One of the things that drives me (and indeed, many on the left) batshit crazy about those on the right is that they claim to love freedom yet seem to hate any displays of that freedom. I’ve wondered my entire life what, exactly, conservatives define as “liberty.” They hate the ACLU! How can you love freedom, and hate the defense of civil liberties? How can you love freedom, and applaud restrictions on free speech, on free assembly, or on a free press?
This latest rant on my part arises from a combination of two news stories. Not the news stories, really, but the wingnut reaction. First, the ongoing revelations about the NSA spying on ordinary Americans without a warrant. Now, some right wing folks understand the gravity of this. But the wingnut reaction in many places is more or less: Rah, cheer, we’re defending freedom.
Then there’s Cindy Sheehan’s arrest at the State of the Union. The wingnuts I was conversing with (on a message board) were adamant that it was right, and good, and proper, that her freedom be curtailed at the SOTU, because after all, she was breaking the law! (And not one of them bothered even to backpeddle, let alone apologize, once the police admitted she wasn’t.)
So my question is, at it has always been, how do the right wing define freedom? And I think I figured it out.
