Who’s better and handling emergencies: conservatives or progressives? Your answer will depend on what is more important to you: freedom or power.
If the COVID-19 pandemic taught us anything, it’s that when it comes to public health crises, progressive governors opt for increased power at any cost — and conservative governors try to protect individual freedoms while at the same time keeping their citizens safe.
If you still need convincing, take a look at what happened on Friday in Arkansas and New Mexico.
On the conservative side of the equation, Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas called for a special session beginning this week for lawmakers to discuss COVID vaccine mandates, among other things.
In a call to ban vaccine mandates for state employees, Sanders observed that restrictions enacted in 2020 “trampled on our liberty.”
“Back then, a handful of bureaucrats shut down our schools, our churches, our businesses and forced masks on our kids and tried to implement vaccine passports,” the governor said during a news conference. “That will not happen again here in the state of Arkansas.”
“When I took this office,” she said, “I promised to limit the growth of government before government could limit the growth of liberty. To achieve that, today, I’m calling a special session of the legislature, beginning next Monday, focused on three things: cutting taxes, streamlining state government and protecting our freedom.”
Sanders also said she would ask the Arkansas Department of Health to “publicize the potential risks related to the COVID-19 vaccine so that all Arkansans can make informed decisions about their health.”
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That’s pretty straightforward and to the point — less government, more liberty and an informed citizenry — a dose of sanity in a world gone mad.
Sanders stands for freedom. She thinks it’s “insane” that we’re even talking about COVID mandates.
I stand for freedom. pic.twitter.com/zaAqAFbasL
— Sarah Huckabee Sanders (@SarahHuckabee) September 9, 2023
New Mexico’s progressive leader, on the other hand, is stomping on gun rights in the name of public health.
On Friday, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced an executive order that temporarily prohibits people from carrying firearms in Albuquerque and throughout Bernalillo County, whether or not they have a legal permit to do so.
Today, I signed an executive order declaring gun violence a public health emergency. To my fellow citizens: get loud. Step up. Demand change: from your neighbors, from your friends, from your communities, from your elected leaders. Enough is enough. More coming from me tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/jOt4fv4YDC
— Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (@GovMLG) September 7, 2023
Lujan Grisham claimed the order was designed in part to spur a “strong debate” about how to address gun violence,” according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. She said people should be horrified “that so many young people and so many individuals with no training and reckless, criminal behavior are openly carrying firearms in our community.”
That’s crazy.
People who have legal gun permits go through a process where they are presumably trained in firearm safety and undergo background checks to make sure they don’t have records of “reckless, criminal behavior.”
If New Mexico does not vet gun permits properly, it would at least make sense for Lujan Grisham to start there.
Making firearms illegal for legal gun permit owners is not only contrary to reason but appears to be blatantly unconstitutional.
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“A child is murdered, the perpetrator is still on the loose, and what does the governor do?” New Mexico Senate Minority Leader Greg Baca said in a statement from Senate Republicans.
“She throws the mayor of Albuquerque under the bus and then targets law-abiding citizens with an unconstitutional gun order,” Baca said.
Lujan Grisham is the opposite of Sanders. The progressive governor wants to increase government control, clamp down on liberty and confuse the citizenry with nonsensical executive orders.
In fact, Sanders commented on her New Mexico counterpart’s move, saying in a post on social media Saturday, “If the government can take away one of your most basic rights, it can take away any of them. As long as I’m Governor, Arkansas will not tread on the Second Amendment – or any other.”
Our Constitution doesn’t say “the privilege to keep and bear arms,” it says “the right.”
If the government can take away one of your most basic rights, it can take away any of them. As long as I’m Governor, Arkansas will not tread on the Second Amendment – or any other. https://t.co/8yKfElmbVI
— Sarah Huckabee Sanders (@SarahHuckabee) September 9, 2023
Where would you rather live, in Sanders’ state of Arkansas or the progressive dystopia of New Mexico?
Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ plan to ban COVID mandates is a brutal blow to progressive fever dreams of total control. More power to her.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.