Opinion: Stand up for freedom, but don't forget that includes responsibility

We all have a little Jeff Essary in us — stubborn, determined, independent, maybe irresponsible sometimes, but focused on what we believe matters and willing to fight for freedom when we think it's under fire.

Even those of us who don't know the man — we only know the Facebook legend — were relieved late last week to see he's feeling better after a frightening struggle with COVID-19.

Essary is vice president of the Floyd school board that made national headlines for refusing to implement COVID-safe practices mandated by New Mexico's governor. The board members were predictably suspended and the state runs the Floyd schools now. But Essary has never wavered in his vocal opposition to mandatory masks and vaccines, which most medical experts agree is our best bet against the killer virus. He has maintained those precautions should be optional, up to each individual, certainly not something New Mexico's liberal governor gets to decide.

He didn't change his position on those issues even after he was diagnosed with COVID about two weeks ago and went into the hospital Aug. 15.

“Even though I have covid you can keep your vaccine, keep your mask mandates and keep all your liberal covid fear,” he wrote on his Facebook page while hospitalized at Roosevelt General in Portales. “Just don't believe in your drama politics!!”

You have to admire the man's consistency.

His attitude toward COVID has, however, changed since he's felt its ravaging impact.

Prior to being hospitalized, he posted on Facebook that “I've got covid right now. It's not that bad. If this is what all the scare was about we are all made out as fools.”

In an interview with The Eastern New Mexico News Editor Kevin Wilson late last week, he wrote, “Covid has been nothing like I've experienced before.” On his Facebook page, he wrote that he needed “a lung rehab.” In an interview with The Santa Fe New Mexican, he said he feared for his life. “We all get scared when we can't breathe,” he said.

To his credit, Essary has not publicly opposed others wearing masks, being vaccinated against COVID or being tested for the virus. He's always maintained it's an individual choice, though you'd be hard pressed to find social media posts in which he has emphasized others' freedom to be careful.

That's the part some of us consider irresponsible. Essary is, or was, a public policy maker who has been loud and proud in his opposition to COVID-safe practices and tried to ensure they weren't required. He did not spend a lot of time encouraging anyone to be responsible while employing their freedom.

COVID is unique in that we can transmit the virus to others without knowing we even have it. We know vaccines and masks are not 100 percent effective against the virus and tests often seem wildly inaccurate — all the more reason to do what we can to protect each other.

As we pray for Essary and others filling our hospitals with this awful disease, let us also come to respect COVID-19 and do all we can in preventing its spread.

We cannot forget our precious freedom comes with a great deal of responsibility to care for each other.

— David Stevens

Publisher