Questions About “Freedom” in American Politics

 

American political discourse is drowning in freedom. After 9/11, many politicians assured us that the terrorists hated our freedoms. The Tea Party modeled itself on the American Revolution (a bit awkwardly since the government they wanted freedom from was the same government established by that revolution). Advocates for gun rights talk about freedom more than anyone else, such that one might easily believe they think the fundamental Ur-freedom of all humanity for all time has always been to keep and bear deadly firearms.

 

Freedom talk is especially pervasive on the right (and among libertarians, most of whom in the US are as some have pointed out, Republicans who smoke weed). But you’ll occasionally see it on the left, too, often in discussions of freedom of (or from) religion, voting rights, abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and so on.

 

But I think one of the many ways the left has lost the Culture Wars here in the US is that we have largely ceded talk about “freedom” to the right. The right has been setting the agenda on freedom for 40 years. You can try to play the game, but you’re playing on the right’s board. 

 

Try to imagine talk of say, the latest Democratic legislation on infrastructure in terms of freedom. Sure, you could (and maybe should!), but it would sound weird in the American context. But on the other hand, every Republican who decries taxes on the ultra-wealthy can easily dip into freedom talk and the whole scaffold of post-Reagan homilies connected to it.

 

So it appears we are stuck with freedom, at least for now.

 

But does this idea of “freedom” actually make sense? Is it coherent? What if we ask some questions about it?

 

• Is there more to “freedom” than “doing whatever I want for any reason at all times”? Does freedom come with responsibilities to oneself or others?

• Does our cultural obsession with freedom lead people to do things just because they can rather than because they honestly think they should? What do we lose in this obsession? Is it dehumanizing to reduce yourself and others to little nodes of freedom for freedom’s sake with no limits, rational oversight, or basic human decency?

• Does other peoples’ freedom to not wear a mask or get vaccinated during a pandemic directly limit my freedom to go to indoor public places? Does it limit the freedom of all of humanity to end this pandemic? (“You can wear a mask and get vaccinated if you want,” someone might object. I do and I have, but because these things only really work to end this pandemic if almost everybody does them, I am forced to engage in exhausting risk assessments before going anywhere, and then I will have to deal with annoyance and disappointment in my fellow human beings once I’m out … all of which often makes me stay home instead.)

• Freedom of belief is a wonderful thing (and I do honestly mean that), but are we so far gone that we honestly believe that just because you have a right to your belief that your belief is automatically right? Sure, you have the freedom to believe in Q-Anon or other harmful absurdities, but just because you can does that mean you should?

• Does the freedom of the ultra-wealthy from taxation directly limit the freedom of less wealthy people to live decent lives? Does it limit the freedom of all Americans to benefit from a well-maintained public infrastructure, healthcare, education, etc. … the things that people need to exercise freedom in the first place?

• If the men who killed Ahmaud Arbery were exercising their freedom to engage in self-defense, then what was Arbery doing when he tried to defend himself from three belligerent armed white men who ran him off the road in pick-up trucks?

• If Kyle Rittenhouse was exercising his freedom to act in self-defense, then what were Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber doing when they tried to protect protestors from an angry young man with an assault rifle?

• Is it possible that it’s not so much that the idea of freedom itself is incoherent? Do the American incongruities and incoherencies dissolve when you see that “freedom” has always meant freedom for certain people in American history? Do the freedoms defended so fiercely, and often so violently, by angry white men limit the freedoms of everyone else? Has this only become more obvious with the rise of Trumpism?

• What if we started asking, “freedom for whom”? How would this reshape the ways we talk about freedom in American politics?