Deace: Carl Fish is trying to do what too many Americans take for granted: Be free

I’ve been where Carl Fish is. A lot.

You do the thing you think God wants you to do, and … nothing.

You say the thing you think needs to be said to the people you think need to hear it, and … nothing.

In Carl’s case, he kept his Bucks County, Pennsylvania, gym open when everybody started to panic about COVID in March 2020. He thought it was unconstitutional to tell him to do otherwise. He thought telling people to stop exercising in order to stay healthy was absurd.

So he was determined to set an example that would encourage others to resist the building fear and confusion. He put privacy screens on his windows once Pennsylvania’s governor ordered “non-essential” businesses closed and allowed his gym’s members to use the 24/7 facility as they saw fit, turning it into what Carl called a “fitness speakeasy” where the members began trading texts with one another to warn when the police were watching outside.

It was a dance that grew more tenuous as Carl became aware of the identities of those who were ratting him out to police. Finally, on April 10 – Good Friday – Carl was given notice that he and his business would have the doors chained indefinitely after being declared a “public health menace.” If anyone was in the building at the time this order was enforced, the order said they “risked being locked inside.”

And that’s exactly what happened to Carl. But again, he thought taking a stand would help people find their courage and their sanity again. He stayed locked in for nearly two weeks, surviving on protein bars and protein shakes. Surely, Americans wouldn’t accept such tyranny for long. Surely, they would wake up and take their country back.

They didn’t.

His membership of roughly 500 people plummeted and only now has bounced back to about 370. His business franchise’s sponsor, Snap Fitness, abandoned him, and now he runs his gym independently. His landlord even tried to pressure him to take down the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag in front of his business because of complaints that it was dangerous. Think about what this means. The state where the Declaration of Independence was forged and ratified now finds a flag flown bravely during that era to be “dangerous.”

“The courts were closed, so the cops had latitude,” Carl said about being locked inside his own business by the stormtroopers, er, I mean five police cars that showed up to intimidate him into giving up and crawling away. “I thought others would fight back, but it didn’t happen. I stayed locked inside for days, but I couldn’t get anybody else to take a stand.”

Carl finally broke himself out of his own business and began putting the pieces back together, eventually opening back up again in June 2020 when the government said it was OK again to earn a living, just like the Founding Fathers intended when they pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honors.

“Give me liberty or give me death, unless a marginally bad flu comes along, and then your a** is mine.” It’s all there in the fine print, I’m sure.

Except it isn’t, and that reality kept sitting like a pit in Carl’s stomach as 2020 turned into 2021, 2022, and 2023 with almost zero accountability for how this nation’s way of life was totally hijacked and nearly destroyed, seemingly intentionally or even maliciously in many or most cases.

Like I said, I know the feeling. Because it is the feeling that currently drives all of my political instincts and calculations in my involvement in the process for choosing our next president of the United States in 2024. There needs to be a reckoning so that this never happens again. Which is why Carl is getting back in the saddle one more time with his attorneys and trying to do what so many Americans take for granted – despite all evidence to the contrary about how tenuous it is: Be free.

“Over the next couple of months I'll be working with my lawyer on steps to hold [the police, public health and consumer protection] departments accountable for their unlawful acts,” Carl said. “I've debated with myself on this, but I believe [the “Steve Deace Show”] is correct. If we don't hold them accountable and there are no repercussions, we will have to suffer this over and over.”

He is correct. He gets it. So what’s your excuse?