Kamala's Palace Coup

FromTheFields Thursday August 29, 2024

Liberalism used to be a philosophy that espoused the protection of individual liberties AND economic freedoms. The early twentieth century progressive movement and then Franklin Delano Roosevelt redefined liberal to exclude the economic freedom part. The word liberal was stolen from actual liberals and used to describe the views of progressives, socialists and outright Marxists. Actual liberals had to coin a new term to describe their beliefs and philosophy. Thus the term libertarian came into use to describe the beliefs of those of us who value both individual liberties and economic liberty.

The palace coup that crowned Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party nominee for President has appropriated the word freedom and in doing so has changed its meaning. The germ of the idea started with FDR's 1941 State of the Union address where he posited that there were four freedoms; freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

There are two kinds of freedom, negative freedom and positive freedom. Negative freedom refers to what government cannot take away from you; your life, your right to express yourself, your right to associate with people of your own choosing, your right to defend yourself against forceful aggression, your right to keep honestly earned property, your right to worship as you please, essentially those rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights plus private property rights and personal control over reproductive rights. Positive freedom refers to what the government can give you; FDR's freedom from want and fear. Government produces nothing. People produce things. Government therefore has nothing to give those in want or fear. Therefore all it can actually do is tax, that is steal, from the group of people deemed not to be needy or fearful to give to the group of people deemed to be needy or fearful.

The Democrats under Kamala's banner have completely reversed the meaning of freedom. They claim freedom of speech and expression for themselves exclusively. Under the Biden administration, which obviously includes Kamala as Vice President, they have effectively denied free speech to anyone who disagrees with their preferred narrative. The censorship by coercion of social media on different narratives on COVID, the Hunter Biden laptop, climate change, the war in Ukraine and other issues is a 180 degree turn from FDR's freedom of speech and expression. Their attempts to force "woke" lifestyle choices in all public institutions at the expense of traditional religious values negates freedom of worship.

They are doubling down on FDR;s positive freedoms; want and fear. Crackpot ideas like price controls on food companies (which have profit margins of 1-2%) and giving $25,000 to first time homebuyers are examples of positive freedoms. Expressed in non-political language, they want to be the fences that transfer stolen goods from the "rich" who don't vote for them anyway to the poor who do. The mantra of freedom from fear of being shot is just a clever way of trying to make the fundamental right to self-defense a freedom instead of a gross violation of freedom.

We are witnessing the prophecy of George Orwell in "1984" where "Freedom is slavery". Kamala is also all in on continuing to support Ukraine in their futile war against Russia. I guess "War is peace." And if the voters elect either Kamala or Trump, we will have learned that "Ignorance is strength." That's this week's Report From the Fields. See you again next week.


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