Well, well. The Harris campaign, all aglow in the rapture the press has bestowed on it, has apparently decided that saving democracy isn’t such a great theme after all. And to be fair, it’s more than a little awkward to go on and on about the wonders of democracy just after completing the hard work of deposing the President without having won a single convention delegate.
Be that as it may, the campaign has recently begun test marketing a new theme, namely Freedom. That development would be extremely encouraging if, and here is the big if, IF the campaign (and presumably the candidates) had the slightest idea of what they were talking about. But they don’t. Not by a long shot.
In fact the Harris definition of Freedom, actually mangles the meaning of the word. In the Harris definition Freedom refers to rights granted by government, not inherent rights possessed by individuals. By implication, Government may rescind those rights in order to coerce individuals to behave in ways the government approves. Freedom in this context is not freedom from, it is freedom to.
Anyone who doubts this should listen to Harris’s VP candidate, Tim Walz, expound on his understanding (or misunderstanding) of the First amendment. Just yesterday Walz announced that “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech and especially around our democracy”.
Well actually the Constitution does protect hate speech, misinformation (real or imagined) and other stuff Walz doesn’t like very much. And anybody running for President or Vice-President ought to know it.
The text of the First amendment says that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech or of the press…” That is, or ought to be, fairly clear to anybody who has mastered reading at the 7th grade level. (Walz, the history teacher really ought to look it up).
It doesn’t stop there though. In 2020 as governor of Minnesota, Walz set up a Covid-19 hotline for Minnesota residents to use to inform the authorities of their suspicions that their neighbors might be violating lockdown measures. Sounds like the kind of Freedom that the East German Stasi specialized in.
Wait—there’s more. Walz and Harris argue that they want everyone to be free to join a union. Except that everyone already is free to do just that. What they really advocate is that unions (who contribute to them) should be free to coerce non-union members into joining a union, or be coerced into paying union dues.
But here Harris & Walz are again in the wrong side of the First amendment. They are either ignorant of, or have chosen to ignore Supreme Court rulings. In a 2018 landmark case–Janus v. AFSCME–the Supreme Court ruled that union fees charged to non-members in the public sector violate First amendment speech rights. That seems not to bother the Harris team in the slightest.
Similarly, Harris et. al. argue for “freedom to be safe from gun violence.” This of course, is simply a lightly disguised plea for gun control. Why not a call for freedom from knife violence? Or bank robbery, which, when I last checked, was not guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, unlike the right to bear arms, which is. And why not a call for the aggressive prosecution of violators of gun laws? Hmm. Enforcing existing laws might prove to be a tad inconvenient.
Or how about the freedom to read the books you want to read. Well of course you actually have that right and it is well protected by that First amendment the Harris team likes to ignore. You can buy any book you want at Amazon. And the courts (the ones Harris wants to “reform”) will protect that right. What Harris et. al. really mean is that librarians (and teachers unions) should be able to stock public school libraries with the books they please without regard to parental oversight. You know those pesky voters, speaking of Democracy.
In a similar vein, Walz as governor, signed a bill in 2023 making Minnesota a sanctuary state for child sex-changes. According to National Review online, the law grants legal protection to children who travel to Minnesota for “gender-affirming care” that “includes puberty blockers, reconstructive genital surgery and hormone therapy.” Among other tings, the law prohibits Minnesota officials from complying with subpoenas, extraditions or arrests related to sex-change procedures received in Minnesota, even if they are crimes in another states.
Let’s put this in perspective. In Minnesota it is illegal to sell or furnish tobacco and tobacco related products to anyone under the age of 21. There’s Freedom for you.
I could go on, but you get the point. When Harris and Walz talk about Freedom, they are not talking about Freedom at all. It is code for establishing more governmental coercion. And unfortunately, probably because of unrelenting attacks by political extremists on both sides of the aisle, they have the wind at their backs.
A recent survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights (FIRE) published by Reason, a libertarian magazine, found that more than half of Americans think that the First Amendment provides too many rights. That is worth thinking about before pulling the lever for either of the clowns, and I use the term advisedly, who are the major party candidates for President.
JFB
