REPUBLICANS’ CONSISTENT VIEW OF “LIBERTY”
Generally speaking, consistency is not the hobgoblin of the little minds of the right-wing fanatics of the Trump Cult who have taken control of the erstwhile Party of Lincoln. It is often overlooked that Emerson placed the adjective foolish before consistency. The people who populate today’s extremely hypocritical (Anti-)Republican Party are foolishly consistent in the way they misuse the concepts of liberty and freedom. They are unswerving in defining them as the liberty to harm others.
With a few exceptions, such as West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, Republicans are screaming that necessary public health measures in the midst of a terrible pandemic are intolerable infringements on the liberty of Americans to do harm to their neighbors. Their unified attacks on President Biden’s common sense new actions to protect Americans’ health and the American economy from those who refuse to get vaccinated began on Fox News the second his speech yesterday ended. A “divisive speech,” “forced vaccination,” “tyranny,” and so on.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster pledged to “fight them to the gates of hell to protect the liberty” of South Carolinians. In Mississippi, Republican Governor Tate Reeves tweeted, “This is still America, and we still believe in freedom from tyrants.”
They call themselves “conservatives,” but they don’t believe in conserving the health of their fellow citizens. They call themselves “pro-life,” but they don’t believe in protecting the lives of their fellow citizens.
In the state of Gilead, formerly known as Texas, Republicans’ foolish consistency in their conception of liberty extends to forcing a raped woman to carry and deliver the offspring of her rapist. (They can point to scriptural precedent. Deuteronomy 22:29 declares that a woman must marry her rapist.) The new law gives liberty to vigilantes to seek out and sue anyone who facilitates a woman in exercising the human right to control her own body. Texas has also given vigilantes the liberty to intimidate people trying to vote.
The party has now firmly embraced the idea that people who are on their side should have the liberty to attempt to overthrow the Republic by force. That seems to apply to the traitors of the 1860s as well as those of the 2020s. Trump has repeatedly praised both the terrorists who invaded the Capitol on January 6 and the traitors who led the Rebellion to Maintain the Liberty to Own Human Beings, as he did again this week when the statue of Robert E. Lee in Richmond was removed.
Lee, of course, was leading an army whose purpose was to maintain the liberty to own people. Right-wing talk radio personality Larry Elder, who would likely become the Republican governor of California if the recall of Gavin Newsom next Tuesday were to succeed, has indicated that the descendants of enslavers are owed reparations because their “property” in human beings was taken from them without compensation.
Republicans also want “liberty” from taxation and regulation for the hyper-rich and corporations, liberty from access to healthcare for those who cannot afford it, liberty from steps to deal with climate change, and so on.
On every one of these issues, substantial majorities of the American people are on the other side. That’s why Republicans are feverishly passing laws to keep people from voting. Despite the opposition of most Americans to their twisted versions of liberty, Republicans can succeed in retaking power if the obstacle to the will of the people that is the filibuster is not removed.
SOURCES:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-issues-statement-against-removing-robert-e-lee-statue
https://www.yahoo.com/now/larry-elder-argues-slave-owners-000601872.html