Be strong, Gov. Stitt: -- now please change your mind

The following is my op-ed that ran in the Tulsa World under a slightly different title in early December, 2020. So far, it has done no good whatsoever.

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Be strong, Gov. Stitt: please change your mind -- now

It was back in the 1960's. Then President Lyndon Johnson had a fateful decision to make.

The Viet Nam War was going badly. Americans were needlessly dying, with no real end in sight. What should President Johnson have done?

Stick by his guns and keep on insisting that the tide would soon turn in our favor? Or admit that he had been wrong, exit the war, and thereby save thousands of American and Vietnamese lives?

With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we know what course President Johnson should have taken. His stubborn refusal to change his mind turned what had been a sparklingly successful presidency into a tragic and historic failure.

Fast forward to Oklahoma in 2020. Governor Kevin Stitt has a decision to make. The COVID-19 pandemic is, to put it mildly, going badly.

Not all needed corrective measures have been taken -- by the governor, by the State Board of Education, and by various towns and cities, including too many Tulsa suburban governments. As a probable consequence, more people are needlessly becoming ill, some of whom are dying, than would otherwise be the case.

What should Gov. Stitt do? Stick by his guns and keep on insisting that, except within state government, the issue of mask mandates should be left to each local city or town? Or should our governor do what Lyndon Johnson refused to do, and courageously change his mind?

It might help Gov. Stitt to address that question wisely if he would again consider the basic purpose of any government, whether local, state, or federal. Simply stated, that purpose is to protect the people being governed. We willingly submit to the coercion inherent in having a government for but one reason: We want and need government to protect us.

Given the proven difference that a mask mandate can make in the numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths, the failure of any local or state government or any school board to mandate masks in a raging pandemic is an egregious breach of the basic contract between government and citizenry. That contract says, "We will obey you, government, if you will do your best to protect us all." It might also help our governor, our State Board of Education, and -- unless Gov. Stitt swiftly acts -- Oklahoma's "hold-out" towns and cities (including too many Tulsa suburban governments), to reconsider their refusal to mandate masks if they would try doing this: think about one of their fellow lifeguards. Imagine a lifeguard on duty who sees and hears someone in deep water screaming for help. What if Instead of doing his or her best to save that person, the lifeguard instead recites some truisms about the importance of protecting individual liberty and personal responsibility? Wouldn't we condemn that lifeguard's inaction? Why so? Because when they see someone in peril, lifeguards have a special duty to act? And so, it seems to me, do governors, school boards, and local governments. What then should we say about a governor, a state school board, or a local governing body that fails to do what should be done to help rescue an entire citizenry caught in the deep water of a vicious pandemic? Rather than engaging in rude name-calling, let me instead voice a polite and respectful plea: Please, Governor Stitt, please, State Board of Ed, and please (unless the governor acts at once), "hold-out" suburban Tulsa and other local governments, please do your duty to help protect those whom you govern. Please decree or enact a mask mandate now.

[Note to blog readers: Maybe write Gov. Stitt a short letter asking him to decree a statewide mask mandate? Thank you for considering it!]