This is Bucks First Thoughts.

The news you need to get for your day in 45 minutes.

Make sure you subscribe on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do we still live in a free country?

Ask yourself that question.

Really think about it.

Don't just make it a rhetorical question.

Really think this one through.

Do we live in a free country?

We have certainly been led to believe for a long time at the answer.

Obviously, in fact, you will know that when you were a kid perhaps even, you would say

in a moment of defiance, it's still a free country to somebody when they try to tell you what

you couldn't do or you couldn't say.

But is it really?

Given what we've seen from the government apparatuses for the last 12 months or so, I think we have to

ask that question and come to the answer that right now it is not in fact a free country.

If the government can tell you that you cannot go see relatives, friends, colleagues, if

the government can shut down your business on a whim with no reason other than it says so.

It's no due process.

It's their decision.

Your business is shut down.

If the government can force your children perhaps to get vaccinated, which is something that

...