Sheriff: America loves freedom more than it fears a virus

Americans are getting restless giving up their liberties despite a worldwide pandemic, and a longtime peace officer says the constitution matters more than fear of a virus.

Richard Mack, a former sheriff who leads the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, says he doesn’t oppose “sheltering in place” and shuttering his business, but those decisions have to be made by him, he says.

“When I see the right information coming out, and I trust what everybody’s telling me, I will do so willingly and voluntarily,” he tells OneNewsNow. “But once you start forcing me, that totally is the antithesis of American ideals.”

When the coronavirus began spreading across Washington state, then the U.S., Americans retreated into their homes like fleeing from a hailstorm because models were predicting overwhelmed hospitals and 2.2 million deaths – but “only” 1.1 million deaths if the public shuttered the businesses on Main Street and remained in their homes.

Now, weeks later, the discussion and debate is not over how much longer to remain indoors and allow businesses to fail but how slowly, or quickly, to open up Main Street again after more than six million Americans filed for unemployment in only a month’s time.

According to Mack, it’s a simple situation.

“What would you prefer: To lose your job, destroy the economy, and lose your freedom and maybe get the coronavirus?” he asks. “Or would you prefer keep your job, keep the economy intact, keep your liberty and maybe get the coronavirus?”

Asked if he is suggesting that Americans should disobey the government, and refuse to follow the shut-down edicts, Mack says he is, in fact, saying so and is calling on other law enforcement officials to do the same in the name of constitutional rights.

“When government is doing wrong, of course we don’t enforce it,” he insists. “In December of 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving her seat to a white man. Would you have arrested her, Officer? Sheriff? No, our job would have been to protect her from the government that was doing evil.”

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