{"id":19226,"date":"2024-03-01T19:56:37","date_gmt":"2024-03-02T00:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=19226"},"modified":"2024-03-02T15:00:55","modified_gmt":"2024-03-02T20:00:55","slug":"n-y-post-shed-a-tear-for-americas-rapidly-vanishing-freedoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/03\/01\/n-y-post-shed-a-tear-for-americas-rapidly-vanishing-freedoms\/","title":{"rendered":"N.Y. Post: Shed a tear for America\u2019s rapidly vanishing freedoms"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New York Post, March 1, 2024<\/h2>\n
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Photo via Nixon White House, public domain – Wikipedia https:\/\/catalog.archives.gov\/id\/66394352<\/p><\/div>\n

Shed a tear for America’s rapidly vanishing freedoms<\/a><\/h1>\n
by James Bovard<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cIs the best of the free life behind us now?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Merle Haggard asked in a haunting 1982 country music hit song.\u00a0 Nine years earlier, Haggard had scoffed at potheads and draft dodgers in a White House performance for President Richard Nixon. But, reflecting widespread loss of faith in the American dream in the 1970s, his \u201cfree life\u201d song\u00a0lamented Nixon\u2019s lies, the Vietnam debacle and the ravages of inflation.<\/p>\n

The \u201cfree life\u201d question helped inspire me 30 years ago to write a book titled Lost Rights<\/a>, chronicling how \u201cAmericans\u2019 liberty is perishing beneath the constant growth of government power.\u201d\u00a0When I recently updated the political damage report in a book titled Last Rights<\/a>, the late 20th century seemed practically a golden era of freedom in hindsight.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Indeed, since then, federal censorship multiplied a hundredfold. The Biden administration trampled the First Amendment by \u201csuppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens,\u201d a federal appeals court recently ruled. The Supreme Court will hear that bellwether case next month.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, local bureaucrats sporadically cracked down on home schooling, preventing a smattering of parents from teaching their own kids. During the recent COVID epidemic, teacher unions spurred unjustified school lockdowns that victimized tens of millions of children. Vast learning losses resulted that continue to plague young lives.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, controversies erupted when some schools gave free condoms to teenagers. Nowadays, many of the nation\u2019s largest school systems encourage children to agonize over their own gender identity from kindergarten through high school. Ten million kids attend government schools that will assist children in changing their gender without parents\u2019 knowledge or permission. Puberty blockers and \u201cgender-affirming\u201d double mastectomies are far more disruptive than prophylactic freebies.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, civil-liberties groups challenged laws requiring drug tests for new employees.\u00a0\u00a0 In September 2021, President Biden decreed that 80 million-plus adults working for private companies must get Covid vaccine injections. After millions of Americans took the jab thanks to his edict, the Supreme Court struck down his order.\u00a0But neither Biden nor his political appointees have any liability for that illicit command or the side effects of the vax.<\/p>\n

Haggard lamented the decline of the work ethic, harkening back to a time \u201cwhen a man could still work and still would.\u201d\u00a0Since the \u201cfree life\u201d song came out, the number of handout recipients has more than doubled, and the feds are now feeding more than 100 million Americans.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, police used ethnic and racial profiles to target suspected drug couriers. After the 9\/11 attacks, the Patriot Act treated every American like a terrorist suspect. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court secretly ruled in 2006 that all Americans\u2019 telephone records were \u201crelevant\u201d to terrorism investigations and thus could be poached.\u00a0The National Security Agency entitled itself to snuff the privacy of anyone \u201csearching the Web for suspicious stuff.\u201d\u00a0A federal report admitted last year that FBI warrantless<\/a> searches had zapped the privacy of more than 3 million Americans, but Congress recently extended the FISA law with no reform.<\/p>\n

Haggard\u2019s 1982 song had a piercing refrain: \u201cAre we rolling down hill like a snowball headed for Hell?\u201d He tacked on an upbeat ending: \u201cThe best of the free life is still yet to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he lost hope and lamented before his death: \u201cIn 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there\u2019s available to an average citizen in America right now . . . God almighty, what have we done to each other?\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Haggard\u2019s passing in 2016, freedom is even more of an endangered species.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The biggest sea change is the plummeting number of Americans who cherish their own liberty. Many of the protesters who vehemently denounce Donald Trump or Joe Biden are not opposed to dictators per se; they simply want different dictates. No wonder a 2022 nationwide poll found that six times as many Americans expected their rights and freedoms to decline in the next decade, compared to the number expecting an increase.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it is easier to document the loss of freedom than to rouse people to defend their own rights. But citizens cannot shrug off rising oppression until a neon \u201cHere Comes Tyranny!\u201d sign flashes in Times Square. Liberty is invaluable regardless of how many politicians seek to destroy it or how many fools fail to cherish it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Story of my life: I get a great headline & am then outshined by a naked cop https:\/\/t.co\/fHThkD6N00<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/4yD1sFDUNm<\/a><\/p>\n

— James Bovard (@JimBovard) March 2, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n