California Governor Gavin Newsom, over the last year and a half, has been one of the American governors imposing the most extensive crackdowns on freedom in the name of countering coronavirus. He also famously exhibited extreme hypocrisy in November by flagrantly violating his own California coronavirus-related mandates while taking part in a dinner party at the uber-expensive French Laundry restaurant. Newsom’s attitude seems to be that his rules are for regular people, not for himself and his friends.
Now comes word of another scandal in which Newsom has flaunted the mandate he has imposed in the state. Eric Ting reported Tuesday at the San Francisco Gate that two of Newsom’s children recently attended a basketball summer camp that had informed parents ahead of time that children would not be required to wear masks despite a state mandate that children ages two to 11 do so. After a picture of one of Newsom’s children, along with other children at the camp, with uncovered faces appeared on the internet, Newsom’s kids were pulled out of the camp early. Woops, the Newsom family had missed reading the camp’s email mentioning the camp’s mask policy, explained the communications director of Newsom’s governor office.
It is great that Newsom and his friends can enjoy an “old normal” dinner party with friends, though the dinner party at issue looks like it was also a get-together of government and special interest lobbyists. And it is great that Newsom’s children, who are in an age group for which risk of serious injury or death from coronavirus is nearly zero, can participate in a summer camp without wearing uncomfortable, dehumanizing masks that are known to cause health problems but have not been shown to provide any net protection from coronavirus. It would also be great if more summer camps followed freedom-friendly policies as did the camp Newsom’s children attended. Kudos for people taking part in such forbidden activities that bring joy to life. The problem with Newsom is that he takes these actions for himself and his children while, at the same time, he decrees that ordinary people are prohibited from doing so.
