The People. Of, By, and For

Tag: free speech

  • The Dangers of Distorting American History Perspectives

    The Dangers of Distorting American History Perspectives

    On March 27th, 2025 the executive order for “Restoring the Truth and Sanity to American History” was signed. At first, I thought to post the text of the order in its entirety to let it speak for itself, but truthfully I don’t want to give it a platform, no matter how small and insignificant this one is. I encourage you to go and read it for yourself rather than take my word, or anyone else’s word, as the framework for what you believe. All I can offer are my thoughts which are filtered through the biases of my world view and upbringing, as are everyone’s. 

    This executive order reads as if written by someone who is personally offended that the truth of history shows that White males weren’t always the benevolent and righteous actors they want to think they were. They specifically call out two exhibits that discuss racial oppression and one that celebrates trans athletes. It reads as though the writer believes that those exhibits are direct personal attacks rather than the illustration of a perspective on history.

    This idea that only one picture of history has space to exist is dangerous and disgusting. It is an attempt to deny the existence of other perspectives. Just because someone’s experience shows white males in a negative light does not mean it is invalid. Celebrating black history, or telling the truth of black history in America is in no way, shape, or form a bad thing. 

    I cannot overstate how repugnant and hateful it is to couch this history as insane lies. And from the Office of the President of the United States? This is just a green light for racists around the country to feel emboldened. 

    The United States is, and always has been, a work in progress. Part of what makes this country so great is the admission that we have gotten things wrong along the way, but we still endeavor to fix them. As a nation we strive to further broaden the definitions of freedom and liberty that the country was founded upon because we recognize that the men who originally framed it were imperfect. The constitution is framed as a living document for the express purpose of being able to change to meet the needs of an evolving society. Enacting change in an effort to further expand equality to all people is exactly what it means to be American. 

    History is not meant to make you comfortable and secure. It is there to serve as a record of what decisions led to what outcomes. This information should then be used to make course corrections or improvements to further an equality before the law for all people. 

    The reaction to history that makes us uncomfortable is not to try and erase it or eliminate those voices from society. The reaction is to understand why it makes us uncomfortable, what that says about us, and then enact change to better align with who we are as a person. Simply refusing to believe something, or claiming it’s revisionist because it hurts your feelings is as dangerous as it is unintelligent. If Black voices speaking about racism makes you uncomfortable you should be asking why that is the case. 

    No human is without mistakes. Many of the beliefs that would make us shy away from the truth of our nation were ingrained in us before we were capable of understanding ourselves. We have the freedom to choose to be better. To choose to deconstruct our biases. To choose to embrace the most American ideal of them all.

    Progress.

    — The People. Of, By, and For

  • Schumer’s Mistake: A Lesson in Political Cowardice

    Schumer’s Mistake: A Lesson in Political Cowardice

    First, it has been a little over a week since the last post. I had a 9 day break from work and I couldn’t bring myself to stay minute to minute everyday with what is going on in this Country and around the world. So I didn’t. I needed a reprieve from the simmering rage that lurks below the surface of my being as I watch so many of my peers in this country sit idly by while we go careening into the abyss that is Trump’s authoritarian government. Unfortunately, my refusal to engage with the news did not mean that it stopped happening. 

    Perhaps most dispiriting, at least it’s where I’m going to start this week, Chuck Schumer and a cadre of senate democrats bent the knee to their liege in the making by choosing not to vote against the GOP Continuing Resolution for the budget. This is the first step in Trump’s effort to pass a budget which guts many services that work and advocate for the average American and add an estimated $4.5 Trillion to the national debt, all to service expanding tax cuts for the wealthiest few in the nation. The hypocrisy of the debt growth alone is enough to want to light things on fire. 

    Schumer’s defense of his decision was to avoid a government shutdown which he felt would lead to even less oversight on the dismantling of our government that is taking place. A fair point to make, and one I can’t poke holes in or dismiss. However, despite how valid avoiding a shutdown for that reason may be, Schumer capitulated to vote without getting anything in return from the GOP. He asked for no concessions, no guarantees, made no attempt to bargain at all. He threw away what little leverage the opposition party (read democrats) had and gave the GOP everything they wanted with no fight. 

    The precedent set is grim when taken in context to say the least. 

    Schumer has shown that the GOP can get anything they want without asking, or even pretending to work in good faith to compromise. We could see in the run up to the vote that the GOP propaganda machine was positioning the narrative that it would be the Democrats’ fault if the government shut down. Anyone with half a brain cell who chose to look at what was happening could see that the only course of action the Democrats had to try and protect the American people was to vote no and play hardball for concessions or guarantees. Yes, their no vote would lead to a government shutdown, but it is the prerogative of the party in charge to reach some semblance of a bipartisan agreement to pass their initiatives. If you want your shit passed, don’t try and pass overwhelmingly unpopular bills that bring harm to your constituents.

    Instead, the GOP played schoolyard bully and Shcumer rolled over and gave up his lunch money without even saying “please no”. Except it’s not his lunch money at stake. It’s our, the average working American, livelihood. Without Social Security, medicare/medicaid, and many other services on the chopping block Americans will suffer. And when you look at the data, a large percentage of those suffering will be Trump/GOP voters. As much as I am empathetic to struggle and suffering on an individual scale, this is EXACTLY what they voted for when they let propaganda blind them with racism and misogyny.

    Now the American People will pay the price for Schumer’s cowardice and any leverage that the Democrats may have had to try and protect the people is gone. Next time there is a vote for something important, maybe avoiding another shut down, all the propaganda machine has to say is “Well they voted for the CR but they won’t vote for this? They must hate America”. And in the back channels of Capitol Hill, where these deals are hammered out, there will be zero reason for the GOP to even pretend to be making an effort at bipartisanship. Chuck Schumer did not want to take the drastic step of refusing to capitulate, instead trusting that the “establishment” would continue to act as guardrails to reign in the out of control, petulant, want to be dictator in office and his party. 

    Schumer, and the rest of us, need to come to grips with the fact that the “establishment” is dead. It died on the steps of the Capitol on January 6th, 2021 after a long, drawn out battle against oligarchs and authoritarians in this country and their desire to see liberal democracy burn at the stake for their wealth.

    The guardrails are gone. We are watching as the President of the United States threatens judges who rule against him and insinuates that he doesn’t have to follow their judgements. We have to begin treating this as the threat that it is. The Founders and Framers, for all their faults, knew what tyranny looked like. The American Experiment was founded on the express principle of standing up to tyranny. The Experiment is failing. 

    — The People. Of, By, and For

  • The American Paradox

    The American Paradox

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

    The opening lines to the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence define what it means to be an American. That all of us are created equal and are entitled to rights that are protected by the Government that operates at the consent of us, The People. It was written by an enslaver, Thomas Jefferson.

    This is the American Paradox. Our freedom and liberty comes, and has always come, at the expense of others. Namely Black and Brown Americans and Women. The travesty of modern America is that many still cling to the ideal of White Male Supremacy, as though including others in equality before the law is somehow encroaching upon individual freedom and liberty. 

    It is undeniable that at the time of writing “all men are created equal” only meant White, Male, and owning property to the founders. This was consistent with the prevailing worldview where everyone else was considered a second class citizen, if considered a person at all. 

    What we see in today’s political climate is an effort to return to this worldview. The GOP has convinced a large portion of working class Americans that things like DEI initiatives, women’s rights, and rights of marginalized people are a direct attack on their freedom and liberty. This fear is then used to stoke those voters to vote directly against their own personal interests. Nothing about the current economic realities or outlooks benefit these average Americans. In fact, they are doing incredible harm to their ability to live a financially secure life. 

    The GOP conned them into voting for white supremacy disguised as “safeguarding their liberty”. And for the hateful racists who voted for and cheered on hoping for a return to antebellum era hierarchical stratification, they are not the white, male, property owning group the GOP is trying to enrich. Trump and Co. are using their racist ideals to leave them behind with the same groups of people they think they are better than. To be nothing more than a disposable labor resource with which to enrich themselves. 

    To be blunt, the retention of the idea that freedom and liberty is dependent on the marginalization of “the other” should be seen as unequivocally un-American. 

    This Nation has demonstrated a great capacity for societal change. We ended slavery in the face of being told it would mean the end of the American Experiment. We created a social safety net in the wake of the depression caused by the unregulated rich. We said that all couples, straight or gay, had the right to marry. This is just to name a few, and each time there were loud voices screaming that the change would mean the end of America as we knew it. But that was the fucking point. America as we knew it no longer served the realities of our society, so change was needed. Just like in the 1760’s when the founders realized that the colonies as they knew it needed to change in order to fit their burgeoning society. Enacting change, radical change, to serve the needs of its people is what it means to be American. 

    We are duly obligated as a nation to recognize this American Paradox of inequality masquerading as freedom and to enact “radical” change to bring it in line with a modern worldview. Just as our founders did.

    If the Constitution is a living document, able to be amended and changed in order to serve the needs of a changing society, then so too should the Declaration be. Though it may not have been originally written as inclusive of all humans, in today’s day and age the only morally correct interpretation, that is in the interest of every American, is every single person in this nation is created equally and afforded the same rights. The tenets of what it meant to be American were written in line with what the current worldview at the time meant. It only serves as logical that as the world view changes, that definition changes with it. Therefore, clinging to white supremacy is un-American. I will die on this hill. 

    — The People. Of, By, and For

  • Free Speech: The Most American Ideal

    Free Speech: The Most American Ideal

    Update 3/14/2025:

    I don’t know if this is new information period, or just new information to me. Either way, it defies words. The Trump family’s World Liberty Financial cryptocurrency venture, which 75 cents of every dollar paid goes straight to the Trump Family’s pockets, is in conversations over a deal with the US arm of Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange. This is the same company whose founder, Changpeng Zhao, is petitioning President Trump for a pardon for his part in the anti-money laundering case levied against Binance in 2023. They were convicted of laundering money for sanctioned entities like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Hamas. The President of the United States of America, who is unconstitutionally detaining an American green card holder under the guise of being “sympathetic to Hamas”, is actively negotiating a deal with a company convicted of providing funds to Hamas.

    _____________________________________________

    In the early night hours of March 8th, 2025 the democratic principles of freedom in the United States were dealt grievous, and potentially irrevocable, harm. Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holding permanent resident married to a US citizen, was arrested from his apartment by plainclothes ICE agents. He has not been charged with any crime, and to date there is no evidence to support that he has committed a crime at all. The only thing Mr. Khalil has done is to exercise his right as someone under the jurisdiction of the US Constitution to express his opinion. His right to free speech. 

    He was arrested because Donald Trump and his administration didn’t like what he was saying. 

    This is not a pro Palestine or pro Israel debate, which itself is a whole other destructive can of worms to open. Set all of that aside. This is a conversation about the First Amendment to the Constitution that has been held sacred for centuries in this country. 

    For reference, the First Amendment states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. 

    Mr. Khalil was arrested for leading a peaceful protest movement at Columbia University. This was a pro-Palestine protest that ran immediately counter to the staunchly pro-Israel establishment government. Again, this is not a discussion of that conflict, however it is important to understand the context of what is being used to justify the aggressively unconstitutional move by the Trump administration. For context, Miriam Adelson donated $100 Million to Trump’s 2024 campaign in exchange for assurances that he would support Israel’s desire to annex and take control of the West Bank. This is the same woman who has been quoted as saying that Trump deserves a “Book of Trump” in the Bible for his support of Israeli interests.

    Mahmoud Khalil had the audacity to speak against those interests.  

    This must be seen as the proverbial act of “crossing the Rubicon”. This must be the point at which all Americans realize that their fundamental rights as citizens are under attack and stand up against it. The way in which free speech is codified in the US Constitution is a uniquely American ideal. The Founders and Framers saw the freedom of expression of any and all ideas, and the protection of the individual to do so, was so important that it led the Bill of Rights which specifically limited federal government power, judicial overreach, and insured personal rights and freedoms of the individual. 

    Before this is written off as unimportant because Mahmoud Khalil is “some foreign national political dissident” and “they would never do this to real citizens”, let us remember that the US constitution, and the rights afforded therein, apply to anyone and everyone that find themselves under its jurisdiction. This includes illegal or undocumented immigrants, to say nothing of a green card holding permanent resident. 

    On Tuesday March 11th, 2025, President Donald Trump used the Office of the President and the South Lawn of the White House to film a commercial for the richest man in the world and his recently struggling car brand. During this waste and abuse of government time and office, Trump said that boycotts of Tesla were illegal and anyone doing so was, and I quote, a “domestic terrorist”. 

    Does anyone want to guess what Mahmoud Khalil is being accused of despite the lack of any and all evidence? 

    “First they came for the Communists

    And I did not speak out

    Because I was not a Communist

    Then they came for the Socialists

    And I did not speak out

    Because I was not a Socialist

    Then they came for the trade unionists

    And I did not speak out

    Because I was not a trade unionist

    Then they came for the Jews

    And I did not speak out

    Because I was not a Jew

    Then they came for me

    And there was no one left

    To speak out for me”

    – Pastor Martin Niemoller

    Americans must set aside their politics, their racism, or any other belief they hold that creates separation and unite in one voice to vehemently defend their rights as citizens. 

    Mahmoud Khalil is being illegally detained for exercising his right to free speech in an effort to set precedent for arresting those individuals that disagree with the Trump administration writ large. Even if you don’t believe it is that serious, which I believe is incredibly naive and misguided, it is not a risk you should be willing to take. 

    Our literal freedom as individuals is at stake.

    — The People. Of, By, and For