Five prominent sheriffs have become California's lonely voices of COVID reason

09 December 2020

Factual background — Gavin "Über Alles" Newsom

Governor Gavin Newsom has turned this elegantly coiffed self into an in-your-face art form.

His latest COVID-19 mandate arbitrarily appoints a 15 percent or less ICU bed regional capacity as a tripwire for imposing home imprisonment upon the public.

Populationally speaking, much of the Golden State is now under stay at home lockdown. Many businesses are closed by government order. Those still permitted to "exist" are doing so under rationality-defying, economics-busting restrictions.

Helpfully listed by KCRA television in Sacramento:

Here's a list of closures:

Indoor and outdoor playgrounds

Indoor recreational facilities

Hair salons and barbershops

Personal care services

Museums, zoos, and aquariums

Movie theaters

Wineries

Bars, breweries, and distilleries

Family entertainment centers

Cardrooms and satellite wagering

Limited services

Live audience sports

What gets to stay open?

Several sectors can remain open with masking, physical distancing and other restrictions, according to the state.

Outdoor recreational facilities: Outdoor operations but only without any food, drink or alcohol sales. No overnight stays at campgrounds.

Retail: Indoor operation at 20% capacity with entrance metering and no eating or drinking in stores. Stores should have special hours for seniors and others with chronic conditions or compromised immune systems.

Shopping centers: Indoor operation at 20% capacity with the same restrictions as for retail.

Hotels and lodging: Open for critical infrastructure support only.

Offices: Remote only except for critical infrastructure sectors.

Places of worship and political expression: Outdoor services only.

Entertainment production including professional sports: Can operate without live audiences.

Restaurant service will be to-go or for delivery only.

Grocery stores are allowed only 35 percent capacity. Store staff have to actively monitor the limit.

And get this

The justification for these arbitrary measures is this one — succinctly put by The New York Times:

In San Diego, nine of 112 intensive-care beds are unoccupied at a university medical center, illustrating an alarming trend across Southern California.

More than 10,000 Covid-19 patients are now hospitalized in the state, more than 70 percent above what it was two weeks ago.

That a state where masks are widely accepted finds itself in such dire straits is confounding to residents, who felt they had a leg up on parts of the country that resisted the advice of public health officials. That the virus soared back is a cautionary tale, a sign that California let down its guard.

And because California has fewer hospital beds per capita than all but two states, it takes less to overwhelm the state’s health infrastructure.

In other words — "Burrow down, worms!"

According to Government, we've all got to return to cowering in our cave shelters. While a huge portion of the economy tanks — some of it forever — so as to protect proportionately few people against a virus that is essentially unremarkable for almost all of the world's population. However one calculates it, SARS-CoV-2 is killing and maiming only a small percent of human beings.

Crushing the Whole to save the Few makes little societal sense

Especially so, when the United States could have produced enough virus-constraining protective gear (like N95s) to have brought this pandemic under more reasonable control — early on and still now.

Instead of doing this obviously useful thing — and thereby appreciably protecting the vulnerable by giving them the physical means to protect themselves — do-nothing Government and hysterical fearmongering have taken actual utility's place.

And here I'm not even addressing our American refusal to learn from the rest of the planet's helpful emphasis on using cheap generic drugs as life and suffering-saving prophylactics, as well as early-infection treatments.

Read on.

Aggravatingly unrealistic measures of pandemic severity

As I have written before, ICU and hospital bed capacities are not a correct measure of pandemic seriousness.

Just because artificially limited numbers of ICU beds are filling, does not mean that a pandemic has reached humanity-destroying proportions.

Outbreaks, pandemics and surges in healthcare demand are repeating (cyclical) biological realities. Planning as if those do not exist is the height of societal absurdity. Yet, laissez faire capitalism does exactly that.

We have allowed this impressively nitwit approach (of artificially limiting healthcare) to justify the hugely totalitarian trend that is consuming American pandemic culture today.

The trend is exactly equivalent to . . .

. . . intentionally backing oneself into a corner and then claiming that the Sky is Falling.

Blatantly discriminatory

I have addressed the (pandemic) topic of discriminatory business shutdowns and restrictions before.

Particularly outrageous in California is Newsom's classification of Hollywood entertainment as "essential" — but small businesses not so.

The following example of this is especially infuriating. Read the below text. Then watch its embedded video. The video clip visually demonstrates the overwhelming ridiculousness of the Governor's purported distinction between an "essential" business and one that is not:

Los Angeles business owner Angela Marsden was forced to close her Sherman Oaks restaurant at the end of November due to shut down orders from Los Angeles County.

Now she says restaurants and small businesses are being unfairly targeted by California's stay-at-home order.

Marsden says she came to grab supplies from her closed restaurant, Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill, to attend a protest when she came across an outdoor dining area -- almost identical to hers -- set up next to her restaurant's parking lot.

Upset by the situation, Marsden took to social media, posting a video to Facebook comparing the tables set up for a movie set to the covered outdoor seating area next to hers. "Tell me that this is dangerous (pointing to her own patio area) but right next to me as a slap in my face ... this is safe?" Marsden said.

Under Los Angeles County guidelines, the film industry has been labeled as essential and television and film production has continued to operate.

LA County (where this happened) tried to cover its protrudingly naked butt this way:

Film shoots are actually stricter than restaurants because they are limited to crew members who must be regularly tested for the virus, the LA county health department told the paper.

Sure. We all know how "reliable" COVID testing is. And we can all imagine how careful Hollywood's — drug-snorting, sniffing, injecting and booze-bloating — folk are, when they're off the set.

The County's lame justification immediately files itself in the Ain't Shit Basket.

Fortunately — sense-saving sheriffs

Into the above deluge of discriminatory government corruption and Il Duce-ism in action, come some of California's more prominent sheriffs.

Riverside County — Sheriff Chad Bianco:

[Riverside County Sheriff Chad] Bianco said his department won't be "blackmailed, bullied or used as muscle against Riverside County residents in the enforcement of the governor's orders."

"It appears part of the new goal is to shift attention away from his and others' [privileged] personal behavior with a 'Do as I say, not as I do' attitude by turning public opinion against California sheriffs," Bianco said.

"He is expecting us to arrest anyone violating these orders, cite them and take their money, close their businesses, make them stay in their home and take away their civil liberties or he will punish all of us."

Riverside County sheriff's Lt. Tim Brause, the president of the Law Enforcement Management Unit, said that the union, representing ranks sergeant and above, "unequivocally supports the sheriff's criticism" about Newsom's order.

Brause said Bianco has been consistent in his appeals to residents to wear facial coverings and practice adequate social distancing.

Los Angeles County — Sheriff Alex Villanueva:

LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva explained enforcement at businesses is the health department's job, not his deputies.

"I want to stay away from businesses that are trying to comply the best they can," Villanueva said.

"They bent over backwards to modify their entire operation to conform to these current health orders, and then they have the rug yanked out from under them, that’s a disservice. I don’t want to make their lives any more miserable," Villanueva told FOX 11's Bill Melugin.

Villanueva said LASD's focus instead will be to crack down on super-spreader events.

Orange County — Sheriff Don Barnes:

"Governor Newsom announced new stay-at-home orders for much of California, including Orange County. The ever-changing nature of these orders and the increase of COVID-19 case numbers bring additional uncertainty and stress to California residents.

“To put the onus on law enforcement to enforce these orders against law-abiding citizens who are already struggling through difficult circumstances, while criticizing law enforcement and taking away tools to do our jobs is contradictory and disingenuous.

“Compliance with health orders is a matter of personal responsibility and not a matter of law enforcement. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department will remain consistent in our approach to the pandemic. Orange County Sheriff’s deputies will not be dispatched to, or respond to, calls for service to enforce compliance with face coverings, social gatherings, or stay-at-home orders only. Deputies will respond to calls for potential criminal behavior and for the protection of life and property. Our actions will remain consistent with all constitutional rights.

“As we have done throughout this pandemic, we must remain diligent in preventing the spread of the virus by following public health recommendations, like wearing a face covering and practicing social distancing. Conversely, policy makers must not penalize residents for earning a livelihood, safeguarding their mental health, or enjoying freedoms."

Both the Ventura and San Bernardino County sheriffs . . .

. . . have reportedly indicated that they will rely upon citizens' voluntary compliance with stay-at-home orders.

How about that?

Five (very populous California county) sheriffs have announced that they will not be joining the Nazi Governance Herd.

Perhaps Governor Newsom's Schutzstaffel Plan is finally encountering meaningful resistance.

The moral? — When county sheriffs become the last bastion against Government-sponsored tyranny . . .

. . . strange-scary things will have happened in the United States.

My Lord.

PeteFree.com

Five prominent sheriffs have become California's lonely voices of COVID reason