I have often quoted Alexis de Tocqueville’s statement that “if lights that guide us ever go out, they will fade little by little, as if of their own accord” and that “[c]onfining ourselves to practice, we may lose sight of basic principles, and when these have been entirely forgotten, we may apply the methods derived from them badly.” Mask mandate legislation just filed in the General Assembly showed how dimly the lights had flickered in me until the last few years. I could verbalize basic principles, but the connection between them had not hit home as it should.