Freedom is the opportunity to do what is right – Gainesville Sun

Bob Palmer| Guest columnist

Recently, the Florida Department of Management Services, the business arm of Florida government, put out a press release lauding the shiny new Florida laws designed to help Floridians avoid COVID vaccinations and COVID-protective masking.

Can you discern a pattern running through these quotes from the press release?

Gov. Ron DeSantis: Im thankful to the Florida Legislature for joining me in standing up for FREEDOM.

Attorney General Ashley Moody: I will always fight for FREEDOM.

Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuez: The FREE state of Florida will never bend the knee to the Biden Administrations unconstitutional overreach.

Senate President Wilton Simpson. We are sending a clear message that Florida stands for FREEDOM.

State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo. The mission of this special session was to ensure that the law reflects the values of LIBERTY in our state.

I give these politicians full credit for sticking to their script. But can you imagine what this chorus of the feeble-minded would have blubbered if someone had slipped their script-writer a nice healthy dose of truth serum:

Gov. Ron DeSantis: Im thankful to the Florida Legislature for joining me in standing up for Floridians FREEDOM to die for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

Attorney General Ashley Moody: I tip my hat to the Legislature for protecting our citizens FREEDOM to infect innocent people.

Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuez: I thank the Almighty that we have leaders who understand that they are FREE to run up unnecessary health-care costs and to stress out overworked health-care workers to the point of mental, physical and emotional collapse.

Senate President Wilton Simpson: Our citizens will now be able to cough and hack on their fellow Floridians with impunity and total FREEDOM.

State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo: As a real live medical guy, I am thrilled that we are prolonging the COVID epidemic, thereby giving even more destructive COVID variants the LIBERTY to develop and flourish.

There is nothing more maddening than the rhetoric of partisans who claim that the Biden administration and various local governments in Florida have developed vaccination and masking guidelines out of a perverse, quasi-Communistic desire to control peoples lives.

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Listen up, DeSantis, Moody, Nuez, Simpson and Ladapo: These policies are in place at least the ones you havent trampled because responsible officials believe government is about more than letting anyone have the FREEDOM to do whatever the hell they want.

Me, me, me is a good exercise for loosening up the vocal cords, but its not a governing philosophy. Keeping citizens safe, on the other hand, is very much a legitimate governing philosophy. Lest your forget, it is in fact the primary responsibility of government.

Bob Palmer lives in Gainesville.

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Freedom is the opportunity to do what is right - Gainesville Sun