Must-read @jbouie on the Republicans' Four Freedoms — freedom to control, freedom to exploit, freedom to censor, and freedom to menace.
Gift link:https://t.co/CO32zUt9ua
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) May 19, 2023
… You might even say that in the absence of a national leader with a coherent ideology and agenda, the actions of Republican-led states and legislatures provide the best guide to what the Republican Party wants to do and the best insight into the society it hopes to build…
… In his 1941 State of the Union address, Franklin Roosevelt said there was “nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy” and that he, along with the nation, looked forward to “a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.” Famously, those freedoms were the “freedom of speech and expression,” the “freedom of every person to worship God in his own way,” the “freedom from want” and the “freedom from fear.” Those freedoms were the guiding lights of his New Deal, and they remained the guiding lights of his administration through the trials of World War II.
There are, I think, four freedoms we can glean from the Republican program.
There is the freedom to control — to restrict the bodily autonomy of women and repress the existence of anyone who does not conform to traditional gender roles.
There is the freedom to exploit — to allow the owners of business and capital to weaken labor and take advantage of workers as they see fit.
There is the freedom to censor — to suppress ideas that challenge and threaten the ideologies of the ruling class.
And there is the freedom to menace — to carry weapons wherever you please, to brandish them in public, to turn the right of self-defense into a right to threaten other people.
Roosevelt’s four freedoms were the building blocks of a humane society — a social democratic aspiration for egalitarians then and now. These Republican freedoms are also building blocks not of a humane society but of a rigid and hierarchical one, in which you can either dominate or be dominated.
War for Ukraine Day 451: Bakhmut Holds, For Now…
Math Guy
First to comment and all I really wanted was to hear what the rest of you have to say.
Wag
I wish Norman Rockwell was still alive to illustrate these “freedoms”. His heart in painting The Problem We All Live With showed true charlatans a willingness to stand up to bigots. I’ve no doubt that he would approach the fascist ideas of “freedom” with the vitriol required.
Adding a link to his vision of the real Four Freedoms.
artem1s
from Daily DocketOhio voters and the coalition One Person, One Vote filed a lawsuit against a proposed amendment that would make ballot measures more difficult. The amendment is scheduled to go before the voters on Aug. 8, but the complaint contends that it is illegal for Ohio to hold a statewide election on this date.
eclare
Great column and comic.
WaterGirl
Anne Laurie, before seeing this, I put together a post related to the same article, and I had just scheduled it for tomorrow morning when I saw this post.
I’ll still put mine up; I came at it from a slightly different angle, and I don’t suppose a second discussion about freedom will hurt anything.
Just wanted to mention that so when folks see the post tomorrow they won’t think “doesn’t WG even read the fucking blog?”.
Ned F
There’s also the freedom from accountabilty from all the above. Mr. Bouie is my fave NYT columnist.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
The Freedom to double post is also important.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Certain other front pagers don’t. Just saying…
Frankensteinbeck
They want the freedom to hurt other people. It is exactly how they use the word.
cain
@Omnes Omnibus: I know who you are talking about. But I won’t tell. Promise.
pat
Where did all this nonsense come from? Banning books, banning medical procedures, allowing nuts to carry guns in front of school busses (just read that, WaPo I believe, in Massachusetts of all places).
When did this country become a hotbed of irrational hatred and the means to enforce it?
(No need to answer, it’s been brewing for a long time. “Tax and spend”? Yeah, take money from people who have way more than they need and use it for projects that help the whole country.)
Well that’s my rant. Going to cook supper now.
MattF
As Bouie says, it’s about the freedom to dominate. And I guess that’s the connection the MAGAs have with Mr. MAGA himself.
MattF
@pat: It was here in Maryland (WaPo gift link).
gene108
Unless Republicans are soundly defeated in 2024, I mean at the state, local, and federal level, and then for the next decade, I don’t see how this country does not go off the rails.
When I say state level, Democrats would control state legislatures in now heavily Republican states like AL, TN, KY and so on.
The modern strain of the Republican Party needs to have no state, county, or city that they can win elections in.
I doubt that will happen.
We are polarized and no longer look on people as fellow Americans. Conservatives view liberals, minorities, and LGBTQ people as the enemy. Liberals have also adopted that mind set towards conservatives.
If a skyscraper in NYC was destroyed by foreign terrorists, right now, I think a good chunk of rural white America would cheer for the terrorists.
Elizabelle
The freedom to go fascist.
CaseyL
@gene108:
They were even back then. IIRC, Anne Coulter said at the time it was a shame the terrorists didn’t take out the NY Times building.
OzarkHillbilly
There is a 5th freedom, but you don’t want me to say it.
Omnes Omnibus
@OzarkHillbilly: Is it anything fifth base?
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: I don’t know… Does she??? ;-) ;-) ;-)
OzarkHillbilly
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m not gonna say, other than I am running out of patience.
Dan B
@pat: First Murdoch and then the clones like OAN and Newsmax have become the propaganda mills along with the internet. My partner’s sister is regularly calling with concern for our safety in lawless Seattle. She has FOX on non stop.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
OT: I might not make it on time for the Zoom tonight at 8, as I’m probably having a late dinner, so I’ll join later. It’s an hour long presentation, right?
karen marie
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s not the freedom to rock and roll?
Jackie
Re the NYT article; I’m totally amazed Pudd’n Boots hasn’t lowered the age of children eligible to work to 14. He’s gonna need someone to work the fields and orchards after immigrants migrate to more welcoming states.
Dan B
@Jackie: 14 year olds on construction sites and in hospitality. Florida, Oh my!
OzarkHillbilly
@karen marie: Actually, it IS the freedom to rock and roll. I rather doubt that at my age I have it in me. I have sons and a basketball team of granddaughters. I have to think of them.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dan B: As somebody who spent 35+ years on job sites… No. Just no.
Baud
@Dan B:
I’m not giving advice on how to deal with family, but I’m curious how you guys deal with her.
Cameron
Do you want to know what freedom is? Do you really want to know what freedom is? Here you go:
https://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/revolting/cincy-desecration-649173
MattF
@OzarkHillbilly: But the kids on the work sites will all be armed, so everything will be okey-dokey. Right?
Jackie
@MattF: AR nail guns?
Ruckus
This has been the rethuglican party since I was born – which is a rather long time ago.
And If they can’t get what they want their second choice is to burn it all the way down to the ground.
They don’t actually care that they don’t have everything, as long as they have more than anyone else.
They don’t actually believe in laws – for themselves, laws are for everyone else – because they don’t need laws, they are the best humans.
They don’t believe all that they gush about religion, only that it is a controlling structure who’s laws are more important than anything written by a human. Besides the punishment is being nailed to a cross or burning in hell. For everyone else.
I never said it made any sense, because it doesn’t. It gives the chosen power over everyone and everything else. Which makes them the “good ones” the ones that get everything and everyone else suffers the wraith of hell and damnation.
It’s bullshit. It was 250 yrs ago and still is – the same load of bullshit.
And it isn’t what this country was supposed to be, not then, not now and not ever.
Kristine
@MattF: Baby’s First Firearm will be included in the gift basket for all new mommies.
OzarkHillbilly
How to Soundproof a Room
Some friends of mine who formed a truly incorrect band (politically, sexually, every other incorrect ly) found the “Rug Barn” and the lead singer rented it as his home. It had once been a display warehouse for a carpet distributor and every inch of every wall had carpets on it. They made some absolutely certain to “piss off somebody” music in there.
Good shit.
Miss Bianca
This is excellent framing, and I think I will refer to it in an opinion piece I will be writing about the shenanigans of our local school board and administration.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF: I have to be honest, after the things I’ve seen, I don’t have a sense of humor about this shit.
MattF
@OzarkHillbilly: Fair enough.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF: Nothing personal, it’s just not funny after trying to stop a buddy’s arterial bleed.
Anoniminous
@WaterGirl:
The Freedom to not read the fucking blog is the ultimate basis of all other Freedoms.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … Whitehouse.gov:
Good, good.
Cheers,
Scott.
Citizen Alan
@CaseyL: Something something stopped clock.
Delk
Kristi Noem posted a picture of the bear she “hunted”. Amazingly, her hair and makeup are perfect. Not a speck of dirt on her flawless nails either.
Cameron
@Delk: What about the bear?
Raoul Paste
@OzarkHillbilly: I get the impression that you lead a double life. Dedicated family man by day, yet hard rockin punker when the sun goes down.
You’re not a member of the Hong Kong Cavaliers by any chance, eh?
i’m surprised your family hasn’t noticed your mohawk.
Nukular Biskits
This op-ed nails it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raoul Paste: Nah, RugBurn were some seriously deranged fucks, Writing classics like “Don’t Get Your Panties in a Bunch,” “Honk If Your Horney,” “Long Haired Dope Smoking Hippy”, and “Ballad of a Shit House Poet”.
My brother Jimbo, somewhere in Utah now and Big Dave still in south side STL.
Betty
Revised below.
Betty
@Another Scott: I do not expect good faith negotiations from the Freedom Caucus. (Former post revised.)
Dan B
@OzarkHillbilly: I had a landscape construction business. Teenagers would have been deadly around earth moving equipment let alone wiring, etc.
Dan B
@Baud: Mike just tells her she’s wrong. She loves Conspiracy theories. We roll our eyes.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dan B: I was stupid way back when. Hell’s bells, I wasn’t all that smart in the years that followed.
Baud
@Dan B:
Thanks.
RSA
From the piece, a quote from Gaetz:
Why? I’m missing the rationale. “It could save lives, but…”?
I’m also reminded of advice you sometimes see from martial arts instructors: In a street fight, if the option is there—run away.
Preserving one’s ego is not the most important thing.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raoul Paste: And yeah, it was seriously bent country/western music.
OzarkHillbilly
@RSA:Why? He wants blood.
Dan B
@Baud: Mike’s sister is not the worst. His brother and sister in law are sadistic and privileged. They bandy about enviro-nazis and how liberals are deadly because they are impolite. We got an Obama Chia Pet one Christmas. Racist a bit?
Ksmiami
McCarthy wants to default… I hope Biden demolishes the GOP.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dan B: You are a stronger person than I. Or at least more polite.
Baud
@Dan B:
I thankfully don’t have to deal with family issues like that. I just wonder how I’d handle it. I’m not sure I wouldn’t cut off ties.
Mike G
The Republican platform is basically, “I will kill all of you for money.” And millions of goobers cheer it on because they think “all of you” doesn’t include them, and somehow they’ll get a cut.
They magically imagine they’ll inevitably be the dominators in a very heirarchical and oppressive society, with plenty of the chances to abuse others they live for.
Dan B
@Baud: I have cut ties. Mike doesn’t see them much. After Trump was elected they wanted us to stay and talk. I said we were uncomfortable about Trump. SIL, attorney, screamed that Same Sex marriage was settled law. I knew that was BS, Dobbs?
Every time I think of them I start cursing, out loud. Best to keep me away from them. They’re lost to FOX.
Baud
@Dan B:
I’m sorry. It is sad.
OldDave
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ve speed-read the soundproofing article. It rings (hah!) true, and matches what I learned 40+ years ago building a radio station.
NotMax
Waitin’ to be let into the Zoom…
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: Didn’t it start two hours ago?
WaterGirl
@NotMax: oops, just saw your note.
Chris T.
@pat:
If you think about this from a whole-system perspective, it makes perfect sense. The whole purpose of money is to represent something that can or will be done now or in the future. Ideally, there should be exactly enough money to do this representing (no more and no less), but no system is perfect, so there needs to be a little bit more—not less, as that can cause system-wide freeze-up (as in Krugman’s mini examples of scrip for babysitting, for instance)—and that “little bit more” is basically what causes inflation, in some sense.
Now, to the extent that there are things that can be done now, and should be done now, but are not being done now because the entity/ies with the desire to get those things done now doesn’t have money, but someone else has excess money, the right thing to do is one or both of two things: create more money (causing more inflation), and/or take some of the money from those that have too much and aren’t doing productive things with it. When this is undertaken by the government on behalf of the common defense/weal, one of these two is “government borrowing and spending” (spend without taxing) and the other of those is “government taxation and spending” (spend with taxation to fund it).
Note that both courses of action—borrow and spend, or raise funds and spend—can be undertaken by either private groups or by government. Both have the same underlying effect (more inflation, or no change in inflation). However, government is the only entity that can do this counter-cyclically because private groups can’t just borrow indefinitely or take by force; governments can do both. Governments need to do this carefully to avoid causing more problems than they solve, but they do need to do this.
Anne Laurie
You know about the practice politely referred to as ‘bear hunting over bait’?
My guess is Noem hung around a (protected) stand until the (trained) bear ambled up for its scheduled meal, upon which she took a shot. (Or had someone professionally trained take the shot *for* her, is my unkind guess.)
But I’m pretty sure that at least she, or her campaign, paid for the hunting license up front… given what’s happened in the past when she ignored little bureaucratic niceties like that.
And now she’s got… a great campaign photo!
satby
Thanks for the tip to this article AL.
MagdaInBlack
@Anne Laurie: Thank you for explaining what I too am sure she did to kill that bear. The practice is disgusting.
TriassicSand
We really have no choice but to consider the Republican Party and their supporters our enemies. They represent a vision that should be anathema to every decent human being.
In the late 30s and early to mid-40s, Germany considered the French, British, Poles, Russians, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians, and U.S., et al., to be “the enemy.” Not so strangely, all those countries viewed Germany, in return, as “the enemy.” Only one side had a valid point.
And so it is today. The Right in America in 2023 has a very strong neo-fascist impulse. There is no way to compromise with that. But the Right has a point. The country they want to live in looks much more like the country this was founded to be than the country we on the Left have hoped to create. However, we’re working against history — genocide, slavery, misogyny, inequality — and founding documents that laid the foundation for that kind of country. The Declaration of Independence and Constitution paid lip service to higher ideals, but created the machinery that helped to perpetuat our worst instincts.
That doesn’t mean there is nothing to admire about this country, but what there is to admire is mostly about how we have become different from what our founding created.
Jay
@Anne Laurie:
or, it was a “canned hunt”, wonder who paid for it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canned_hunt
Jackie
@Anne Laurie: I was thinking similar. Poor bear. I thought that was illegal, but sadly, illegal is legal for some…
Jay
@Jackie:
you gotta get caught.
JWR
Ha ha, Dodgers! (From CluthPoints, which is a sports site)
As the reporter notes in the last paragraph: “It will be interesting to see if the Angels release a statement on the mayor’s decision to invite the sisters to the Angels’ Pride Night.” Won’t the Dodgers be surprised when Bill Donahue and his Zealots of Fascism go after the next higher link in the chain?
ETA the blockquote part is from the mayor of Anaheim.
Yutsano
It’s very simple.
Republicans get to tell you (anyone not Republicans) what to do.
You do not get to tell Republicans what to do.
That’s it. You don’t get to tell them they can’t say the N-word anymore. But they get to tell you when and whether you can have a baby.
Villago Delenda Est
@gene108:
They are NOT “conservatives”. They are reactionaries and neo-feudalists. We are on the verge of open warfare from these retrogrades. Fuck them all. No quarter.
Sister Golden Bear
@Jackie:
Don’t worry, mandating that children work isn’t far off.
Sister Golden Bear
@gene108:
Considering that conservatives are in the midst of an ever-growing genocide against us trans people, I’d say that me regarding them as enemies who can’t be reasoned with, only defeated, is not an unreasonable position.
Sister Golden Bear
@gene108:
Considering that conservatives are in the midst of an ever-growing genocide against us trans people, I’d say that me regarding them as enemies who can’t be reasoned with, only defeated, is not an unreasonable position.
Jackie
@Sister Golden Bear: Amen! Or 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
And, that was worth repeating!😊
eclare
@JWR:
Love it!
Ksmiami
@Villago Delenda Est: I’ve missed your no bs commentary… yes, the degenerates on the right need to be crushed.
Ksmiami
@MagdaInBlack: next time give the bear cocaine and an AR-15… at least even out the odds.
Jay
@Sister Golden Bear:
read an interesting op-ed today aboot the trends in Canadian Conservatism, highlighting the current election in Alberta and what’s happening Federally.
Basically, the nutjobs are dragging the Con parties to the extreme reich with everything from CT to well, everything else, but nobody amongst the “sane” Con’s are even trying to pull the parties back to sanity.
Here I kinda understand it. Most Canadian’s arn’t members of any political party, so ridings and parties can be hijacked by a few organized and committed people. The Coquitlam South Provincial NDP riding has 122 paid up members, despite a population of 250k and they outnumber the Greens and Libs combined.
Citizen Alan
@Dan B: I would say that i’m expecting that from my RWNJ sister once I finally get to fresno. But the truth is I doubt she will bother, since she can’t be bothered to call me when we live in the same town unless she wants something.
And this is probably not a political issue, but at this point, I’m pretty much resigned to the fact that I’m going to have to take her to court at some point in the next year to partition the property we jointly inherited from our mother. She insists that she wants to keep it in the family, but no one in the family has enough money to buy out my fifty percent. So as a practical matter what she really wants is for me to pay half the taxes and half the insurance until I die, and then her 3 children will get everything. Or so she assumes. In fact, however, none of my surviving family members are listed in my will except for the comic book collection I’m leaving to one nephew. So if the property does not get paritioned while I’m alive for some reason, It will be partitioned by my executor and my half sold to go to various charities. Which will cause every surviving member of my family to scream obsenities over my dead body.
Jay
@Citizen Alan:
so, a really cool funeral?
Citizen Alan
@Jay: I wouldn’t know. I don’t plan to be around for it.
Jay
@Citizen Alan:
well kinda, sorta
but get video, snowflake tears are the best.
Jesse
This piece really hits me. I learned about the Four Freedoms late in life and I found them to be an elegant summary of what the US was (and is) all about. Adapting that structure to the R’s political aims of late (I’d say post-2008, certainly post-2016) really hits the message home and shows just how vile and toxic they’ve become.
AlaskaReader
Republicans only want their freedom to erase yours.
trnc
@Another Scott:
Argh! Congress has this fake power because we continue to treat it as if it’s real. This is wishful thinking on my part, I know, but Biden’s stance from the beginning should have been, “We don’t recognize the authority of congress to prevent payment for budgets passed by congress and signed into law. We will continue to make payments as we are legally bound to do.” The only thing Qevin would be able to do is sue in federal court, at which point he has to explain why one law passed over 100 years ago supercedes every budget law since.
It’s infuriating.
evodevo
@Citizen Alan: Yep…you might be able to force a sale (see a lawyer)…we went through that with my hubby’s family…one of the uncles had a secret deal to sell off hubby’s grandmother’s property for a bundle, and wanted the other family members to sell it to him for a song. HOWEVER, Maysville is a small town, and we got word of the plot via back channels, and got together with several of the heirs to force a public auction. His plan was scuttled, and everyone got a fair share…never trust a relative lol
GrueBleen
Isn’t that just wonderful: the freedom to worship the one and only capital-G God in my very own personal way. Nope, no “freedom” to worship any other “gods” or to not believe in, and hence not “worship” any gods at all.
Any thoughts as to whether that “right” might need a tiny touch of modernization ?