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Have We Let the Righties Co-Opt America’s Founding Principles? [1]

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Date: 2025-06-05

If there’s one fundamental idea that unifies today’s conservatives, it’s ‘Freedom’.

Too bad they don’t know what the word means. While they demand to be free to live however they want without gubmint interference, it doesn’t occur to them that the principle might also apply to those who make different choices.

In, fact, their supposedly God-given autonomy seems to include their freedom to take away the freedoms of those with other beliefs, backgrounds or lifestyles. This of course is the exact opposite of freedom; the word for that is tyranny.

So which other of America’s founding principles has been hopelessly misinterpreted, distorted, and confiscated by the right?

Well, Equality now seems to be reserved for a subset of well-connected white Christian males. It’s funny that while conservative voters see themselves as part of the nation’s superior faction, the conservative elite is trying to oppress that red-cap crowd with low wages, minimal education, and houses full of babies.

Justice too has been taking a direct hit of course. The judicial systems and body of law that have grown to protect citizens from despotic politicians and pathologically-greedy oligarchs are now being systematically reformed to do the opposite.

Finally, while Democracy may still exist in principle, you know that GOP strategists are plotting at this very moment to internally subvert the next election while externally claiming electoral victory. Can’t wait to see the looks on right-wing voters’ faces when they realize they threw away the only power they had.

Conservatives in the media like to say that liberals ‘hate America.’ But if you define America in terms of its founding principles, it turns out that it’s the conservative elite that despises its home country. The current Congressional majority is set on undermining the historical imperatives of Justice, Equality and Democracy simply because they limit the powerful and wealthy from achieving even greater levels of power and wealth.

Let’s face it; when Republican pols crow about Freedom, it’s really about liberating their wealthy and corporate donors from taxes and regulation. Letting their minions think that it’s about their own freedom from a nosy nanny state is just part of the con.

Liberals, unlike their current president, typically love their country because they understand the significance of its founding principles. They have a sense of history, and the untold suffering of humans who lived their lives without liberty, equality, justice or democracy. They also accept that the cost of liberty is putting up with people who act and live differently.



For many in the deep-red heartland, those powerful concepts are merely America First patriotic slogans, with no more meaningful resonance than cheers for the home team in a high school basketball rivalry.

And the thing is, it’s not as if gay marriage, say, actually impacts the righties in their daily lives. It’s just that they don’t like the idea of it. Well, they themselves are probably doing something or other that someone else doesn’t like. Yet, unless there is a clear victim, even true liberals support their right to go on doing it.

Someone pointed out recently that while many members of the Jewish faith choose not to eat pork, they don’t band together to prevent other people from eating pork. Yet the conservative Christian factions now seeking dominance seem to feel that it’s their right, even their duty, to convert who they can to their own ways, and demean or cripple the rest.

But isn’t that what the American colonists risked their lives to break away from in the first place?

If the empowering and hard-fought arc of human progress – as well as the self-serving forces of resistance – were taught in school instead of name-date-place historical trivia, maybe more of us would understand all that’s at risk, if we vote the wrong way.

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