It’s not about masks

California is in the middle of a crisis, and it is an ugly one. Gavin Newsom is facing a recall and many are trying to make it about a single issue – the mask mandate. The fact, however, is that the crisis happening in California has very little to do with masks and a whole lot to do with our future.

Friday March 13, 2020 is a day that will live forever in my memory. Just like September 11, 2001. Both were days the world officially changed as I knew it. My kids were sent home from school and never went back. We were told to stay home, go nowhere for two weeks. We heard about hundreds of thousands of businesses being shut down, forbidden to continue as they had the day before. The two weeks stretched to three, then four, then two months, six months, and now it’s been a year a half.

A year and half of being told I don’t know how to keep myself safe. Eighteen months of being told I need to give up the life I considered normal for the good of society. A year and half of worrying if my business would be on the chopping block. Eighteen months of watching people lose hope, lose purpose, and lose motivation.

California in particular has had it more difficult than most other states. The reason for this is a governor who is making a run for the White House on a socialist agenda. Gavin Newsom’s policies when he was Mayor of San Francisco led to rampant homelessness, lost revenue for businesses, soaring housing costs, and the destruction of a once-beautiful city. As Governor of California he is implementing many of the same policies and threatening to wreck the entire state. When Biden became President, Newsom sent a letter outlining how California should stand as a shining example for him to follow for the rest of the country.

As a native Californian, I must adamantly protest allowing Newsom to continue his rampant disregard for the true good of all society. On the surface he appears to care but just a scratch below it’s clear all he cares about is his own good and his own agenda. Here are some examples from an outside observer:

1. Facing a recall, Newsom encouraged the Legislature to pass a law giving the governor authority to set the date for the election and then signed it with an Executive Order, allowing him to choose when people would vote on his fate.
2. While closing all public schools across the state, Newsom sent his own kids to an in-person private school.
3. In the midst of the pandemic, Newsom moved from a very restrictive county into a free county and continued to live his life as usual.
4. When everyone was distracted by the virus, Newsom gave PG&E the ability to draw on a state-funded insurance to cover it’s losses caused by negligence.
5. With wildfires raging across the state caused by electricity infrastructure, Newsom signs laws requiring all new cars in California to be run off electricity.
6. Citing California’s clean energy initiatives as a model to be followed, Newsom allows utilities to turn off power to thousands of residents – without notice – in the event of “climate change events” like windy days or temperatures over 100 degrees fahrenheit.
7. While mandating masks for children in school, at camp, and in childcare settings, Newsom sent his own kids to a camp that clearly communicated it would not be enforcing the mask mandate.
8. Newsom’s most overwhelming policy has been “do as I say, not as I do,” such as dining indoors in a mixed group of households when all other Californians were supposed to eat outdoors within single household groups.
9. Don’t even get me started on the Unemployment Fraud!
10. Once the recall petition was finalized, Newsom discovered that an economy that had been shut down for the better part of a year had yielded an unprecedented surplus to the state budget. He then sent checks to those Californians who contributed the least to the economy claiming he was “returning the money to the people.”

There are my own observations of what our Governor has done since March 2020. I am not an investigative reporter and I certainly don’t follow any major news outlets. But these outrages against our state are so blatant even a busy mom like myself can’t help but notice.

The government of California is destroying the unalienable rights that our founders believed to be self-evident: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. How can Californians pursue happiness when the government shuts down their businesses? How can Californians pursue liberty when they are told the needs of the homeless take priority over the needs of the housed? How can Californians pursue life when life-saving medical equipment can be turned off without warning? That is why recalling Gavin Newsom really isn’t about masks.

We hold these truths to be self-evident […] they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights […] that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that when any government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it

Declaration of Independence