We are a nation of hyperpartisan, skeptical scofflaws -- and it's killing us

Americans have a problem with authority. And, conversely, and a little perversely, we also have an obsession with the law.

In simplest terms, we love laws -- for other people -- but we too often can't be bothered to follow the laws we claim to support. The first thing we do, in response to a law, is look for a way around it.

Cellphones are a great example.

Driving while holding a cellphone is illegal just about everywhere in America now, and these laws passed relatively easily, with apparent broad support, not that you could tell standing at any random street corner, watching the cars go by with drivers clutching their cellphones.

Watching the cars go by not stopping at posted stop signs.

A man told me recently that his son told him that stop signs with white borders were merely advisory. It was meant as a joke, and we both laughed (if every stop sign does not have a white border, 99% do) -- but look around as you take your daily walk. You will be astonished.

Anyway, the first thing people did once laws were passed against holding cellphones was to build cars that answered the phone, and read text messages, so that the more prosperous among us could keep their hands firmly at the 10 and 2 positions on the wheel and still yack away incessantly while driving. Putting the phone on speaker and wedging it in the cupholder works almost was well.

Those who wanted to found their way around the law, but not around the problem of distracted driving. Which of course the handheld cellphone ban doesn't really address either: The person who sneaks a peek at a text while stopped at a light is not distracted in a way that does harm to those around her, not like the person who screams at a subordinate or a contractor who failed to show up, or who breaks up with a lover, while weaving around the expressway.

And enforcement of such laws can never be uniform; they can only be arbitrary (enforcement "sweeps" are by definition arbitrary, because they can't be conducted everywhere at once, and for that reason are often damned as pretextual).

There's widespread agreement that that crazy guy in front of us weaving across the center line shouldn't be looking at his phone, but no consensus that we should all turn our phones off when we get behind the wheel. Those laws are for other folks.

Chicago was supposed to become this great, welcoming city for bicycle riders. Elston, Milwaukee, Clybourn and virtually every other arterial street was cut in half to accommodate bicycle lanes. In Germany and the Netherlands, these lanes work wonderfully (we are told) but, if they do, it is because the bicycle riders there are German or Dutch. Here, though, the bicycle riders are Americans -- and, if some bicycle riders use the marked bicycle lanes, a great many also do not, or do so only sporadically. Did you know that traffic laws apply also to bicyclists? A great many bicyclists do not. Those laws, too, are for other folks.

So we don't follow laws, at least we don't if it's inconvenient or troublesome, or takes us out of our way.

Which brings us to facial masks and facial mask mandates.

Too many of us are naturally inclined to ignore or evade face mask mandates, or think them proper only for other folks.

But it's not just our American inclination to evade or ignore laws that hurts us here. It is our once-healthy American skepticism.

Americans take pride in their refusal to accept almost anything uncritically. Missouri is not the only "show me" state.

Our innate American skepticism has always extended to the media, and with good reason: Even when they're trying to report it straight, reporters often garble the facts, perhaps from haste, perhaps from ignorance. The news is only supposed to be the first draft of history -- and, as anybody who ever got through high school can attest, first drafts often miss important stuff.

Any lawyer who has ever been involved in a case that got reported in the news will have a story about what the press missed -- or got wrong altogether. But in this era of Fox News and MSNBC, we can't always be certain that reporters are even trying to get the story straight. Often it seems that the facts of any newsworthy event are pulled or stretched or cut out, like the unwary guest in the Procrustean bed, to fit a preferred narrative. And with the never-ending spin of the modern news cycle, there's no going back to pick up what was left out or reported incorrectly.

People who spend their entire existence inside their chosen bubbles don't necessarily suffer from this problem, but those who try and seek information from multiple sources will be first appalled, and then discouraged, and finally numbed by the inconsistencies in the reporting of the day's events. It becomes harder and harder to believe anything one can not independently verify. The Doubting Thomas of the Gospel of John has a great many descendants in today's society.

So when the news is full of a world-wide pandemic, one which can be pretty well stopped in its tracks by the simple expedient of wearing a face mask in public, a great many people are inclined to disbelieve.

And, of course, some media outlets have been openly skeptical themselves about the existence of the pandemic, or its severity. That doesn't help -- but it's an entirely foreseeable consequence of a new, and horrifying American characteristic: We make everything a political issue.

Americans used to make fun of the old Soviet Union for making every aspect of even everyday life political. Now we do it ourselves.

The truth is that the COVID-19 pandemic was not immediately recognized as a serious threat by anyone in authority. I remember Mayor Lightfoot encouraging folks to patronize Chinatown restaurants during the Lunar New Year. In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio was encouraging people to go to restaurants and shows as late as March 11. Sixty people showed up for a March 6 choir practice in Washington State, in an area where the virus was not then established, using hand sanitizer and otherwise observing all the safety protocols as then understood. By March 29, when the L.A. Times reported the story, 45 of the 60 had come down with COVID-19 symptoms, three were hospitalized, and two were dead.

Part of the problem was this was a wholly new disease; there were, by definition, no "experts" concerning this particular disease, only persons with expertise in dealing with other viruses or with infectious diseases generally. The experts did not know, initially, that the COVID-19 virus was transmitted through the air from people who were not then showing symptoms.

We the People politicized a public health emergency: The President was accused of being unprepared and moving too slowly; Gov. Pritzker was accused of moving too fast in destroying the economy by shutting everything down -- everything, that is, except the March 17 primary, of course. People died while our leaders were busy pointing fingers and trying to score political points off each other.

Dr. Fauci has to be about the only employee of the Federal government whose reputation has been enhanced by service in the Trump Administration -- but only because the President has so often tried to downplay, dismiss, or undermine Dr. Fauci.

The "experts" had us wiping down our groceries -- probably unnecessarily, as it turns out. They kept us sheltering in place, not because they knew so much about the coronavirus, but because they knew so little. What they did know was that, if people did not interact, they could not spread any disease, COVID-19 included.

But we know more now -- the scientists have been hard at work -- and we know we have a disease that can be transmitted through the air. Not just by sneezing, but simply by talking. Talking loudly, or singing, spreads the virus further. And progress is apparently being made on a vaccine. Or maybe several vaccines.

And wearing a face mask keeps the virus from spreading.

Maybe not completely -- masks have to be worn properly for one thing -- covering the mouth but not the nose will not do -- and some masks may work better than others. But if everyone wears even a cloth mask in public the virus will be knocked down.

Not cured.

Not eradicated.

But the spread will stop. And our "new normal" will start looking increasingly like our old normal, with the addition of a single fashion accessory.

Face masks are not political.

The virus is not political.

Don't wear a mask because the Governor, or the Mayor, says you should. Don't wear a mask because the President doesn't. Just wear a mask because you should. Because it will help.

We are, and are likely to remain for some time, a nation of hyperpartisan, skeptical scofflaws. But we don't have to die on account of it: Wear a mask in public.