I listened to a country star sing the Star Bangled Banner at the opening of a sports event this Memorial Day weekend, and the line"home of the free " caused me to give an ironic pause. is this the land of the free for which so many died? Are those who define the word meaning it as it was in May 2022 or, as I fear, are we in danger of regressing to times before the American Revolution, the writing of the Constitution, the 1930s or 1950s, and 60s? I have always wondered to which era do those who want to make America great again revert. If "free" means keeping government out of your private lives, so you have the liberty to pursue your own happiness and life, our own historical roots had their limits, It may mean free from some other country's domination, but if it refers to those living here, freedom was a relative matter. Who was free when our country was founded were white males. Freedom was for them, but not for everyone. It did not mean freedom from being a slave and owned by someone, until after the Civil War and even then until subsequent Constitution amendments. was there even a standard set by law that sometimes was enforced, Women were seen, but not often heard. Many had struggled hard to gain freedoms they believed were their inalienable rights.
There were many who found their voices with their own definitions of freedom in the Trump years. To some of the Trump supporters, freedom means to them to bygone eras means rolling back those freedoms to days of the monarchy before the American revolution when freedom was only for the rulers and their loyalists. .These are those who lust to Make America Great Again by restoring the governance of the autocrats and dictators and the post cold war era, Putin, to Orban to Erdogan. These regressionists would take us back to the one-man rulers like those of the 1930s, where freedom of the press for even dissidents to express themselves and peaceful protests were and are not allowed. Rule of law was then as now as the dictator said it was to be interpreted, and freedom of religion was limited to those who practiced and observed the state-sponsored clerics or the leader's preferred pontiff. Civil rights were and are a thing of the past, the judiciary and legislative bodies were and are comprised of loyalists to the ruler. because elections were or are neither free nor fair. They controlled and control who votes how they vote, and the media messages they can receive to shape their opinions.
Much changed in the era of Trump after years of progress for minorities. Under the assumption that minorities would not vote his way and were inherently corrupt, counting their vote meant putting up barriers to jump that others not living in the same neighborhood did not have to hurdle. Vote counting was legitimate if it was done by those swearing allegiance to Trump, but not to the Constitution. These tactics which white majorities used were weapons in the disguise of democracy, such as of gerrymandering to limit legislative representatives for certain groups and making a trip to a voting place to cast votes as difficult as possible for the targeted racial demographic. Votes by minorities were assumed to be possible thefts that needed to be scrutinized, unlike those who lived in areas that were mostly while and lived in the old south and rural areas. After nearly two years, no evidence of that assumption has emerged that would have changed the results of the 2020 election, and those prosecuted for Jan. 6 violence and voter fraud are nearly always white. Old prejudices die hard. These regressives want all but themselves to return to the limited rights of the1950s.
For women, the freedom to pursue happiness and life in current economic conditions depends on their ability to work and to plan their pregnancies, whether by birth control or by "choice" of whether to continue a pregnancy. The latter freedom for individuals to make such decisions is likely being taken away from them by 24 state governments. The carefully strategized and cagily packaged lie with "Roe v Wade is settled law" convinced others to go along and they were surprised that the Supreme Court was guaranteed to be majority"pro-life." after all. It is now a threat with the greatest government interference in a person's private life possible, making abortion illegal, and even for the most fanatics already planning to take away birth control access next. Life for these most radical begins at inception, no matter by whom, rapists, a close relative, a family dependent of a two-income family, or a single person attempting to be independent and not on welfare. Even mothers could be the ones to die from childbirth, leaving families motherless for the raising of the orphaned sibling survivors. Not only that, those forces bent on taking away those freedoms are the same who refuse to vote for child tax credits, food stamps, child care, and health care supplied even partly by the government. Pro-life concerns stop at childbirth. After that, poor mom and child, you are on your own. Good luck. Thanks to these regressive fanatics, it is back to the good ole bad days of the 1950s. and the 1960s when abortions were still practiced and women died from botched practices or families grew in size and in unsustained poverty.
