Are right-wingers fighting for freedom?
#218
My Dear Friend of Democracy,
The political far-right likes to claim that it is fighting for freedom. Fighting against a state that oppresses people, restricts them and takes their hard-earned money.
When you look at their election campaigns the word „freedom“ is often used but it is mostly an empty phrase.
Think of the USA. It is Donald Trump and his Republicans threatening freedom. For example, the freedom to live up to one's potential. That requires a certain minimum standard of living. Anyone who lives from hand to mouth has no real freedom. It is the left fighting for more social security.
Nor does one live in freedom if they cannot love whomever they want - in public and with pride.
Equally essential is the freedom to make your own decisions about your body without government interference.
Above all, it needs the freedom that unlocks all the others: the freedom to vote.
Economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz writes here:
„It is high time that American progressives reclaim the freedom agenda from libertarians and the right, especially now that the right represents the exact opposite.“
✊ We must not allow the right-wing to twist our concept of freedom. It is the progressives advancing the freedom agenda.
See you in Europe,
Johannes