Politicize ‘Freedom’

Freedom in the United States is a word that has had more than one meaning. It has meant freedom for some people and the repression of others. In a democracy, freedom also means the right to take part in politics. So how can that freedom best be secured? 

Music by J.F. Gloss (“Mysterious Figures”), Howard Harper-Barnes (“Mysterious Forest”), Luella Gren (“Sleep Forever”), ELFL (“The Flux Beneath It All”), Yinon Muallem “(Oudstock”), and Rob Smierciak (“Mystery March”). 

[Jszar]

N.B.: Prohibition wasn’t about forbidding alcohol consumption, as such. It was about breaking the political power of the saloon system, which had bought politicians so thoroughly that not only was licensing liquor establishments a pipe dream, but so was prosecuting the big owners when they committed other crimes.

[allthewayfrom]

Politicize ‘Freedom’ - Autocracy in America, Ep. 5
0:00 The word “Freedom” and how it’s used; freedom can be used against democracy
1:36 Intro & Hosts: Anne Applebaum & Peter Pomerantsev
2:20 What is Freedom?
2:51 Jefferson Cowie (Historian at Vanderbilt University, author of “Freedom’s Dominion”) discusses: the freedom to dominate others; Barber County, Alabama (stealing Indigenous land in 1830 and murdering at least 80 black people who were voting in 1874); George Wallace (four-term Alabama governor, from Barber County) wanted segregation and freedom from the Federal Government; autocrats are first elected, often under the banner of freedom; the January 6 2021 insurrection; autocrats are seeking Federal power in the US
11:55 Timothy Snyder (Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale Univ and author of “On Freedom”) discusses: the freedom to DO something vs. only having freedom FROM something
14:58 the partisanship of the words “freedom” and “democracy”; autocratic influences are why we think our democracy doesn’t work; gerrymandering in the US
16:48 David Pepper (author of "The People's House”) discusses: gerrymandering; how Texas and Georgia have nearly 70% of races uncontested
17:45 Apathy is kryptonite to a democracy; autocratic movements create dysfunctional systems which makes people disgusted or apathetic toward democracy which then attracts more autocratic candidates & tendencies
18:36 People-powered movements and coalition-building can vanquish apathy; the democratic movement in Ukraine; women’s suffrage in the US
20:56 Alexis Tocqueville (author of “Democracy in America”) who wrote about: how democracies succeed; township institutions and associations in the US; how democracy is preserved through local action.

Edited for accuracy.

[unkleskratch]

hard to concentrate on the dialogue with that oompa-loompa music tapping away in the near background.

[jasonnugent]

1919 - Courts decided that you can't yell "FIRE" in a crowded theater.
2024 = people seem to want to be able to yell "FIRE", .. and then when told they can't do that, they start screaming about how their Freedoms are being infringed.
I hope that most people are smart enough to see how other disingenuously use these words to try to get away with harmful or selfish behavior. I hope.

[markg.]

I want freedom from all of Trump's lies and nonsense.

[hectorestrada]

Freedom is actually chaos, ask any Afghan what freedom is. Freedom in both sides of the American system need to be clear about what they are talking about, under the American system the idea of Freedom is supposed to be guaranteed through the bill of rights and the constitution. America needs to be willing to find a way to keep the guardrails of “freedom, ” in that vain.

[mdog]

Stop censorship. You should understand that as a prerequisites of your job.

[nromk]

Freedom is an incorrect word: even Angela Merkel talks about freedoms. The word we're looking for is citizenship, and when you use that word, it turns out that the USA isn't unique and US citizens probably have fewer freedoms andfewer rights to citizenship. And citizenship is something worth defending. We haven't lived through the era of Divine Right and through the feudal system. And here's another fact there are obstacles to citizenship: race, socio-economic status, gender, sexual orientation, nationalities, immigration history, religious backgrounds or lack thereof, linguistic identities, educational history, labor history, and health and mental health status. And with so many obstacles to citizenship, one has to wonder if we just invented a neo feudal system: a castel that guard the elite against the "undesirables", the USA is shocked about other countries having cast systems and segregation and apartheid but there are people who want a cast system here in the USA, they want to deny citizenship and cement those obstacles to citizenship with an irony fist and use the whole force of the government to ensure that only a few select members of society have freedoms.

[Martcapt]

Freedom can mean whatever you want it to mean

[chrisolmsted]

I would like the history professor to think like an age of reason philosopher. At the founding of our country, the freedom and legitimacy to govern belonged to the people of each jurisdiction.
We were an autocracy where only 25% of the population were eligible to vote aka included as a constituent of the people aka the group which was the sovereign as a whole.
The freedom of an individual was edited into the bill of rights. It was not in Madison's draft.
The republican form of government is hierarchical. Only our founding principles of the people being the ruling authority requires our republic to be a democracy.
If you can think like a philosopher or using set theory, it becomes obvious that the hierarchy of rulers in our country is a hierarchy of peoples.
In theories of democratic government, the voters are part of the government. They participate in governance even though it is often indirect. Both Cicero and Lincoln at Gettysburg knew that the people were the government.
Unfortunately the supreme court forgot completely in the 2008 Heller decision who the people are. They guessed that the people was a synonym for the persons.
I hope you can help the people to understand this systemic error. Until it is corrected the system is disjointed and at best it will be erratic in its decisions.

[madmax]

DOWNVOTE this echo chamber for the woke.

[CarlosIowa]

Change the narrative. "I say Seperation of Church and State Now. Seperation of Church and State Tomorrow. Seperation of Church and State FOREVER.