With July 4th coming, reader Chi Guy got to thinking about what freedom and liberty might mean to the left.
BFH,
I just did a little experiment that may interest you.
The “site:” prefix on most browsers lets you search for words or terms used on a specific site. This is usually far more thorough that using a website’s own “search” box.
So, I was curious if Bernie Sanders’ website ever mentions “liberty” or “freedom”.
This turned out not to be useful due to the large number of place-name references to “liberty”, such as Liberty University, East Liberty, PA, and so on.
Restricting the search to just the “Issues” section was more more revealing. Here’s what I found:
Google found just a SINGLE reference to “liberty”, and it concerns REDUCING liberty: “Veto any legislation that purports to ‘protect’ religious liberty at the expense of others’ rights.”
Google found a mere four references to “freedom”:
1) An extended excerpt from the Gettysburg Address, with no additional reference or allusion to “freedom”
2) An extended excerpt from a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.,, with no additional reference or allusion to “freedom”
3) In a page on “War and Peace”, there are a few offhand references to “freedom”, but only in a throwaway manner. The context is to simply suggest something called “freedom” is worth defending, without any real explanation or elaboration of WHY.
4) The final reference to “freedom” is Orwellian: In a page titled “Medicare for All”, that is, universal government-run medicine, there are a couple of perverse references to “freedom”, as in “Bernie’s plan will provide all Americans with the sense of freedom and peace of mind that comes from knowing you always have access to the health care you need.” Translation: Big Brother frees you from controlling your own health care.
July 4th is in just a couple of weeks. I wonder what exactly Bernie celebrates on that day? It isn’t freedom or liberty.
!snip!
To the left, freedom means confiscating revenue from earners to bribe votes from parasites with the promise of freedom … the freedom to pursue drum circling at other’s expense.
Liberty is being free from the shackles of personal responsibility.
No.
izlamo delenda est …
To paraphrase our esteemed former Pervert-in Chief, Bill Clinton:
That depends on what your definition of “Freedom and Liberty” is.
🙂
To liberal collectivists, freedom means freedom from responsibility.
Wow, Fur! Great research. Who did it? Makes much more sense than “word clouds.”
The Left believes that the government cares about them more than their next-door neighbor does. I have no idea why.
Many of the Alt-Right do not, either:
https://voxday.blogspot.com/2016/06/who-killed-conservatism.html
“The #AltRight believes in three things:
1. Nationalism.
2. Western civilization.
3. Winning.
…we don’t care about the Constitution, the Rights of Man, the Enlightenment, the Holocaust, or anything else with capital letters that is likely to get in the way.” – Vox Day
Umm…I have no idea what THEY imagine “Nationalism” or “Western civilization” to be like WITHOUT our Constitution.
To me, it sounds like they’re saying, “Join us! We’ll restore liberty through utter totalitarian tyranny! Trust us! Suuuuuuure, we will!”
Liberty for me but not for thee.
Sure they believe in liberty and freedom. They just happen to believe that only the government should have liberty and freedom to impose, tax, restrict, regulate, compel, require, etc. anything and everything.
That’s why the POSOTUS famously called the American Constitution a “flawed document” and “a charter of negative liberties”. The Constitution only restricts the liberties and freedom of the government which is why the Marxist leftists hate it so.
The reader is Chi Guy.
It was a great idea and very revealing.
You all sound like a bunch of libertarians. That’s a good thing.
Liberals hate corporate bureaucracy and love government bureaucracy.
Thanks for the tip about “site: prefix” searches. Will be using that. 🙂