Democrats said a whole lot about freedom*, but they really care about only one thing | Opinion
In the transcripts of speeches at the 2024 Democratic convention, every appearance of the word “freedom” should come with an asterisk.
The key should read: * — applies to abortion rights only.
Democrats have worn out the word freedom* all week, trying to convince voters that they are the party of America’s primary founding virtue. But they can only muster real enthusiasm for limiting government’s power and influence over the individual when it comes to what they euphemistically call “reproductive rights.”
“We believe that a patient’s room is too small and cramped a space for a woman, her doctor, and the United States government; that’s too many people in the room,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia. Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz put it this way: “When Republicans use the word freedom*, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office.”
But your car dealership? Democrats want to be all up in that. The appliance aisle at Lowe’s? Better ask if you’re allowed to have one that uses so much energy. The meeting between you and a homebuilder? Government at every level is there to make construction as difficult as possible.
If you want a burger and a steak in the same week, or maybe a second or — gasp! — even third beer? Progressives want a bureaucrat in every restaurant, grocery aisle and barroom.
And beyond abortion, they don’t even buy their own rhetoric about freedom* on medical care. Government should set the price of every drug, never mind the effect on research for badly needed new medications. They want Washington to dictate exactly what insurance you get. If Kamala Harris gets her way about wiping away private employer-based coverage, you better believe that bureaucrats, not doctors, will decide what procedures, prescriptions and treatments you can get.
In her nomination acceptance speech Thursday night, Harris took it even further, enshrining the environmental extremism that forms the backbone of so much progressive overreach, touting the “freedom* to breathe clean air and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis.”
Democrats have tried to claim the mantle of protecting your freedom* to raise your kids how you want. But in Harris’ home state of California, school districts are prohibited by law from informing parents if their kids want to identify as another gender.
It’s not that the relentless focus on abortion freedom* isn’t politically smart. Americans have expressed, time and again, in elections and in polls, that they want some level of right to the procedure preserved. If Republicans foolishly force them to choose between no abortion rights or no restrictions on abortion at all, voters will clearly choose the latter, even in red states.
Democrats seem to recognize that they can’t get away with a freedom* agenda that’s merely about abortion. Their paeans to other types of freedom* are laughable.
Walz tried to put meat on the bones, but he completely reversed the common understanding of American liberty: a constitution that protects individuals from abusive federal power.
“When we Democrats talk about freedom*, we mean the freedom* to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love … and, yeah, your kids’ freedom* to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall,” he said Wednesday night.
Important issues, yes. But not the paramount question of protection from an all-powerful state that tells you how to live.
Some of it is laughable. Walz and others talk about freedom* from book bans, as if the right is the only source of curtailing speech and using government muscle to shield people from ideas. Progressives have waged war on American classics from “To Kill A Mockingbird” to “Huckleberry Finn.”
It’s a strange definition of freedom* that says parents and voters who fund education systems shouldn’t be allowed to engage them on what is taught in the schools or what books are available at what grade level.
Walz has taken an American ideal into his pitch: “Mind your own damn business.” But he’s looking to join the next version of an administration that would crack down on what kind of stove you could buy and force everyone into an electric car, whether they can afford it or not. And his record as Minnesota’s governor includes drastic COVID restrictions, including a snitch line where neighbors could tell on people not living up to the guidance of the moment on masks or social distancing.
Americans have always shaped freedom* to their liking and their own definition. That’s part of its beauty. Individuals should always strike out to make liberty what they want it to be.
But in its troubled vision for governing, this party’s desperate contortion to hide its own version of authoritarianism turns freedom* on its head.
This story was originally published August 23, 2024 at 3:29 AM with the headline "Democrats said a whole lot about freedom*, but they really care about only one thing | Opinion."
