By Samuel Strait – May 8, 2020

With all that has gone wrong in California over the course of the last
decade or so with the governing body having gone so completely off the
rails, it will likely be hard to top the past three months of
dictatorship in the form of Governor Gavin Newsom and his decrees.
While Newsom may not deserve all the blame following the blitzkrieg of
media propaganda and government hysteria, he certainly can be blamed for
his reaction to it.  I am not quite sure how we have come to this state
of affairs, but it has long since been determined that the human race
cannot be confined, as Newsom has attempted to do in the State of
California.   While common sense should have clued him into that
immutable law of human behavior, he seemed unable to avoid following a
knee jerk reaction to incredibly poor advice offered by the medical
community.  As such, for his actions on March 17th of this year, he will
likely be remembered as having initiated an executive order which called
for the locking down of many of California’s businesses considered “Non
essential” and will result in him driving the State of California on the
rocks of ruin.

Recently he seemed to have regained his senses when he announced that,
while much to late for many of California’s businesses, he would begin
the process of reopening the State in a careful four stage fashion.
While much too late for other businesses going forward, if handled
swiftly perhaps there would be something to salvage from his  decision
to lock down the State.  Alas, he could not seem to refrain from
political influences, and his plan is more likely to take many months
longer than California’s struggling economy can afford.  Even if the
Covid-19 pandemic were to drag on through the summer, maybe resurface in
the fall, or a flare up should occur if the economy be opened up sooner
than the egg heads suggest, it will become a California that most people
will not recognize.  His stage three might commence in September, Stage
four not until a vaccine is developed, eighteen months to two years,
with plenty of escapes to extend it longer.

In spite of all the suggestions that isolation and social distancing has
flattened the curve, all that has really happened is that for the time
being government lock downs have merely extended the length of the
current pandemic, not stopped it.  The pandemic continues in this
Country unabated and will do so for awhile longer.  The real problem has
been from the start when neither the media nor our governments had any
faith in the public to do what was prudent and time tested for each
individual rather than resort to mass mandates.  Given that mandates and
lock downs do not work for anyone but those seeking to avoid infection
or those recovering from infection, the healthy portion of populations
in this country have always been allowed to move freely.  And that is
precisely what many Americans did during the course of the lock down,
something only now being grudgingly admitted by the “experts”.  When,
not if this proves to be the case, the economic ruin currently being
overseen by governors in many states, should be viewed by many as an
inexcusable failure of leadership, hopefully not to be forgotten at
election time.  This should include Governor Newsom’s failures as well.

In the mean time, it is incumbent upon those that are in leadership
positions at the local level to begin the process of loosening the bonds
of our local economy immediately rather than rely on California’s State
Government, who will shortly be unable to help itself.  If local
leadership is unfortunate enough to think that the National government
will be in any better position to help local governments, it should be
noted that the money will have be borrowed, a path that would be
irresponsible to undertake.

The heavy hand of local governments, seems poised to repeat the mistakes
of Governor Newsom in a recent event in Klamath where a struggling
family sought to open their family’s restaurant.  There will very likely
be no reasonable explanation for the Public Health Officer and the Yurok
Tribe to implement that inexcusable over reach.  The very idea that the
restaurant’s opening to table service was to endanger the public health
is and continues to be ludicrous.  Proper precautions were clearly in
place that met or exceeded those of many of Del Norte’s “essential”
businesses.  It is quite clear that a no harm, no foul option should
have been employed.  This idea that locals must follow state edicts like
lemmings should not be possible in the United States where the edict is
unreasonable.  It is, after all, the one place that state edicts by the
governor can be limited.  Those executive orders must be reasonable!