The issue here isn't really freedom. Many of the same people that are arguing they shouldn't be required to mask would also insist you not be allowed to drive a car without a license, drive while intoxicated, or burn a flag. What you're seeing is tribalism. Yes, the claim being made is that mandatory mask rule is too big an infringement on freedom, but for most involved, that's merely an excuse.

There's two main reasons for the problem: 1) there's a relatively small group of people who believe that the coronavirus is a hoax and have somehow managed to convince themselves that requiring people to wear masks is somehow a way of getting them trained to obedience, even though they obey much more intrusive laws all the time and 2) there's a lot more people who simply follow the man they've decided is their leader. This is tribalism. More precisely, it's factionalism, but tribalism is probably a more relatable term, and also has the proper connotations of primitive thinking that usually mark factionalism.