Hang Onto Your Big Version of Freedom, Yanks

“Freedom” is a big word — right up there with “love” when it comes to being something people say they would die for. What, though, does “freedom” mean, and does it mean different things to different nations, like, say, the USA and the UK?American freedom is a big, poetic thing, as befits its founding and the sheer size of it; from the huddled masses yearning to breathe free to the bikers heading out on the highway looking for adventure. The British idea of freedom is a more modest thing.It has its epic moment — it was in the van in the defeat of the Nazis and the way we stood alone until the big countries saw fit to join us. We’re also the country who had a revolution and then reinstated a monarch, which indicates a somewhat less than passionate attachment to rampant self-determination.Which brings me to Keir Starmer and Kamala Harris. It’s notable that in her bid for power she seems a lot keener on talking about freedom than he was during his. Sir Keir was elected on a feeling that Britain had maybe had a bit too much freedom, and that we had reacted to the heady feeling like hyped-up children at a sugar-rushing birthday party, ending up thrashing around and lashing out on the trampoline of Brexit.Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer at London, July 5, 2024. AP/Kin CheungSir Keir’s wet-blanket appeal was not of a fearless freedom-rider but restorer of boundaries; social media memes frequently compared him to a schoolteacher disappointed by his unruly pupils. “The grown-ups are back in the room,” his supporters said smugly after his victory.Within weeks Britain’s cities were witnessing wildfire riots, the Starmer government’s reaction to which was to enthusiastically remove the freedom to say stupid things on the internet. Though we had previously been told that the prisons were full and thus even violent criminals would be released early, now it appeared that there was limitless jail space for citizens who took their presumed right to freedom of speech too literally.There has been a shared feeling in both the UK and the USA for a while that while the freedoms of law-abiding people are being curtailed, freedom for the lawless is forever increasing — often due to government looking the other way. This is reflected in everything from the virtual decriminalization of crimes from shoplifting to rape. While Sir Keir has done nothing to contradict this in his short time in leadership, Vice President Harris appears to be portraying herself as a kind of just-folks Marianne — like the symbol of French liberty but without the Phrygian cap.Vice President Harris after accepting the Democratic presidential nomination on August 22, 2024. Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesMs. Harris seeks to be seen as robustly leading decent American people into the fray in defense of freedom, with Old Glory in one hand and a glass of rose in the other. Her idea of freedom is vastly different to the rugged individualist kind which has become so iconically representative of the US to us in the UK.From what we can see, she wants to make your idea of freedom far more like ours; a communal kind of freedom for which individuals must be encouraged to make sacrifices — and if not responding appropriately to encouragement, then forced to give up things for the greater good. Which really isn’t any kind of freedom at all.Is the young generation, from which Ms. Harris is hoping to be handed her victory, all that bothered about freedom anyway? There have been an alarming number of surveys — in both the UK and the USA — which appear to show that young people are far less keen on democracy and more well-disposed to dictatorship than older voters.We might have guessed this from their love of canceling and censuring, while the risk-averse behavior outlines in books like Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” may indicate not common sense but rather a suspicion of “too much” personal freedom. I’ve often thought that if rock ’n’ roll was invented today, the kids would be the ones burning their parents’ records. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” sang Janis Joplin, but it’s no truer now than it’s ever been. I hope you don’t elect your own Keir Starmer, for all her showing off about all the freedoms with which she’s going to shower you.I hope you don’t end up like we in the UK will likely be soon, shivering in our 15-minute-cities, rationing power, outlawing cars. Keep your big, beautiful freedom for as long as you can, so that if we ever decide we want ours back, we still have somewhere to look there under the light by the golden door.

Hang Onto Your Big Version of Freedom, Yanks

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