It’s a buzzword, a dog whistle, an emotion-manipulator.
Remember “freedom fries” and “freedom toast” back in 2003? Was that a protest against France for taking away someone’s freedom? No, although it was a protest against France, it was because the French Foreign Minister suggested that war with Iraq would be a bad idea. Uhh, “freedom”?
In the much ballyhooed Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers piously intoned the word “liberty”, then went home and ate dinner with their families, attended by slaves. Uhh, “liberty”?
Our prisons are increasingly run by corporations, whose job it is to make money, not to provide humane treatment to criminals. Our prisons are wildly overcrowded, and the poor and people of color are wildly overrepresented. The rich and the white are wildly underrepresented. So the “freedom” enjoyed by those with money is not the same as the “freedom” enjoyed by those without.
People with money are free to buy elections and politicians. People without money can go suck it. The police in every state get away with all kinds of civil rights violations and brutality, many of them doing it with full knowledge that they’re being recorded. That is, they know they can get away with it. People who have to be afraid of rogue police are not free.
Yeah, “freedom” means nothing. It’s a tool in the mouths of the cynical to manipulate the emotional.
Peace and luck