The Top 10 States With The Fewest COVID Restrictions And More – Iowa is the top State with the fewest COVID restrictions, what are the other nine? Tune in to hear this and more good news!

Air Date: 04/30/2021

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

 

Rick:

You find your way to the intersection of faith and the culture. Thanks for joining us today on WallBuilders Live, where we’re talking about the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.

I’m Rick Green, America’s Constitution coach. And I’m here with David Barton, he’s America’s premier historian, our founder here at WallBuilders. And Tim Barton is with us, national speaker, and pastor and president of WallBuilders. And these guys have some good news to share with you throughout today’s program. But we have more at our website, wallbuilderslive.com. Be sure and click on the archives there, you can get any of the programs you’ve missed over the last few weeks, including Good News Friday programs, and Foundations of Freedom Thursday, where we take your questions, dive into those principles, and then we have some great interviews all throughout the rest of the week. So be sure to check all that out at wallbuilderslive.com.

And that’s also a great place guys, first encourage people not only at the website to enjoy all of that information totally for free there on the website, but also consider coming alongside us and making a contribution because that’s kind of a way of paying it forward. So you get all this great information, you get inspired, you get equipped, you go do things in your community. But when you donate, what you’re doing is you’re making it possible for others to hear the same information and then do the same thing in their community.

Tim:

Yeah, and this is something, Rick, that as we ask people on a consistent basis, if they want to partner with us, join us along the way and kind of this cultural battle that we’re in, and obviously, a spiritual battle and, right, so much that we’re dealing with in culture, this is not something that any of us do necessarily to make a great living and to be successful. Everything that comes into WallBuilders Live goes back into the program. This is not something that anybody’s profiting on other than the sense that we are growing, the stations growing the program, things that people can invest in to help get truth out there. It allows and enables us to do more, to reach pastors and teachers, and college students, next generation.

So this is something that in the midst of a cultural battle, where a lot of people are looking for answers right now, we have the unique opportunity here at WallBuilders that we can present information in a way that a lot of other people don’t have the ability and resources to present things in the same way such as that we have a lot of the original documents. We can go back to the actual documents, holding them in our hand and say, guys, here’s a letter from George Washington, from Thomas Jefferson, from John Adams, from Benjamin Franklin, that is able to present history and truth in a more compelling way than necessarily seeing something online or maybe having a professor tell you about something. And so this is something that as people partner with us, not only does it enable us to present truth at a greater level, it enables us to help present the original documents and the truth of America. And we go from a biblical, historical, constitutional perspective.

And so for those, you’ve been listening a long time, you know exactly who we are in the message we’re trying to get out there. And in the midst of a cultural battle, we definitely want to make sure that we are helping support people who are having a voice and making a difference.

And guys, I’ve talked about it many times even on our show, is there several other conservative organizations that I am a monthly donor and monthly supporter to, and some of them are conservative talk show hosts, and I don’t even have a chance to listen to their shows all that much. I just want to support people that I know we’re doing something to make a difference for America, to make a difference for the next generation.

And this is the time that we would encourage you, support those people who are doing things to make a difference, that have the values you believe in, that are promoting and presenting the truth that needs to be heard right now. And certainly, if WallBuilders Live is one of those organizations, we would love to have your support, we’d love to have you partner with us so that we can reach more people, we can do more things to make a difference.

But this is definitely a time in the midst of the Cancel culture and all that’s going on, that we need to find those organizations and support those organizations. So wallbuilderslive.com, donate button right there, if people want to give a one-time contribution or make it a monthly contribution, we would love to have you guys partner with us on this journey and in this cultural battle that we are in

Rick:

Well, let’s get into some of that good news that contribution will help to spread out there across the country. Let’s start with the first piece of good news from David.

David:

Well, now that we are, I don’t know, a year 15 months into the COVID stuff, I forget how long it is now. But it’s been here for a while that we’ve had some pretty onerous policies going. People are tired of the policies and a lot of governors are tired of them, and they’re just putting a foot in the ground saying no, we’re not going further in the direction that Fauci and others like him want to go. So if I asked the question to you guys, what is the state with the fewest COVID restrictions in America right now what would your answer be?

Rick:

Wow! State with fewest COVID restrictions, I mean, Florida has kind of gotten that reputation, because DeSantis has been so bold in speaking out about it and getting rid of mandates from the state level, but a lot of their counties are still unfortunate. So I wouldn’t…

Tim:

And I thought we talked about South Dakota and North Dakota, there were some states like South Dakota, we had known some level because of Kristi Noem. But like North Dakota, there were some states that were much more abstract that we weren’t necessarily considering as being leaders in this. So that’s a very interesting question. I genuinely have no idea. I have some guesses, but I don’t know.

David:

Okay, the number one state is Iowa. So, Iowa has the least restrictions of any state. Now, the top 10 states with the least restrictions, you’ve named some, can you name some others? You’ve named South Dakota. You’ve named Florida. You named Wyoming.

Tim:

No, we named North Dakota, but I’m going to add Wyoming…

David:

North Dakota is not one of the top 10.

Tim:

Okay, so let me just say Wyoming, because I was definitely thinking of Wyoming right after you said it. Because before no… Okay. So, interesting, I could just go through the states, Idaho…

David:

No.

Rick:

There’s so few that it seems like has been not draconian, right.

Tim:

Yeah, Montana.

David:

Idaho is not it.

Tim:

Montana.

David:

They’re number 10 on the list.

Rick:

I just have this feeling that David would not be asking us this unless there’s some shockers on the list.

David:

Well, not really. It’s kind of like Tim, I hadn’t really thought about it before. I hadn’t thought what are the most open state in COVID…

Rick:

Oh, wait a minute. What about, like, Mississippi? I know they lifted their mask mandate.

David:

Here’s the top 10:* Iowa, Florida, Wyoming, South Dakota, Texas, Alaska, South Carolina, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Montana. Now, this all comes from WalletHub. WalletHub is the app that is on personal finance and expanse and it deal with businesses and etc. So they’re looking at states that had the fewest restrictions, because that has a big impact on the economy. So those are the 10 states with the fewest restrictions. In other words, that’s where they project the growing economies and economics will be doing well. Let me turn it the other way. What is the most restrictive state in the United States on COVID?

Tim:

Oh, this is the more fun game. Okay. The most restrictive…

Rick:

And some more fun game.

Tim:

I apologize, not for the people living there, I don’t mean to revel in your potential misery right now. It’s not what I’m suggesting, but..

Rick:

But it’s actually harder to choose, right. It’s a more target rich environment. That’s what it is. More states that we could… Yeah.

Tim:

Right. This is the who’s who for terrible governors right now in America. So…

Rick:

California is just got to be up there.

Tim:

Yeah, I feel like the top of the list. You have to have New York. You have to have California. Governor Pritzker up in Illinois, those have got to be somewhere high on the list, we know that Washington State is not very open. We know that Oregon is not very open. So those are going to be the top 10 I would imagine. There’s obviously some New England states that would be very restrictive. Have we named the top one yet, Dad?

David:

No.

Tim:

Wow! Okay. So Massachusetts.

David:

And some of those you said were at the top of the list aren’t.

Tim:

Well, how big is your list?

David:

10.

Tim:

Okay, did they make the 10?

David:

Some of them are at the bottom of the 10.

Tim:

Okay, but there’s still top 10, I’m going to give ourselves credit, Rick, we did good.

Rick:

We least scored, right, we least got on the board.

David:

You got on the board.

Tim:

Okay, so Vermont,

David:

Vermont is number one. Vermont is number one most restrictive in the nation.

Tim:

I was trying to think of okay, what socialists are there out there? Bernie Sanders, boom, Vermont. Got it.

David:

Next is D.C., Washington, D.C.

Rick:

I believe that. Yeah.

Tim:

Wait a second, I thought we were looking at states. We’re not a D.C. statehood group here. Wait a second. Wait a second.

Rick:

That’s right.

David:

D.C. is two. Number three is Delaware, then Virginia, Washington State, New York, California, Maine, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. There’s your top 10 most on it. Now…

Rick:

I guess none of those surprises me that they’re in the top 10. I’m just surprised by the order of some of those. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

David:

What’s interesting with this is the top 10 states that have the least restrictions are all red. Republicans tend to like liberty, better individual liberty. Your 10 most restrictive states are all heavy blue. Democrats tend not to like your personal freedoms, they want to tell you what you can and can’t do with them.

Tim:

And more specifically, dad, as you’re saying they don’t like your personal freedoms, they’re more in favor of government controlling of government mandating things. Whereas generally, in more Republican states, they’re more in favor of letting individuals make choices for themselves. And so that’s really, I think, what you’re referencing when the sense of the freest or the less restrictions and the more restrictions is more of the mentality of should the individual rule themselves, or should the government rule the individual?

David:

So you’re right, Tim. I mean, what you see here is really personal freedom kind of stuff the way they think government should be involved. And a good example of where they’re starting to shift, and this is not a state that was either in the 10 best or 10 worse, but it’s Wisconsin, and I pointed Wisconsin. Because in Wisconsin, you have an elected Supreme Court, it tends to be Republican, there are Democrats and Republicans are, but it leans slightly Republican.

But what just happened in Wisconsin, was Wisconsin Supreme Court just drugged down Governor Tony Evers statewide mask mandate. Now Evers is a Democrat, the court tends to be Republican. Here’s that philosophical battle again. And so the Supreme Court said you’ve exceeded your authority by issuing the order. Why would they say that? Because the law in Wisconsin says that any kind of emergency order can only last for 60 days, and then the legislature has to come back and approve it.

Well, what’s happened is four times the governor has extended the mask mandate. And the last time, the legislature actually struck it down, and the governor said, well, you guys don’t know what you’re talking about; I’m extending the mask mandate. So you have the Supreme Court of Wisconsin say, no, you can’t do that. The law says you cannot do that. And he said, well, that’s a crisis. It’s an emergency. I can do this. And they said, no, you can’t. There’s a law. And grab this.

They not only struck down his statewide mask mandate, they struck down his safer-at-home order saying that you have to stay at home, they struck down his limit capacities in bars, restaurants, and other indoor places. I mean, they’re striking down these orders, because he does not have the legislative authority to do it. It actually violates state law. And he’s arguing that yeah, I do have the right to tell people what they can do.

So the good news is you have a court that’s following the law and saying you have to do it now. But it goes back to what we’re discussing, guys. There’s a big philosophical difference in the way the Democrats and Republicans look at personal liberty, individual freedom, and whether government should tell you what to do in your life. And this out of Wisconsin is a great example. The good news is that the court there has stood up for the law and says freedom is the right of the people and the governor can’t take that freedom away just because he thinks is better for the people.

Rick:

Oh, it’s so good to see these governors finally, finally being slapped down by the courts. We’ve been pining for this for a year. It should have happened back in March and April and May of last year, and finally it’s catching up to some of these governors. Stay with us, folks, more good news for you when we come back on WallBuilders Live.

AMERICAN STORY

Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called The American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today.

And we would say very providentially in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil, and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things, like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not out the statement Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America.

Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America? We actually have written and told that story starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America not as the story of a perfect nation of a perfect people. But the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out wallbuilders.com, The American Story.

AMERICA’S HISTORY

This is David Barton with another moment from America’s history. Today, we heard that our Founding Fathers were largely atheists, agnostics, or deist. The writings of Founding Father Richard Henry least strongly refute that assertion.

Richard Henry Lee was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and he is specifically the man who made the motion in Congress that America is separate from Great Britain. Following his death, his papers and correspondence, including numerous original handwritten letters from other prominent Founding Fathers were passed on to his grandson.

After having studied those letters, this was how the grandson described our Founding Fathers. He declared, “The wise and great men of those days were not ashamed publicly to confess the name of our blessing Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In behalf of the people as their representatives and rulers, they acknowledge the sublime doctrine of his mediation.”

For more information on God’s hand in American history, contact WallBuilders at 1800REBUILD.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live, Good News Friday today. Next piece of good news from Tim Barton.

Tim:

Alright, guys, if we were talking in the first segment about states that have different philosophical ideologies when it comes to the government’s job, when it comes to freedom in the midst of what has been considered a pandemic with COVID, do we trust the individuals to make good decisions? Or what is the government’s role?

And one of the sad things have been many Republican governors, who in theory have said they’re very conservative, they like freedom have not always come out on the correct side of the freedom issue. Well, one of the things that happened in Arkansas recently dealing with some conservative principles, there was a piece of legislation that was titled “Save Adolescence from Experimentation Act”. And the idea was, there was and by the way, this passed in the House and Senate, but the argument from this piece of legislation was that just because parents find a doctor who agree that a seven year old boy wants to be a girl doesn’t mean that one, they can start giving puberty blockers and two, they should not be able to go in and remove the male anatomy from that seven year old little boy to try to sexually alter his body to make him in appearance more as a female.

They said, we don’t care if there’s parental approval for this seven year old child who feels a certain way, there needs to be at least 18 years of age individual making that decision for their own body, in spite of the agenda of parents or doctors. Governor Hutchinson, who is a republican governor has come out against this issue and actually ended up vetoing this piece of legislation.

Now, the good news is that the state legislative houses came out and overrode the veto. He actually appeared on Tucker Carlson, and it did not go very well for him, as Tucker Carlson asked him, why did you think you should veto this? Did you not think that we need to protect children from these bad ideologies? And Governor Hutchinson said, well, I think that government was overreaching here, and this isn’t the role of government. And I just want to pause for a second. And let’s just think logically through this.

If two parents had a seven year old child, and they took the seven year old child to the doctor, and the seven year old child says, hey, I want to be an amputee, remove all of my appendages. And the parents are like, well, if it’s what he wants, the doctor says, well, if it’s what he wants, we’re going to let the seven year old make this decision. Okay. For a doctor to agree to remove the arms and legs because this child wants to be a quadruple amputee, that would be a terrible decision. And it would not be government overreach to recognize this as a terrible decision. It’s actually protecting minors from very bad decisions and allowing them to make good decisions for themselves or just decisions for themselves in general as they get older. And this is something that I don’t think maybe governor Hutchinson was thinking as critically or strategically through this as he should, maybe he was getting bad information. I don’t want to just blatantly throw him under the bus.

The good news about all this is that the House and the Senate in Arkansas came out and said this is a terrible thing, that the governor vetoed this and they overrode his veto to make sure that they are protecting the boys and girls of Arkansas from any sex change operations when they are adolescents, or even younger in some scenarios, or from any kind of hormone or puberty blocker medication that would forever alter their biology going forward.

So this is good news that the House and Senate overrode the veto of the governor. It was sad to see the governor on the wrong side of this. But the good news is that the Arkansas State House and Senate came out doing the right thing.

Rick:

Alright, quick break, guys, we’ll be right back with more good news. Stay with us here on WallBuilders Live.

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Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. And I just want to reiterate, Tim, good news out of Arkansas. That’s always good when good news, our listeners don’t know I’m not really a native Texan. I was born in Arkansas. So I love hearing good news coming out of Arkansas, because I still got a lot of family up there. So despite the governor, thank you to the legislature for working so hard to override that veto. Alright, what’s our next piece of good news?

Tim:

Well, Rick, let me point out we have a lot of good friends in Arkansas. We have a lot of friends who are state legislators in Arkansas, who have been fighting very hard in Arkansas, as hard as it is for this Texan to say has actually been leading the way in front of Texas on a lot of legislative issues when it comes to pro-life issues and even some Second Amendment issues.

So Arkansas legislature has done a very good job for Arkansas in many respects. So yes, it’s hard to admit, but Arkansas has done a very good job.

Rick:

Yep, that swallow in some Texas pride right there, brother.

David:

Okay, the good news I’ve got goes back to what we were talking about earlier and that is COVID and how that states with a more conservative philosophy recognize individual liberties and freedoms and open it up. And one of the states in the top 10 was Texas. And Rick, you and Tim and I, we all just we couldn’t believe that our governor kept our state locked down for so long. He finally opened it up. Now, if you remember he opened it up back at the start of the year after President Biden was in office. Do you remember what President Biden said?

Rick:

Neanderthal thought.

David:

That’s right, he said Neanderthal thinking. I can’t believe Texas has that Neanderthal thinking. Well, you know, fortunately, he does have people who agrees with him like California, Governor Newsom out in California, it’s a weird thing. Since Texas opened up our COVID, rates have plummeted. Since California has remained close, their rates are getting high and not coming down. So this Neanderthal thinking doesn’t seem to line up with the kind of evidence that’s out there, the medical evidence and other stuff. So it’s interesting…

Rick:

And in fact, that’s going up and down the line, David, as far as you know the states that are opening up, less cases, lower hospital rates, all those things, the states that have staying closed, more cases.

David:

Yeah. Well, Florida is one of those cases that they got criticized for opening it up. And so even though Florida is a very popular state, and even though Florida has a very elderly population perspective-wise, I mean, that’s another high COVID infection area, you see them being on the other end of the numbers. I mean, they have a dropping rate and they’re not one of the high states.

So a lot of this stuff doesn’t make sense. And it’s interesting to see that even news articles, kind of looked at Texas said, you know what, on opening day of baseball, they had 38,000 fans in the stands versus some of these other states where you got teams in blue station, and you’re having 500 fans in the stands. And I guess I would have liked that a whole lot better if the Texas Rangers had knelt when they did the national anthem. But nonetheless, Texas is much more of an open state and the Neanderthal stuff is just out the door.

Tim:

Well, one of the things too that even the CDC is now acknowledging is it’s actually better for people to exercise and get sunshine. Well, you don’t do that stand locked up inside your house, which is what some of the states are still encouraging. And so yeah, totally, doctors, medical professionals, even the CDC is acknowledging this needs to go the other way for health reasons.

Rick:

Alright, guys, quick break, then we’ve got our final segment of good news today. Stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

AMERICAN HISTORY

Hi, friends, this is Tim Barton of WallBuilders. This is a time when most Americans don’t know much about American history or even heroes of the faith. And I know oftentimes we, parents, we’re trying to find good content for our kids to read.

And if you remember back to the Bible, to the book of Hebrews, it has the faith Hall of Fame where they outline the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes, not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity in our faith as well.

I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called The Courageous Leaders collection. And this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers. And there’s a second collection called Heroes of History. In this collection, you’ll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman; friends, the list goes on and on. This is a great collection for your young person to have and read and it’s a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at www.wallbuilders.com. That’s www.wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders live. Thanks for staying with us today. Last piece of good news comes from Tim Barton.

Tim:

Alright guys, so this is something that was not initially put in the good news folder by me. However, I see the connection that my dad made when he threw it in the good news folder. So I’m going to go ahead and acknowledge it because we shared a stack of good news today.

So this actually deals with cities that have defunded the police. Now, obviously, we’re not in favor of defunding the police. In fact, we would argue that in some of these situations where police have not behaved properly, what you need is a better funded police force so that they can receive more training. In many scenarios where police have not done the right thing, you can see it’s because they haven’t been trained properly.

Now, with that being said, there’s far more examples where police did good things and people interpreted the situation wrong, they overreacted, etc. And actually, some of those have been even identified in courts of law where police were vindicated from some of the accusations against them; not to rehash all of those scenarios right now.

But what this article says, and there’s a good news connection, but the headline doesn’t show good news. It says “Crime Soars in Cities which have Defunded Police Departments.” The connection is and this is where hopefully there can be some good news out of this, or at least the good news that if we’ll see this the right way, is that one of the things that we know is that life operates and works a certain way. If gravity ever ceased to operate on Earth, it would be hard to know what to do and how to navigate. Right? If the laws of thermodynamics change, and all of a sudden things left themselves actually get better, you would go wait a second, what are we doing?

One of the things that is fundamentally true is where there are more police officers, there is less crime. Now it’s true. We want better trained police officers. We want more experienced police officers. Yes, we’re in favor of all those things. There’s definitely some things that just in general, in law code we think should be changed. Great.

With that being said, one of the things that is true is these radical cities who have said we’re taking money away from police, we don’t want police forces, they have seen an increase in crime. The good news is the solution to a violent crime problem escalation is more police and a better trained police force. And the data is showing that. That’s the good news out of this. The good news is not that some of these cities are in chaos and being overrun. The good news is the data continues to show that the way to bring crime down in the city is you need more police and arguably even a better trained police force. So the data is still consistently lining up with self-evident truth.

Rick:

Alright, guys, out of time for today for good news. So folks, we want to send you to wallbuilderslive.com. In the archive section, you can get more of those Good News Friday programs, check it out there and then also consider making that one-time or monthly contribution. And definitely share these programs with your friends and family. Share it on social media. Let them know about this good news. Let them know about these truths that can once again restore our culture and our society around us. Thanks so much for listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.