay? Just go to the link! I'm sorry I yelled. For years, Tim Ballard has been championed as a modern day superhero. The first time I saw one of the kids from the video, and it like changed my life.

He was the face of Operation Underground Railroad, a movement that inspired hope around the world by rescuing children from human traffickers. However, Ballard's crusade to save innocent lives has always hidden a darker secret. Well, I think he's a pathological liar. Beneath the accolades and the applause, a dark storm has been brewing. I mean, I can't find a time

that he's told the truth about anything. Shocking allegations of sexual misconduct have surfaced, casting a shadow over his once unquestioned reputation. I am host Sarah James McLaughlin, and in this new season of The Opportunist, we explore the rise and the fall of Tim Ballard. Join us this October for Tim Ballard Unmasking a Hero. Subscribe to a new season of The Opportunist Now wherever you get your podcasts.