Although I agree with your general premise, it’s more complicated than that.
People also have a "right" not to be controlled by the government. If you are worried about others wearing masks, they would argue, then "stay home." (I do not agree with this - I'm just stating a contrarian position.)
At some point, my "rights" impinge on yours, and at some point, your "rights" impinge on mine.
The reality is that democracy is about balancing everyone's rights.
Several of us on this thread have discussed a threshold, a threshold at which the "right" to not wear a mask outweighs the "right" to reduce the spread of COVID. (Or however else you want to phrase this.)
I've suggested this threshold is at about 200 deaths per day, which would be slightly worse than the worst year of influenza deaths. Others have suggested 150 to 100 deaths per day, which would be closer to the average number of influenza deaths per year. We can do this because we are not politicians and don't have to worry about the fallout of suggesting that a certain level of death is tolerable.
I'm sure Dr. Fauci has a number of deaths in mind, even if he is unwilling to state it publicly.
Still, politicians do this all the time, even if they don't discuss it so bluntly. What's the acceptable level of death from influenza? From auto accidents? From gun violence? From smoking? Politicians have to balance various "rights" and, depending on their political persuasion, that balancing point is different.
Thus, your statement:
your "right" to not wear a mask upon entering the public square (indoors) is trumped by the rest of the folks' right to life (either directly, person to person, or societally, by spreading and lengthening the pandemic.)
Is not absolute.
As I previously wrote,
all "rights" have limits. It's a basic tenet of our democracy. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is not absolute. Rather, it's about balancing these when they come into conflict we each other, and balancing them against the greater good. (Remember, our government recognizes instances where all rights can be forfeit.) We look to our politicians (and to the courts) to define these limits, to perform this balancing act.
If someone suggests that your statement applies until, let's say, there is less than one COVID death per day (i.e. 365 per year), then I would say they have taken an extreme position. Conversely, with over 600 COVID related deaths per day (more than 200,000 per year), I don't see a lot of people on this thread trying to defend that 200,000 deaths per year is acceptable.
Since we are just having a discussion, what is your limit? Where do you define this threshold? (And I don't mean
@Tony the Tigger, I mean everyone reading this.) At what point does a person's "right" to not wear a mask supersede another person's "right" to be protected from the spread of COVID?
