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!