Note to Trumpians: Freedom is Not the Same Thing As the Right to Bully People

Trump’s Capitol-storming supporters of January 6 could be heard bellowing “Freedom! Freedom!” as they surged into the Senate Chamber, the offices of Speaker Pelosi, and other strongholds of American democracy. But were they really interested in “freedom?”

Of course not. They simply wanted to kick the butts of anyone who disagreed with them. That’s what Trumpism is all about: kicking resistant butts.

 

When smart people – people like Hamilton, Lincoln, and Rosa Parks – talked about freedom they weren’t talking about kicking butts. Their sense of freedom included responsible behavior in the context of fairness, equality and the institutional levers of democracy. These are the things that ideally make freedom for everyone possible. And they are the very things the Capitol stormers were trying to smash.

 

                     Rosa Parks - Under Arrest

Speaking of Rosa Parks, a councilwoman from Temecula, California, Jessica Alexander, was bleating about “freedom” earlier this month as she compared herself to the heroic bus boycott initiator of 1955, i.e., Ms. Parks. Why did Councilwoman Alexander think she was just like Rosa Parks? Because people were asking that she wear a mask if she was going to join a council meeting in person. Councilwoman Alexander was outraged at this, saying she was being “pushed to the back of the bus” just like Rosa Parks.

 

Um, no. The councilwoman, unlike Rosa Parks, was not risking her very life to demand equality for an oppressed people. Councilwoman Alexander was having a temper tantrum because she views the health concerns of others with politicized contempt. Her idea of “freedom” amounts to a desire to signal her Trumpian loyalty with a gesture that heightens Covid risks for everyone around her. In other words, freedom for Jessica Alexander means “Screw you, other people!”

 

How did the idea of freedom get boiled down in some conservative minds to a mere gesture of hostility and contempt? Obviously, a lot of history lies behind this devolution, but the most recent element of this history is the rise of Donald Trump. Trumpism is fundamentally the glorification of bullying. Trump, in his dim-witted, slack-brained way, conceives of “strength” as the capacity to push people around for his own selfish purposes. He has no interest in promoting freedom, or democracy, or justice or – least of all – equality. He just wants everyone to do what he says. When people don’t, he wants to crush them. This mentality, accepted by his cult followers, is the essence of what they call “freedom.” It amounts to nothing more than bullying. In other words, freedom for them is just another word for “I wanna kick your ass.” And this is exactly what we – as a nation – have to move beyond. May the Force be with us.

 

Freedom: the Capacity to Gun Someone Down

I find myself lately changing the channel when I see news about Trayvon Martin’s killing. This reflects my weariness with the sorrowful tragedy of the case. It could so easily have been avoided had the killer been less gun-obsessed.

I’m making judgments about the killer, George Zimmerman, without knowing more about him than what the news offers, but I feel pretty sure about my judgments. This is partly because the idea of carrying a gun around in your neighborhood of an evening bespeaks obsession.

But it also reflects some of my experience as a receiver of hate mail over the decades. Soon after I began writing for newspapers some 30 years ago, I noticed that the two topics I could write about that would almost guarantee hate mail responses were guns and race. At first I couldn’t see a connection, but gradually, it dawned on me that the depraved hatred expressed in these two kinds of letters was rooted in a single sentiment: Dread. People who feel encroached upon by “those they perceive as different” are often the same people who nurture a need to arm themselves with murderous weaponry. Both of these sentiments reflect a feeling of vulnerability that drifts easily into fear.

However, we non-psychotic citizens also have cause to be fearful when we consider the crazy laws that the gun lobby has managed to get Florida to put on its books. The infamous “stand your ground law” that was passed here in 2005 is a perfect example. It might more accurately be called the “I-think-I’d-like-to-kill-someone-today-and-claim-that-I-was-standing-my-ground law.”

From the start it was obvious to normal people (but not, apparently, to Florida’s legislators) that this law was an invitation to gun nuts everywhere to snuff out those fellow citizens whom they found particularly annoying. Passing this law was, at the time, surely the craziest thing Floridians had ever done - but that was before they elected Rick Scott as governor.

The use of the phrase “stand your ground” is part of the problem, and it calls attention to the fact that the gun industry knows how to win wars of words. “Stand your ground” calls up visions of John Wayne or Gary Cooper displaying American-style manliness by bravely facing down a no good varmint or two. But it’s hard to see that kind of Hollywood bravado in a heat-packing, middle-aged man tracking an unarmed teenager until a confrontation results in the latter’s death.

There is a sickening difference between the gloriously brave sounding phrase that the gun lobby used to shove this law through the Florida legislature, and the creepy reality surrounding the many killings that have been justified by this law - a number which, by the way, is rapidly rising (Tampa Bay Times). Also rapidly rising is the number of Florida residents seeking licenses to own guns.

I’m not sure how the gun nuts are managing to win the language war, but so far they are. In their world, the word “freedom" means little more than the capacity to blow someone’s head off with a twitch of the trigger finger. Anyone who isn’t packing heat, they seem to believe, isn’t free.

Note that there are dozens of countries in which people are free even though almost nobody owns any weapons - England and Japan for starters. It’s also true that in some countries households have long been heavily armed where there is no freedom at all – Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, for example. I’m not sure how the gun lobby, in spite of these realities, has managed to indoctrinate the culture with the idea that guns equal freedom, but it has.

Related to this is the nutty idea that we are only truly free if we have the household armaments necessary to face down “the government.” This notion harks back to the Revolutionary War era, a time when it made some sense. But face it, is there a community anywhere today in which citizens are prepared to take up their household armaments and go mano-a-mano against the U.S. Marines? Or the First Armored Division?

I raise this point with some hesitation since I’m sure there are some crazies among the gun lobby who would like to demand the right to own howitzers and anti-tank missiles and I’m frankly a bit leery of stirring them up.

Finally, in the language war department, there is the phrase “Second Amendment rights.” True, the Second Amendment references the right to bear arms in the interest of maintaining a militia, but the gun industry has used the phrase “Second Amendment rights” so regularly to promote legislation like Florida’s “stand your ground law” that the real nature of the Second Amendment is buried beneath their propaganda.

In an ideal world, every time some pro-gun politician or lobbyist used the phrase “Second Amendment rights,” a courageous journalist or politician would stop them in their tracks and insist that they reference the basis of a “militia” as the constitutional justification for gun ownership. But Florida, I fear, is light years away from this “ideal world.”

It may be too late, but I still believe it is worth the struggle to take back some of the language that the Murderous Weaponry Lobby has so effectively commandeered. Let’s start by bringing back this good old American phrase - “gun nuts.”






Trayvon

Freedom’s Just another Word for Screw You

For some Americans, “Freedom” isn’t so much a concept as a logo. Its main purpose is not to promote a glorious idea but to simply stand for America in the same way that the Golden Arches stand for McDonald’s. This kind of “Freedom” is all about self-promotion and not in the least about souls unfettered.

As a vacuous tribal emblem, “freedom” was particularly on display during the Iraq War when a couple of Representatives named Ney and Jones demanded that Congressional cafeterias change the name French fries to “freedom fries.” These patriotic gentlemen were angry at France for daring to suggest that President Bush’s invasion of Iraq was not a cool idea. Before discussing further the stupidity of renaming Congressional foods, I think it’s worthwhile here to point out that France has been downright helpful at key points in America's history. Actually, without the help of France, the United States would probably not even exist as an independent (i.e., free) nation.
   

France was by our side, for example, at The Battle of Yorktown which led to the surrender of British General Cornwallis’s army. This battle is considered the decisive showdown of the American Revolution, the victory that secured our freedom. General Washington led a combined American and French army here and the French fleet, which stood offshore, prevented Cornwallis from escaping or being reinforced. France’s support, in other words, played a decisive role in Washington’s victory. In fact, when Cornwallis saw that his situation was hopeless, he insisted that he should surrender his army to the French. The French, however, graciously refused, saying it was the Americans to whom Cornwallis must surrender.

Let’s face it, without French help, our ancestors would probably have been defeated by the British and then have muddled along as colonies number 2 through 14, with mighty Canada being number one. No doubt the British Parliament would have given the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River Valley to their well-behaved Canadian subjects and restricted the thirteen American colonies to a thin strip along the Atlantic seaboard.






















Yes, insulting France just because the French thought invading Iraq was a bad idea was idiotic. But equally idiotic was the choice of the name “freedom fries.” These deep-fried little artery cloggers are yummy, but they have nothing to do with freedom. It’s also quite possible that they have nothing to do with France, but never mind.

What troubles me is the way the word freedom is tossed around to justify any sort of policy, foreign or domestic, that suits one sleazy politician or another. Every White House ignoramus who has needlessly sent our troops into harm’s way in some foreign land has claimed that he was acting in the name of “freedom.” But, more often than not, these hare-brained military interventions have had little to do with freedom -- ours or anyone else’s. President Bush’s invasion of Iraq, for example, was mainly a reflection of his interest in controlling Middle Eastern oil (and had the added advantage of supporting his profit-seeking buddies at Halliburton and Blackwater). Invading Iraq had nothing to do with our freedom, and rather little to do with Iraq's.

Domestically, the word “freedom” is tossed around just as shamelessly as it is in foreign policy. We are often told, for example, that owning household firearms is essential to our freedom. It is not, as any number of perfectly free and democratic countries whose citizens are not armed to the teeth can attest. Of course the NRA has promoted this bizarre mentality for so long that many Americans have forgotten that the capacity of Mom, Dad and the kids to mow people down with lethal firepower is not directly related to freedom. In fact, I think it’s time for the psychiatric establishment to give us a formal word describing that malady according to which the possession of murderous implements is thought to be the key to freedom.

Where real freedom is concerned, politicians like Ney and Jones of  the infamous “freedom fries,” seem strangely uninterested. There was an opportunity just a couple years ago to offer every family in America the freedom to choose publicly funded health insurance, but Representative Jones opposed it. I feel it’s safe to say that Representative Ney would also have opposed it, had he not been forced out of office and into jail before the issue came before Congress.

I don't think I'm asking for too much here. I would simply like people to stop using the word “freedom” as though it were a self-serving logo or a handy device for promoting aggressive wars. I say, let's not use it at all except when we are really enhancing freedom. And, by the way, contrary to what all of the Republican presidential candidates have been saying, dismantling the government whose democratic institutions are the very embodiment of our freedom, does not count as enhancing freedom.




Redneck Haiku

Oh, Canada!
So maply yet so gunless;
Ripe for Invasion

(Winking emoticon here)