KRUGMAN-When people on right talk about "freedom" what they actually mean is "defense of privilege"

[kpete]

Freedom,’ Florida and the Delta Variant Disaster

.....when people on the right talk about “freedom” what they actually mean is closer to “defense of privilege” — specifically the right of certain people (generally white male Christians) to do whatever they want.— specifically the right of certain people (generally white male Christians) to do whatever they want.

.............

Why, for example, are conservatives so insistent on the right of businesses to make their own decisions, free from regulation — but quick to stop them from denying service to customers who refuse to wear masks or show proof of vaccination? Why is the autonomy of local school districts a fundamental principle — unless they want to require masks or teach America’s racial history? It’s all about whose privilege is being protected.


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/opinion/Covid-Florida-vaccines.html
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/8/3/2043571/-Krugman-Freedom-White-Male-Privilege?utm_campaign=trending

[Dirty Socialist]

1. THIS!

I have been saying this for a few years now. America is becoming increasingly a nation of privilege. I would add RICH white Male Christians.

[jaxexpat]

9. Rich! Yes, that's the single greatest discriminator.

Wealth, in it's extreme, is also the most potent poison pill for a representative government. With enough wealth, you can identify whom the majority needs to demonize and make it stick.

[Klaralven]

2. That's what politics in a democracy is all about

People collect into factions to further their interests as a ethnic, religious, or socioeconomic group.

[wnylib]

8. In a healthy democracy, those

factions are fluid, not rigid.

[Klaralven]

10. Faction alliances may shift over several years, but faction identities only change over decades.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. So Orwellian . . . .

[JHB]

4. When you hear a rightie or libertarian complain about "government tyranny"...

...it's almost always about government constraining them from being a tyrant in their own bailiwick.

Oh, they might not actually be tyrants, at least not full time, but they ferociously defend their "right" to be a tyrant whenever they see fit.

[underpants]

5. A. Only 97% thinking drinking and driving is a serious problem???

But almost everyone understands that it’s a personal choice that endangers others; 97 percent of the public considers driving while impaired by alcohol a serious problem.

B. I was not aware of the dish detergent thing back then. 😵‍💫😳🤯

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/13/phosphate-ban-dishwash-detergent

[Marcuse]

6. Presciently applicable to issues of election fraud, masks, vaccinations, Critical Race Theory, etc.

Large parts of America have been primed through little issues such as phosphate bans to believe they don't need to know the actual facts behind an issue because they can simply substitute their paranoid hostility towards liberals for understanding.

Worse, they've given up any sense of responsibility as citizens towards the common good. Once people have absorbed the idea that wiping off an occasional glass is too much of a sacrifice to save the environment for the good of everyone else, it's not much of a leap for those same people to think that it's a travesty if someone poorer than themselves has decent access to healthcare, that they should have to take public transportation rather than leave the next generation with a planet wrecked through global warming, or that it's worse to raise the taxes on the richest Americans by 3% than have widespread unemployment.

[underpants]

7. 👆THIS!