Now that the weather is getting nicer I prefer walking in place of using the treadmills at the gym I belong to. I walk a half-mile or so to the nice new track behind the town’s high school. Because of its proximity to the high school I often see young people using it for walking and jogging and playing tennis on the courts next to the track. However, I am disturbed to see these young people, almost without exception, wearing masks while engaging in strenuous physical activity.

New Jersey has never required masks when outdoors except if you are in situations where you cannot distance from others and, as of this past week, even those requirements were dropped. Yet, despite being either by themselves on the track or well-distanced on the opposite sides of a tennis court, they persist in wearing masks.

While I feel that everyone should make up their own mind with regard to what they consider “safe” I can’t help but wonder what it is that would motivate young and healthy people to wear masks in situations where they were never required. I can’t help but wonder if it is a form of Stockholm Syndrome.

In many ways, we have all been hostages since March 2020. We were forced to comply with the orders of politicians. If you questioned those orders the consequences could be severe. We were told not to wear masks, then told to wear masks, then told we need to wear two masks, then told one was sufficient. Now we are told masks in most situations are unnecessary. We were told that a BLM protest of thousands was perfectly safe but a family wedding or funeral, or going to church, was a super spreader event. You couldn’t eat at a restaurant where the tables were distanced but elite politicians could with no problems whatsoever. Finally, we were told to either take the vaccine without question or we would be banned from activities.

Hardly a day passed without seeing Dr. Fauci on multiple television stations, magazine covers, and newspaper headlines giving us often contradictory information…often within hours on the same day.

As I see people unnecessarily wearing masks in situations where they were never required to being with I can’t help but wonder if these people are still in hostage mode. I even saw people driving cars by themselves with two masks on. After a year of rapidly changing and often arbitrary and capricious mandates and restrictions the mask has now become the proverbial “security blanket” for many. It has become a symbol of “wokeness” or a symbol that you are willing to submit to a supremacy without question or anything resembling critical thinking.

Many of the people I know that yelled “follow the science” stopped following the science as soon as science told them that they no longer needed the security blanket mask.

I will agree that some people should remain wearing masks due to possible compromising health conditions, but I am seeing too many people wearing them to say that is the principle cause.

The Left would argue “why care?” If someone wants to wear a mask what is it to me? And to a point, they would be correct if it wasn’t for the fact that this is the same group that would publicly berate and physically attack someone wearing a red MAGA hat. Try wearing one and see how long before you are branded a racist, or white supremacist, etc. Say on social media that you agreed with Donald Trump or Alan Dershowitz and you stand the chance of being banned for life.

How easily we as a people caved to the capricious dictates of the crowned elite. We were told to believe in “this expert” without question and to ignore “that expert” who contradicts. And now that these elites have released us from the bondage many choose freely to remain in bondage. If that isn’t Stockholm Syndrome then I don’t know what is. It is scary to see so many Americans so willing to give up their freedoms based on nothing more than the dictates of an elite few.

One wonders what else a majority of Americans will give up based on the dictates of an elite few. We were all hostages. Sadly, some are now choosing to voluntarily remain a hostage.