I really get tired of people claiming they have lost their “freedoms” during liberal administrations such as Biden/Harris. I see it almost every day in my Facebook feed from local people who address complicated issues with simplistic and false memes.
While it is clear there are some groups that wish to erode the values set by the Constitution — most notably the separation of church and state — it’s clear to me the one freedom we have truly lost is the freedom for women to control their own bodies.
That should be noted as the single largest accomplishment of the Trump administration and the only promise he truly kept to his voters. Obviously healthcare improvements and a secure Southern border were not accomplished.
So, the significant freedom lost was not protected by the Constitution but was the result of conservative justices who all said during their nomination hearings that Roe v. Wade was established law and they wouldn’t dispute, it, but that was clearly a lie.
Instead of allowing women and their doctors to determine such matters, state governments are now free to be influenced by religious ideology, which is not the intent of the founders.
If you hated me before then you will hate me even more now: the United States is not a theocracy and should never be one. It is not a “Christian” nation and was never intended to be one. It was designed as a secular nation, protecting the individual’s right to worship according to their own will or not worship.
Recently I asked my MAGA Facebook friends — yes, I still have a few — and yes, one actually addressed my question of what freedoms have been lost. One person replied, “People being fired from jobs for refusing to be vaccinated due to medical complications. Drs being fired for suggesting alternative approaches to Covid than the Gov’ts agenda. Ca. & other states/ cities & towns banning books such as: ‘To Kill A Mockingbird,’ ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ ‘Of Mice & Men’ etc. etc.”
Pardon the social-media form of writing.
Yes, there have been banned books and those titles are among them. According to the Banned Books List maintained by Marshall University, those books have one thing in common: the use of the N-word and how black students have felt uncomfortable in a classroom with that word in required reading.
According to the Banned Books List, “After parent complaints about the use of racist epithets in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’; ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’; ‘The Cay’; ‘Of Mice and Men’; and ‘Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry,’ the Burbank (California) Unified School District superintendent removed these titles from required classroom reading lists. Following a review committee’s recommendation, the superintendent also banned the use of the N-word in all school classes. The titles are available for individual reading and teachers can use then with small groups after the teacher has undergone training on facilitating conversations on racism, implicit bias and racial identity.”
In our history and popular culture, racism is everywhere. How we handle it when it is in books that are considered classics requires discussion and context. Is banning the best thing? No, not in my opinion, but then again I’m a 70-year-old white guy. I’m not Black, Asian, Latino and I can only imagine what a life dealing with racism is like.
OK, let’s look at the claim that freedoms have been lost by people due to the issues brought up by the pandemic. If you an anti-vaxxer, COVID-19 was a gift for you — another reason to say that science is wrong about vaccination.
Again, as an old man, I was among the generation that was first spared the threat of polio. Vaccinations made the lives of millions of people much better. I get it that solutions are not always perfect, but I also understand the nature of science is to question results and findings in order to improve. And the nature of many people is to make money based on the sufferings of others.
There were people who indeed lost their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic because of the “government agenda” of wanting to save lives — what a concept. On Dec. 21, 2021, CBS News reported, “A Mississippi doctor said he was fired from his job at a local hospital after trying to treat COVID-19 patients with anti-parasite drug ivermectin.
“Dr. John Witcher, an emergency room physician, said he was let go from Baptist Memorial Hospital in Yazoo City, Mississippi, for taking three COVID-19 patients off Remdesivir, an antiviral drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat the virus, and instead trying to put them on ivermectin. That violated the hospital’s policy on ivermectin, which is not approved by the FDA for COVID-19.
“Ivermectin is used to treat human infections caused by parasitic worms. Topical forms of the drug are approved to treat head lice and skin conditions like rosacea, according to the FDA.
“Dr. Witcher, founder of a physicians group that disputes the efficacy of the coronavirus vaccine and opposes requirements that people be inoculated, told podcast the Stew Peters Show that he thinks Remdesivir ‘has not proven to be beneficial’ to COVID-19 patients.”
Don’t you think if there was any real proof, Big Pharma would have jumped at the chance to sell more ivermectin? Of course they would have.
I understand the issues of trusting the medical community. It is really a trust not of our health providers, but the insurance companies that force decisions upon them.
Have we lost freedoms? Free speech seems to be fine. Right to assembly, OK. Freedom to practice a faith? Freedom not to practice a faith? Yes. Can you still buy a gun? Yup.
The real issue is continually protecting these rights and others from people who would erode them. There is a difference between maintaining the rule of law and people who simply want to do whatever they like to do, regardless of its impact on others.
G. Michael Dobbs has worked for Reminder Publishing for 23 years of his nearly 50-year-career in the Western Mass. media scene, and previously served as the executive editor. He has spent his time with the publisher covering local politics, interesting people and events. The opinions expressed within the article are that of the author’s and do not represent the opinions and beliefs of the paper.
