Graham, Donna
ERE SAE he EAR IT EEE rt EES
From: Willie Reed <williebreed@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2020 8:02 AM
To: Board of Aldermen
Subject: A letter against mandatory mask wearing
CAUTION: This email came from outside of the organization. Do not click links/open attachments if source is
unknown.
Dear members of the board,
I respectfully wish it to be known that ifa governing body attempts to dictate what I must wear in public I will
consider it a gross violation of my rights. I and my wife, along with every other adult of sound mind and body,
have every right to determine our own level of risk and what we are comfortable with as free adults. People who
are concerned for their health and place that concern above other considerations should absolutely 100% be free
to wear a mask and I support their right to do so. However, those of us who have deemed not wearing a mask an
acceptable risk should under no circumstances be required to take precautions we deem unnecessary for our
own safety.
I will draw the comparison to New Hampshire's lack of a seat belt law for adults. It is well known that wearing
a seat belt GREATLY increases your chances of surviving an accident. It is also known that not wearing a seat
belt poses a greater threat to others in the car with you. By choosing to not wear a seat belt, you are choosing to
increase the risk of injury or death of everyone in your vehicle. And yet, we in New Hampshire trust adults to
make the right decision for themselves, We understand that it is not the governments role to protect people from
themselves, Again, WE UNDERSTAND THAT IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENT'S ROLE TO PROTECT
PEOPLE FROM THEMSELVES.
It may be cliche, but in case anyone has forgotten, our state motto is "Live Free or Die". That motto means
something. The words were chosen carefully. Quite literally it says that it is better to die, than to be dictated
how to live by an overbearing government. In the case of Covid-19, this motto clearly says that there are worse
things than dying from this disease. If you vote to require people to wear masks, you are in gross violation of
our state motto and our state spirit. Respectfully, the very fact that you are considering this ordinance at all tells
me that you do not understand what it means to "Live Free or Die", you do not understand why people move to
this great state, you do not understand what this state means to people. This state means freedom. And freedom
has risks. Freedom has ALWAYS had risks. As Ben Franklin said (and I'm paraphrasing), "he who would give
up freedom for security will soon find he has neither".
Public safety is NOT the number one role ofa governing body. It is to ensuring people's rights are not being
violated. I can ensure my own safety and decide what precautions I would like to take better than you can.
On that note, I fully support a business's right to ask that I wear a mask when I enter their establishment. A
private business has every right to deny customers for any reason, and some businesses are already doing this.
As a governing body, if you feel it is right, you have every right to encourage this. But you have NO right to
force the hands of businesses that otherwise do not want to force people to take these precautions. Personally I
am unlikely to support a business that requires me to wear a mask. And I as a free citizen should be able to
voice my opinion in such a way. I would NEVER refuse the request and refuse to leave. That is immature and
wrong. Ifa business wishes to enforce mask wearing they have every right to ask me to leave and I must
comply. By the way, it is my understanding that it is ALREADY illegal to refuse to leave a store that is asking
1
