I have written on this subject before and will probably write on it again. That is the subject of freedom. Freedom is a word that has been screamed by many different groups during many different points in history. To every group, the purpose of shouting freedom is a little bit different, but most of the time it comes down to the desire to fight suppression. Today it seems s that the people crying freedom don’t even know the meaning of the word.

Is wearing a mask have anything to do with taking away a person’s freedom? If it is in, what way? Does it take away your freedom to practice your religion? Does it take away your freedom of movement? What freedom does it actually take away? Is the freedom to get other people sick a real freedom? We are fighting a pandemic that has killed three quarters of a million people here in the United States alone and many millions worldwide. If anything that is attacking a person’s freedom it is that deadly diseases as most diseases do. When we were fighting the Japanese and the Germans during World War II we did not have large groups of people running around screaming that you are taking away my freedoms with all the rationing. No, as a nation we banded together and fought to win. Why is fighting the pandemic any different? Why are we costing American lives in a fight that we should have won a long time ago? We need to fight the things that are actually taking our freedom away and that thing is the pandemic. Rosie the Riveter was a Patriot. Marjorie Taylor Green is not. She has no idea what sacrificing for your country and your fellow citizens is.

I see Ted Cruz from Texas walk across the state and yell “Freedom”; the first thing in my mind is for whom? He surely cannot be talking about Freedom for Women. If he was he would be fighting for women rights because that is what freedom fighters do. They fight to free others. He can’t be talking about the freedom for all those unborn children because after they are born he wants nothing to do with them. It can’t be for all those people that come to Texas’s border yearning for just the taste of freedom that Texas could give them. When he is shouting freedom he is actually shouting about suppression and oppression. When he shouts freedom I actually think that he is only talking about White Male Freedom and that is not real freedom that is oppression. You cannot be talking about freedom while gerrymandering districts suppress the vote. You do that to suppress not to create freedom. Voter suppression and racism do really go hand in hand and have historically. Our Forefathers did not fight for anything but the right for representative government that the Republicans are trying to deny minorities.

In my search engine I typed in the freest countries in the world. I came across an article by the World Atlas site and we are not in the top ten. Here is the site so check it out yourself. The World's 10 Most Free Countries - WorldAtlas The article is from 2019 so it is actually pretty recent. Not a very political site so it is an interesting read. By the way, we are not in the top ten.

Now, I do know one thing that would make us freer and that is Medicare for All.  Before you start claiming that I am some disciple of Bernie Sanders just hear me out. One of the greatest freedoms you can have is freedom of movement and what is one of the things that keep us at that dead-end job that we have hated so much. Could one of those things be the need for healthcare? What would happen is you had Healthcare that followed you no matter where you went? Is that why we don’t have Medicare for All because there are companies that want to keep you trapped in the dead-end job? I know that it sounds sexier to say that the gun or rifle brings you freedom that is not true. We need to work on the things that will truly make us the freest country in the world.

The freedom that makes a nation great is what it does after it fights for its independence. In our case it was the Constitution of the United States and the basis of that newly formed Government was the right for everyone to vote. Suppression should not have a part in a free country. Every time a State gerrymanders to suppress the vote they are denying the freedom that our forefathers fought for and created. Every time you suppress a woman’s right to choose you are subverting freedom. Every time you do the bidding for the billionaires that don’t give a hoot about any of our freedoms you are doing a disservice to the vision that our forefathers had of what freedom and good government should be. We were not built by kings and nobility. We were built on the common man being just as important as that billionaire. One man one voice. Elon Musk’s voice in not suppose to be any louder than mine because our voice is suppose to be voiced at the ballet box.