Though I just want to nitpick at this: If you feel a mask protects you, wear one - mask wearing is to protect others from you. it's like a home-made vaccine.
This is where we would have to disagree. I feel that it is up to each person to take responsibility for themselves. The same as wearing a seat belt. You don't wear one to protect others. You make the decision to wear one to protect yourself from the actions of others.
Plus wearing a piece of cloth doesn't even equate to a seatbelt. It is more in line with tieing your self to the seat with a piece of rope. It will probably be some help in the event of a crash but it is not meant to save your life and could even do damage.
I work indoors and put up about 15-20k steps every day during a shift. Even in the first day it restricted my breathing so much that I had to go to the warehouse every 30 minutes just to breathe. We had gotten throughout the whole lock down with zero ppe and no cases retail related in the whole country. The majority are travel or party related when traced back.
I have no problem wearing a mask on the bus or anywhere else that I will be on top of somebody else but really dont see the need in spaces where we have room to maneuver. But that is just my opinion.
The evidence that masks do damage is unanimously proven false, if you're referring to oxygen intake, and its free to test out, or you can buy the gear online for about $10 to try for yourself.
The problem comparing with seatbelts, which I already considered when I used the comparison, is exactly because seatbelts are for you own safety only. However, that doesn't invalidate masks purpose just because it doesn't specifically compare to one regulation. In a way it bolsters it. We all agree as a society that wearing seatbelts is law, nobody tries to overturn that, even though its YOUR safety only, and thus should be YOUR choice.
But how many people are going around insisting that seatbelts are the government's evil way of controlling us?
Masks can better be compared to the speed limit. Yeah, you are saving yourself by driving more slowly but more importantly, you are saving others. In the same way that your freedom to swing your arms around ends at my nose, your freedom to drive around recklessly ends at my family's lives.
Perhaps you have some lung illness or something? I say it because billions of people have been wearing masks in Asia without such complaints, and most people here work ridiculous hours (in China its called 996 (9am-9pm, 6 days a week); wearing lighter masks still reduces the spread rate of a virus even if not as truly effective as a full face container. All we need is to reduce the r0 (spread rate) to the point that growth is no longer exponential. Even linear growth is a positive step.
If you have actual breathing difficulties then its even more reason to rely on others around you to wear masks for the benefit of others.
It's a very slight inconvenience to wear a mask for 99.9% of people, but some other people around have legit breathing difficulties, others have no money or were unable to find masks, and many americans specifically and uniquely think wearing masks is an evil conspiracy to... control... the world?
For all of these people, they are at extreme risk from each other.. Remember, 1 in 100 in the USA and exponentially rising. And recovered patients can contract again. And there are several strains now. Wearing a mask, not touching stuff outside, social distancing, combined, is a mighty vaccine, without the need to inject microchips through mosquitoes with 5G to control your motor functions.
And vaccines are for the same purpose: To prevent others getting it from you.