To Comfort The Afflicted
And Afflict The Comfortable

To Comfort The Afflicted And Afflict The Comfortable

Friday, April 19, 2024

Observercast

What Is Freedom, Really?

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Republicans love to claim they’re the party of freedom. Bulls**t.

In reality, the Republican agenda centers on taking away freedom.

They’re chipping away your freedom to choose when, how, and with whom you start a family by passing ever more restrictive abortion bans.

They’re chipping away the freedom to discuss sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom.

Many are chipping away the freedom of trans people to receive life-saving, gender-affirming care.

Many are chipping away students’ freedom to learn about America’s history of racism and discrimination.

They’re also chipping away at the most fundamental freedom of all: the right to vote – restricting everything from mail-in voting to ballot drop boxes.

But their chipping away at freedom is even bigger than all this.

Can you really be free if you’re saddled with medical debt and have to routinely pay outrageous health care costs?

Can you really be free if you have no voice in your workplace and your employer refuses to let you organize with your coworkers for the right to collectively bargain?

Can you really be free if you’re not paid a living wage and have to choose between feeding your family or keeping your lights on?

A living wage, the right to join a union, guaranteed healthcare, the right to vote – these are the foundations of real freedom.

Yet Republicans oppose all of these.

There’s a reason the historic 1963 rally was called The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Because freedom also means the ability to work in a job that pays enough to provide food, clothing, shelter, and medical care.

What Republicans want to preserve isn’t freedom, it’s power. The power to impose their narrow ideology on everyone else, no matter who suffers. Don’t let their propaganda convince you otherwise.

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Robert Reich
Robert Reich
Robert Reich’s latest book is The System: Who Rigged It, How To Fix It. He is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the 20th century.
Mark Krawczyk
Mark Krawczyk
March 9, 2023
Exceptional reporting about goings on in my home state as well as informative opinion pieces that makes people think about issues of the day...........get a SUBSCRIPTION FOLKS!!!!!!!
Brette Pruitt
Brette Pruitt
September 5, 2022
The Observer carries on the "give 'em hell" tradition of its founder, the late Frosty Troy. I read it from cover to cover. A progressive wouldn't be able to live in a red state without it.