Freedom, Baby

The working poor are often seduced by conservative rhetoric. They hear all that stuff about how government power needs to be held in check, or it will take your freedom, and you’ll become a slave of the state. They fall for all the high minded quotes about individualism and personal responsibility. They often lack the education to put those ideas into context. Yes, individualism is great, but government isn’t the only threat to individualism. The reason we have government is because there are other forces that could and often do threaten our freedom and even our lives. And no, I’m not talking about foreigners outside the country or minorities within. It escapes their attention that by consistently voting for so-called conservative politicians, they have helped shape a Supreme Court that has declared money is speech and corporations are people. When the Right feed them their freedom and liberty shtick, they’re talking about the wealthy elite having the freedom to do to the poor and the environment what they want without government interference.

The poor often try to boost their egos by imagining themselves as rugged people close to the land. They romanticize the past and like to imagine America reverting to its more rural, agrarian ways. But subsistence farming wasn’t all that wonderful, and given the growth in population and what we’ve done to the environment, living in a country where everybody gets their 40 acres just isn’t possible. Besides that, they forget that vast amounts of the land is now owned by the 1%. Do they think they’re just going to give them 40 acres? At best, they’ll be sharecroppers.

Little House on the Prairie was a fun show. I loved it when I was a kid. I’m sure it managed to portray some of the more idealized aspects of frontier life. But if you want a more accurate picture of what our society would be like without government regulation and programs, you should study up on the West Virginia coal camps of the early 20^th century. Work was hard and long and began early in life. Working conditions were dangerous. Workers weren’t out enjoying nature. They spent most of their days in a cold, dark hole in the ground that could collapse or explode at any moment. Workers were paid with scrip, so workers and their families had to buy everything they needed from the company they worked for. Workers and their families lived in cheap, company houses in coal camps. The postal clerk at the company store was a company employee, and even their mail was often censored. That’s not what I would call freedom.