The Many Faces Of COVID19-6
Part 6 of a 7 part series…
6) Never let a crisis go to waste. There seems to be an end game in mind when it comes to the issue of control. For instance, if Joe Biden becomes president then he will institute a national mandate (so he says) to require mask wearing. I have not heard exactly what this means and I don’t necessarily disagree that it is a good thing for people to wear masks when appropriate but my understanding of the constitution would not allow such an order. In fact, it would be technically against the law. There is an entire section of our nation that believes safety is more important than freedom. I believe in personal kindness and responsibility that actually comes with freedom but I would argue that the role of government in public safety is limited at most.
We are experiencing quite an overreach in California right at this moment. Our governor, who I believe has done a fairly decent job overall, is showing that he is starting to like the amount of control a COVID world seemingly affords him. Our California politicians, in general, have no problems reaching into individual’s lives and freedoms and now it seems that this tendency is being fast tracked in our state. I know and realize it is a tightrope walk between feeling responsible for the public welfare and even more now that the general media cry is that we all need the government to be responsible for us because we are too dumb to do so ourselves. For some reason we have a much too large portion of our society that seems to agree with that. My experience, however, is that people who want government control really want it over others but when it comes to reaching into their own personal lives it appears that it is not such a popular concept.
This has never been more evident than with Governor Newsom in California. He has laid down strict rules as to how and how not to do things in our state. One of those things is sharing tables in close quarters inside restaurants. In fact, he has gone so far as to say that one ought to wear a mask even while eating except when you actually take a bite. Whether this is good advice or not is not my concern. What I am concerned with is that our governor doesn’t seem to like his own rules and has had his picture taken on his birthday surrounded by a dozen (or so) others at the table inside of a Napa Valley restaurant all within close proximity and none of them with masks on. He admitted it was a mistake and kudos for him for saying that in public but what choice did he actually have? He was caught bucking the system he put in place. It is an obvious show of what I mentioned at the end of the last paragraph. Many people are perfectly willing to take away other’s abilities to make choices but they are certainly not willing to abide by those same things themselves. It is so arrogant.
Now our governor has handed down a statewide curfew for all citizens in California. Anyone out after 10:00 not doing an ‘essential’ activity will be disobeying that order. I have heard that there are already at least half a dozen sheriffs in the state who have said ‘no’ to this. They will not bother any law abiding citizens simply for being out past 10:00 p.m. I respect this stance as a forced curfew is far too close to a move that a dictatorship would take and I, for one, am totally and completely against such a strong attempt at coopting individual freedoms. Another example of overreaching tyrannical type behavior just happened at a Roseville restaurant. Since many areas of law enforcement are not willing to tread on people’s constitutionally given freedoms the government sent in the ABC (alcohol beverage control) to threaten the restaurant into compliance. This is wrong on so many levels I don’t even want to start. It is a perfect example of politicians using non-elected individuals and regulatory agencies to strong arm otherwise law abiding citizens.