07-08-2020, 12:06 PM
I'll be plain - my suspicion is that most of the people using the disability complaint to not wear a mask don't really have one.
Why? Because so many of them arrive at that claim after having all their other arguments knocked flat. For example, they start of with the hypoxia argument and wearing the mask while jogging on a hot day day, which is countered by showing how that's a strawman because the basks bylaw is only for indoors. Then they switch to wearing it too long has negative effects because of the hypoxia, with the large number of medical professionals that wear masks all day long no problem. Then they talk about asthma, which is countered by how many of those medical professionals have asthma, too. Then they'll post a video about somebody measuring O₂ content with a gas meter and get countered by showing with a pulse-oximeter that it doesn't make a difference. Then, finally, they pull the "trump" card of disability, expecting it to give them carte blanche. If they actually had a disability (or had family members with one) they would know from past experiences that what I outlined previously about "reasonable accommodation" is true. Disabled people tend to speak up right away and say "No, I need that service animal with me" at a restaurant, for example, and they tend to do it politely, almost apologetically, rather than being a jerk about it. They also tend to have full-formed, end-stage arguments with solid evidence rather than this chain of weak failures because they've had to provide it in the past.
But this lack of understanding of the nuance of what the AODA or OHRC require is lost on the people making the claim of disability about masks because they don't understand that the law is about good-faith questions and reasonable accommodation, having never actually interacted with those laws before. Thus they expect their demand to be met without having them make reasonable concessions and that they don't have to say why, outing themselves as ignorant.
As a further "because", they are doing this because they that simply not wanting to wear a mask to help prevent spread is petty and selfish and lacking in compassion and empathy for others and they don't want to be seen like that. Thus they glom onto the disability argument so as to not appear like asshats. Sometimes unconsciously, sometimes deliberately.
Why? Because so many of them arrive at that claim after having all their other arguments knocked flat. For example, they start of with the hypoxia argument and wearing the mask while jogging on a hot day day, which is countered by showing how that's a strawman because the basks bylaw is only for indoors. Then they switch to wearing it too long has negative effects because of the hypoxia, with the large number of medical professionals that wear masks all day long no problem. Then they talk about asthma, which is countered by how many of those medical professionals have asthma, too. Then they'll post a video about somebody measuring O₂ content with a gas meter and get countered by showing with a pulse-oximeter that it doesn't make a difference. Then, finally, they pull the "trump" card of disability, expecting it to give them carte blanche. If they actually had a disability (or had family members with one) they would know from past experiences that what I outlined previously about "reasonable accommodation" is true. Disabled people tend to speak up right away and say "No, I need that service animal with me" at a restaurant, for example, and they tend to do it politely, almost apologetically, rather than being a jerk about it. They also tend to have full-formed, end-stage arguments with solid evidence rather than this chain of weak failures because they've had to provide it in the past.
But this lack of understanding of the nuance of what the AODA or OHRC require is lost on the people making the claim of disability about masks because they don't understand that the law is about good-faith questions and reasonable accommodation, having never actually interacted with those laws before. Thus they expect their demand to be met without having them make reasonable concessions and that they don't have to say why, outing themselves as ignorant.
As a further "because", they are doing this because they that simply not wanting to wear a mask to help prevent spread is petty and selfish and lacking in compassion and empathy for others and they don't want to be seen like that. Thus they glom onto the disability argument so as to not appear like asshats. Sometimes unconsciously, sometimes deliberately.