Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
So, I don't get how not wearing a mask is "freedom". Freedom to do what? The freedom to get sick, die, and/or spread a disease to people around you? That isn't freedom, it's just stupid, pointless, and irresponsible. Though, there is a serious constitutional rights, which is the fact that there apparently is a fucking secret police of sorts in the US. People have been arrested by agents of the federal government who carry no badges or identification, are arresting people, and taking them to undisclosed locations in unmarked vehicles.
That is a serious problem. This is what's done in dictatorships. People are arrested by unmarked, unidentified government agents, held without trial, and sometimes even killed. That absolutely is a violation of constitutional rights, and I would be just as outraged if the protesters being arrested had a cause that's opposite to my beliefs. Even if it was an anti-mask protest. Hell, even if it was something truly and utterly repugnant and evil like a white supremacist rally or something, I still would be outraged at this. Because it blatantly defies the constitution.
And once we head down that slippery slope, there's no telling what's going to happen. As years and decades pass, we could end up living in a country that's just as corrupt and oppressive as China. Where is the outrage about this though? People get all up in arms about regulations that infringe on their "freedom" to expose themselves to a virus and get sick, and the mask requirements are completely constitutionally valid. And they have a precedent. Such requirements were enacted during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, and they've been implemented during other outbreaks of disease. However, there is no precedent for secret police in the USA that I am aware of.
From admittedly a very long distance away, it seems that in American public discourse the only freedom that ever gets discussed or considered relevant to what the government does is so-called Negative Freedom. This is the freedom from things like state coercion. But there is a whole another way of thinking about freedom as Positive Freedom which is the freedom to do things leading to a fulfilling life without structural or environmental constraints. The idea of two distinct kinds of liberty was developed by Isiah Berlin (yeah I know, just another Jewish libtard - but no, actually one of the strongest intellectual opponents of communism). Basically, you are not really free if you are free from coercion but constrained by the limits of your health, education, or prevailing attitudes to your race, gender, sexuality or other distinguishing characteristic. Personally I’d take a bit of non-violent state coercion (about public health strategies for example) in return for the state using its resources to mitigate all those other characteristics of modern society that create a deeper unfreedom for so many people and limits them realising their full human potential. Freedom from hunger, freedom from disease, freedom to pursue your dreams - all pretty important to be truly liberated and free. The thing I like about Australia is that the state seems to deliberately try and strike a balance between the two types of freedom. We have too much government for sure, but we also have some of the best and most sustainable social mobility in the world.