By Darren Smith, Weekend contributor

I have to wonder if our state government’s lockdown of the population, curtailment of civil liberties, destruction of job opportunities, and denial of basic medical, education, and cultural needs would have been necessary and legally justified had each of us been equipped with our own supply of masks.

At the beginning of the self-declared State of Emergency, Washington Governor Jay Inslee declared, among many other restrictions, that access to basic medical services, such as routine doctor visits, dental procedures, diagnostic services were to be prohibited, ostensibly on the fact that masks should be diverted from these services and conserved to supply hospitals and critical care centers that were lacking in preparedness and woefully out of stock. He further reiterated that because the public will spread corona virus, we were ordered to self-quaranteen, resulting in tens of thousands of job losses, an upset in daily life and the general loss of liberty.

Before the next virus crises hits, I propose we adopt a new symbol of American Freedom and Liberty–The N95 Mask–and shield ourselves from the next outbreak of panic legislation and overreach by executive and administrative power