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by AnimalMuppet
1504 days ago
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They ruled that the government doesn't have the right to force people to wear masks. The parallel would be deciding that the government doesn't have the right to force people to get abortions - which, if it ever came to that, I'm pretty sure the court would in fact rule. |
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> They ruled that the government doesn't have the right to force people to wear masks.
Both of these statements are super false.
The court ruled that one particular piece of legislation does not give the executive branch the authority to force certain employers to have and enforce a rule that their employees, while in the workplace, must be masked or vaccinated.
There is NO "individual right to not mask" involved here. It's a ruling about the authority of the executive branch given the contents of a law passed by the legislature. That's all.
In particular,
1. The businesses effected by the ruling are of course free to none-the-less mandate masking without a federal mandate. I.e., there is no right for individuals not to mask.
2. If Congress were to pass a new law explicitly giving OSHA authority to mandate masks in workplaces, the court's reasoning in Nat'l Federation of Businesses v. DoL would be wholly irrelevant to that new piece of legislation.
3. Mask mandates in non-OSHA contexts -- eg federal buildings -- are not effected by either scotus ruling.
4. Biden v Missouri, decided by the same court at the same time, left vaccine mandates in place for healthcare facilities.
Neither of the SCOTUS decisions have anything to do with masking as an individual right, and they certainly don't rule that "government doesn't have the right to force people to wear masks". All they say is that one particular law, as written, doesn't give the Executive the authority to mandate that employers mandate masks/vaccines in certain workplaces.
If the court had found a reading of the constitution that enshrined a right not to mask that somehow didn't create a penumbra within which many other individual rights (including abortion) lived, that would be... a rather incredible exercise in bullshitting. But that's not what happened.
Regardless, other comments here are accurate: at least on certain issues the supreme court is hopelessly politicized.