This feels like a strawman to me.

I can only speak for myself, but I don’t conform to your statements above. Surely I’m not alone.

I want to see schools opened.

I oppose state and federal mask mandates, but if a school wants to mandate them, that’s their business.

One of the big takeaways for me from COVID is that we should be doing more as a rule to consider airflow and ventilation in all public spaces. I’ve not gone to great lengths to validate my instinct with data, but I strongly suspect doing so would result in a significant decrease in the spread of many airborne illnesses. Schools should absolutely work to improve in this area.

I oppose mandatory contact tracing, but if an individual wants to opt in to one of the schemes, by all means go for it! I wouldn’t even be philosophically opposed to a scheme implemented and/or “blessed” by a government - as long as it’s opt-in.

> None of these people care about safety, they just want a babysitter to get their annoying kids out of their hair for 8 hours.

Yeah, about that… we homeschool. Our children have never been enrolled in a government school, and they will never be - with the possible exception of is they decide they want to be and have a reasonable justification for it.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t have opinions about government policy.

Do you think the government should mandate anything or would you prefer a free for all? Personally, I don't think we should have 25 mph speed limits in residential areas or near schools. If people want to opt into that, by all means go for it! But if I want to pretend I'm dominic toretto in fast and the furious while I'm driving where your kids are playing, I don't think the government should be able to tell me I can't

While I could certainly expound upon my political views in general, doing so wouldn’t contribute to this discussion, which is specifically about people who advocate that schools remain open.

vroom vroom

Out of curiosity, since you homeschool, why do you want schools to be opened?

Because the policy that they be closed (where they are in fact closed) does not seem to be objective.

Schools are a net good for most people that attend them. Closing them means that not only do those kids lose the opportunity to learn and develop social skills, but also that their parents’ lives are disrupted to the point where they are likely to be completely unable to provide for their families.

This doesn’t mean that it’s never appropriate to close them; it means that they shouldn’t be closed without very good reason, and that they should be re-opened as soon as possible.

In short, I want schools open because closing them demonstrably hurts people.

When I watched the Superbowl, I saw plenty of celebrities and politicians socializing without masks. But on Monday morning, all of the kids had to wear masks at school. If the politicians think that masks are so important, the least they can do is wear them when they're going to be filmed in public.

Monday yes but Tuesday maybe not. The mask mandate is supposedly being lifted on the 15th in California.