Replacing force-backed, arbitrary masking restrictionism with heavily recommended arbitrary anti-masking restrictionism may change one policy in a direction I prefer, but it doubles down on a process I abhor. Which is: The public health regime, and “the science” behind it, is whatever the apex political authority says it is. Change the management, change the policy. That’s not reform; it’s a zag instead of a zig. The other half of the country has it right—give politicians less power, give the people more.

The enforcement whiplash, too, can degrade respect and contribute to uncertainty. Twelve years ago, 50,000 otherwise suspicionless New Yorkers per year were being rung up on low-level marijuana charges after being stopped, questioned, and frisked by cops; now teenagers openly smoke joints on subway cars. Three years ago you couldn’t buy a flavored nicotine cartridge in the city’s then-dwindling number of vape stores; now you can’t sneeze without your droplets hitting a new bodega window display of fanciful water pipes, with potent over-the-counter gummies sold routinely to the obviously underage.

New York politicians, city and state, are forever making normal adult things illegal in one breath, while telling cops and courts to deprioritize enforcement in the next.