Inside Democrats’ campaign to redefine the word ‘freedom’
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Democratic presidential candidate current Vice President Kamala Harris used the word “freedom” 11 times in a campaign speech this week, emphasizing, as she does repeatedly, the “freedom of a woman to be able to make decisions about her own body.”
It’s the latest example of how, according to ABC News and The New Yorker, Democrats are attempting to take ownership of the word “freedom.” The New Yorker explains: “Democrats’ years-long efforts to reclaim the word are cresting in this year’s Presidential race.”
It really takes some nerve for Democrats to try to revamp as “freedom” their usual proposals on not just abortion and voting, but also gun control, climate and LGBT issues. In reality, Democrats aim to restrict our First and Second Amendment rights and more.
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Harris has made “freedom” the theme of her campaign. She says the word frequently in her speeches. Her campaign’s song is “Freedom” by Beyoncé. The word “freedom” appears 24 times in her campaign website’s issues section. Freedom was emphasized in her first campaign video and in her speech at the Democrats’ convention.
The Harris and Walz campaign are trying to redefine language and lay claim to the word “freedom.” (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
“In this election, many fundamental freedoms are at stake,” Harris’s campaign website says. Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz “will always fight for the freedom to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis,” according to their campaign website.
Harris’s presidential campaign website’s policy section makes no mention of our most important freedoms, enshrined in the First Amendment — the “free exercise” of religion, “freedom of speech, or of the press” (former President Donald Trump’s campaign does). Someone should tell the Democrats that those are first in the Bill of Rights for a reason.
Walz has said he sees “no guarantee for free speech” related to misinformation and hate speech. But such speech is constitutionally protected, otherwise the government would be in the position of regulating what is acceptable speech and it could suppress dissent or label information it doesn’t like as “misinformation.”
The better approach is to allow for free speech, but to have open debate and condemn hateful speech. We’ve seen the alternative play out: The Biden-Harris White House pressured Big Tech companies to censor Americans because of their views on COVID-19. In 2019, Harris called on then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to suspend Trump’s account.
Americans likely won’t have the freedom to use correct pronouns if Harris wins election. The Biden-Harris administration wants to make it a civil rights violation if someone uses scientifically accurate pronouns contrary to a gender-confused person’s preferences.
For Democrats, “reproductive freedom” is the freedom they most want to defend. The verbal forced marriage of “reproductive” and “freedom” is another stretch. Try as they might, reproduction, including via in-vitro fertilization, can’t be divorced from its many consequences — such as producing children. That’s just science.
In the presidential debate, Harris used the word “freedom” only in reference to abortion. “I will be a president that will protect our fundamental rights and freedoms including the right of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have her government tell her what to do,” Harris said (she’s fine with the government telling you what to do on a host of other issues).
But the freedom to abort an unborn child is not real freedom. In a truly free society, one person cannot be free to take another’s liberty. An unborn child is not part of a woman’s body or her property — it is a separate human being with its own rights. In taking the life of an unborn child, a woman is taking away the most basic of all rights.
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign website actually acknowledges 1st Amendment freedoms. FILE: Trump acknowledges the crowd during halftime of a game between the South Carolina Gamecocks and Clemson Tigers at Williams-Brice Stadium. (Jeff Blake-USA TODAY Sports)
Twisting the word further, Harris says she wants to defend the “freedom to vote.” But that’s no more true of Democrats than Republicans. Both sides want to enact election laws that favor their party. But Republicans want to make our election system more secure.
In fact, Democrats have taken their own voters’ freedom this presidential election. It’s the Democratic Party that ousted its incumbent, prevented a real primary challenge, and has fought any independent challenger. Nor have Democrats given Republicans the freedom to vote. Democrats, along with other lawfare, have pushed claims to kick Trump off the ballot.
Harris says she’ll also defend “the freedom to love who you love openly.” The reality is she’ll take parents’ rights.
Her first campaign video shows crowds waving pride flags as Harris says “we choose freedom.” But the LGBT community is far from closeted – pride parades often feature half-naked adults in public in front of children.
Conservatives want the freedom to protect their children from ideologies that are counter to their beliefs, including sexually explicit books that are inappropriate for children. Democrats misleadingly call these efforts “book bans,” but by this logic, movie ratings are “movie bans” because young children aren’t supposed to see R-rated movies.
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Women won’t be free under a Harris administration. She won’t defend women’s rights to keep biological men out of their bathrooms, locker rooms, sports or sororities.
Harris would restrict the Second Amendment, yet her campaign casts gun control in the light of freedom: “As President, she won’t stop fighting so that Americans have the freedom to live safe from gun violence in our schools, communities, and places of worship.”
Americans likely won’t have the freedom to use correct pronouns if Harris wins election. The Biden-Harris administration wants to make it a civil rights violation if someone uses scientifically accurate pronouns contrary to a gender-confused person’s preferences.
Harris’s promises of freedom and joy (another of her themes) sound as vacuous as former President Barack Obama’s campaign of “hope and change.” The Democrats want to impose more government control on Americans, including with expensive and ineffective economic and environmental policies.
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Republicans also want clean air, but acknowledge that more environmental regulation costs Americans money in higher energy, housing and other costs. Being energy-independent prevents funding foreign authoritarian governments.
Yes, Democrats believe in the “freedoms” of abortion, being LGBT, and voting without ID — but they don’t believe in First and Second Amendment rights, a woman’s right to not have men in female-only spaces, parents’ rights or energy independence.
