By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
California Governor Gavin Newsom has ordered that everyone, with a handful of exceptions, must wear a face covering in public or suffer the consequences. Will there be a monetary fine for violators? Jail time for those who refuse? We haven’t been told. All we know is that we are being ordered by a power hungry politician that we have to wear a specific type of clothing, without legislative backing, without constitutional authority, and for a virus that, if you run the numbers honestly, is mild and has less of a chance of killing you than the chance of you being struck by lightning.
I have lived in Southern California my whole life. I grew up in Los Angeles County until my teenage years. Then, when it got to the point that the gangs were tapping on the door of my adolescence, my folks moved to the City of Corona on the edge of what is known as the Inland Empire. Riverside County back then was considered “the sticks”. The inland area was considered rural when compared to its coastal neighbors. It was, and is, less populated, and has always been much more conservative politically.
Back then California was truly the Golden State. The policies of Republican leadership, such as that of Governor Ronald Reagan, had made California the place to be. People had come to the western State for work, pleasure, and economic success. My grandfather came to California in the 1940s, shortly after fighting in World War II, to be a farmhand. He went from sharecropper, to carpet layer, to eventually owning his own carpet cleaning business. Then, as I reached adulthood in the early eighties, the liberal left Democrats grabbed a hold of the Golden State, and since then they have run it into the ground with their heavy regulations against businesses, high taxes, destructive laws regarding our justice system, failed policies that have led to record homelessness, and authoritarian mandates that now have Californians fleeing the State in numbers as great as those coming here over fifty years ago.
California’s hard left leadership continues to swim in their pool of power, and it is getting worse. While Governor Gavin Newsom claims, “Science shows that face coverings and masks work,” science also shows that, according to the CDC, if you are under 50 the mortality rate for the COVID-19 coronavirus is 0.05%, and only slightly higher if you are older. You have a better chance of dying if you get behind the wheel of your car. More have died because of the lockdowns, which means the liberal left policies have caused more damage than good. Cases of domestic violence has been on the rise during these “stay at home orders,” as has instances of depression and suicide. The symptomatic patients have all had underlying health conditions. While everybody is freaking out that the number of cases of those positive with the Chinese Wuhan novel coronavirus may be higher of late, the truth is it has been high since the beginning. Anti-body studies have shown that the number of cases has been massively higher than the estimates. The thing is, based on my own calculations, at least more than 96% of cases are asymptomatic. Herd immunity is a good thing, for it will make sure we all have the anti-bodies should this thing come back stronger, and it will shorten the life of the current scamdemic because the disease will quickly run out of people to infect. Instead, Newsom’s idiotic statewide mandate of everyone wearing masks in public keeps the virus around longer, has us breathing in our own CO2, and it hurts the economy because it keeps everyone nervous about public interaction.
But, that’s the point, isn’t it? To keep us afraid?
There is nothing in the California State Constitution that allows Sacramento to quarantine the healthy, or require us to wear a particular piece of clothing. What’s next, comrade Newsom? An armband with a democrat party symbol on it? Or will you mandate yellow stars to be sewed to the clothing of anyone who disagrees with you? And how will you enforce it if your various sheriffs say they won’t enforce it? Are you going to fire them all, and cut funding to cities who dare to defy your dictatorial orders? And remember, the courts recently slapped down Oregon Governor Kate Brown’s pandemic orders, stating that like you, she exceeded her authorities with them. Are you, Gavin Newsom, ready for the lawsuits. And better yet, are you ready for the defiance that will now happen. Trust me, you don’t have enough room in the jails for us all.
In the end, when it comes to all of this coronavirus stuff, the reality is simple. They are lying to us for the sake of power.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary