Randy D Gibson

I’m going to make several uncomfortable with this column and many will vehemently disagree with my opinion, but that is okay, because I have every right to my opinion as much as everyone else. This virus that has caused our nation to be shutdown for a month now does not allow elected officials or other bureaucrats to take away our rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

For several weeks I have written that we need facts about what is really happening and I have written about some in power positions taking it upon themselves to take away our rights in the name of “safety.”

I know the virus is dangerous, especially to those who are older and those who have respiratory issues they are fighting already. However, what I, and many others, see happening is more than a slippery slope. Instead, it is a black diamond ski run of solid ice that will cause unintended (or maybe some intended) consequences that a free society will never overcome.

Understand I’m not downplaying the seriousness of the virus, but when I see our rights and civil liberties being trampled, there is a problem.

It has been widely reported that some elected officials on state and municipal levels around the country are usurping their authority in the name of “safety.” Such as in Kentucky, where church goers were given or threatened with fines as high as $500 for sitting in their cars in a church parking lot. So, basically it is okay to be in a shopping center parking lot but not a church parking lot to worship on Easter Sunday. That, to me, is not American.

Apparently, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been quite enjoying her tyrannical power surge, actually ordering things like closing certain departments within an otherwise open shopping center. It’s like you can go in and buy your essential items like alcohol, but the virus is somehow worse in the electronics section. Additionally Whitmer has issued a “stay-home” order, making it a misdemeanor for venturing out without a good reason. Just maybe a good reason is someone wants to be outside.

There have been many reports in states and cities around the nation, including arresting a parent for playing catch with a child, being stopped for driving a car without a mask, and being fined for walking a dog. These types of examples should not be acceptable to any American citizen.

Another thing that has been tossed about is tracking movements of the public or the issuing of “certificates of health” for those who have passed some sort of health test that would be required to travel within the borders of the United States. Again, there is no way any American should support that idea. Seriously, can anyone imagine in the U.S. getting stopped on the highway or the Interstate to show your “papers?” That is not what America is about. Sounds more like the methods of the former eastern European block countries. I can imagine the conversation going something like this: “Papers fraulein, or we will have you questioned by the Gestapo.”

American journalist and cultural critic H.L. Mencken once said, “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-front for the urge to rule it.”  I know I’m not the only freedom-loving American that is concerned about the liberties we are watching being taken away. Virus or not, we are still Americans and we should stand up for our rights. Working together in a time of crisis is great and it is what we should do, but not at the permanent price of our freedoms.

Randy Gibson is the CEO of RDG Communications Group, LLC, and the former director of the Tahlequah Area Chamber of Commerce and the Texas State Rifle Association.