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‘Freedom’ is an anti-government slogan
Across Cuba, people are protesting in the streets, in an effort to escape the yoke of socialist oppression that has suffocated the Cuban people for 60 years. American Republicans view Cuba’s socialist government as inhumane and dangerous. So did Democrats, until recently (see, for example, JFK). But more recently, American socialists, news media, and other Democrats have taken a more nuanced view of the Cuban government, repeatedly pointing out its universal health care, or admirable literacy programs. For some reason that escapes American Democrats, the people that actually live in Cuba tend to take a less nuanced view, and they want to destroy their government.
The protests got so big and so widespread so quickly that even the Cuban government’s cheerleaders in the American media were forced to mention the story. Powerline has a typically outstanding summary of the situation. Their post included the following passage from a New York Times story, which caught my eye:
Shouting “Freedom” and other anti-government slogans, hundreds of Cubans took to the streets in cities around the country on Sunday to protest food and medicine shortages, in a remarkable eruption of discontent not seen in nearly 30 years.
So the reliably left-wing newspaper The New York Times writes that “Freedom” is an anti-government slogan. How very, very true.
And how very, very odd for The New York Times.
I just can’t believe that an editor let this through. This is an example of living in such a homogeneous echo chamber that you completely lose the ability to consider any concept from any perspective other than your own. If the editors had considered that Republicans across the country would be yelling, “Right! ‘Freedom’ is an anti-government slogan! Exactly!”, they would have cut it from the first draft and fired the writer.
President Obama and Raul Castro sharing the secret socialist club secret handshake.
But it never occurred to them. Amazing.
This is a part of modern leftism that I honestly don’t understand.
Ok, so leftists like big government. They want governmental control over everything from your health care to your lightbulbs. And then what do they do? They defund police. They complain that their Constitutional freedoms are being infringed upon. “Keep your laws off my body!” And so on and so forth.
I don’t understand. I don’t understand otherwise intelligent people complaining about the very government control that they’ve spent their lives voting for. What, exactly, do they want?
But on a certain level, I think leftists understand that, when you get right down to it, what they are really promoting is increasing government control – socialism – tyranny – whatever you want to call it. They know that’s what they mean. So The New York Times, who has never seen a government program they didn’t like, casually acknowledges that “Freedom” is an anti-government slogan.
And what does The New York Times want? More government! Which they openly acknowledge is the opposite of freedom.
Understand that I am not an anarchist. We need government, of course. But with the benefits of government, we must understand that as we make government bigger, we make citizens smaller. As government gains power, citizens naturally lose power. It’s a balance. It’s a trade-off. There is no other way.
So The New York Times obviously understands that point. If they realize that “Freedom” is anti-government slogan, then every time The New York Times promotes increasing the power of government, they know that they are simultaneously promoting decreasing the freedom of individuals. There is no other way.
And they’re ok with that.
America was founded on the concept of limiting the power of government. So transitioning from a small, limited government to a form of socialist tyranny is directly opposed to America’s most fundamental ideals.
Our media continues to promote one expansion of government power after another. Even though they know that is in direct opposition to individual freedoms.
After all, according to The New York Times, “Freedom” is an anti-government slogan.
And therefore, the American media is an anti-American organization.
It’s nice to have The New York Times acknowledge this fundamental truth from time to time.
Even if it’s accidental.
Published in General
We never had such a consensus, although there was once a lot of agreement on things we no longer agree about.
I’ve been beating this drum lately: We may have to go back to thinking about freedoms in particular rather than freedom in the abstract. Freedom as an abstract (or “universal” value) is what seems to lead us into these self-destructive paths we are now on. To get back to the old way, we may have to go back through the Enlightenment influences and do a lot of pruning.
We need to keep in mind that there were problems with the old way of thinking about freedoms, too.
I don’t think Castro had declared himself a communist when he paraded into Havana in 1959. I think that came later.
You’re confusing freedom with licentiousness.
I’m pretty sure that’s correct, but was anyone really fooled? (Lots of people pretended to be, of course.)
If he is, the culture beat him to it.
According to OUR government, these Cubans are just complaining that they can’t get enough vaccinations. It has nothing to do with their government throwing the people in jail when they complain about only getting five eggs a month. Even the chickens are up in arms!
What we need here are free “gubmint” toilets. Although they probably wouldn’t flush anyway… not enough water.
So when the New York Times moans on about freedom of the press, they are pleading for government interference?
They probably have no clue what they are pleading for. But, in effect, everything they want involves more government.