POMPEO: The Left’s Dangerous Attempt To Redefine “Freedom”

Today America risks forgetting our Founders’ conception of freedom, a dangerous reality that puts all Americans at greater risk and imperils our republic.

The “rights” so eloquently asserted in our Declaration of Independence and enumerated in our Constitution and Bill of Rights are of a fundamentally different character than the rights we often hear about from politicians today – especially those on the progressive Left.  Take the Democratic National Convention last week: The word “freedom” was a major theme of the convention, and Vice President Harris claimed that in this election, Americans’ “fundamental freedoms” were at stake.  Simply put, she, Tim Walz, and the rest of the progressive movement want you to believe that they are now the standard-bearers of “freedom.”  The truth is that their definition of "freedom" is that you get to make a choice – as long as you make the "right" (read, radical leftist) choice.

You’re free to have a stove in your kitchen, but it can’t be a gas stove.  As ridiculous as it sounds, this was a real proposal pursued by the Biden-Harris Administration before it was pilloried by ordinary Americans.  The very idea that the federal government would have any authority to tell Americans what kind of stove they cook their dinner on would have been absurd to our Founding Fathers.

You’re free to own a car, but it definitely can’t use gasoline.  In less than a decade, the Biden-Harris Administration wants more than half of all new cars sold to be electric.  It wants to accomplish this not by the power of a free and competitive market, but through the dictates of the federal government.  No matter how many tax credits and subsidies the White House makes available to force this outcome, the truth is that this is a terrible thing for our domestic automotive industry.  Indeed, Ford’s earning projections from earlier this year indicated that simply cutting its EV production would actually increase profits by 50%.  But climate change is a more urgent issue for progressives than supporting American jobs and industries.  It is even more important than the security of our economic security, as the Chinese Communist Party has a stranglehold over the EV supply chain.  Layoffs, failing American industries, and dependence on our chief adversary – that isn’t freedom.

Progressives’ “freedom” agenda extends into our culture too: According to them, you are free to adopt or foster children, so long as you disavow your Christian faith.  It sounds unbelievable, but it is true: Under the guise of inclusivity, the Biden-Harris Administration has pushed policies that would limit or outright reject foster parents who are faithful Christians – a disastrous proposal, given that Christian families make up more than 65% of foster homes.  And the implications of such a rule for the future of religious freedom are terrible to even consider.

In politics, do not pay attention to the slogan; pay attention to the actions.  The actions of progressives in the Biden-Harris Administration betray their true intent for America.  Their vision isn’t really about child welfare, safe communities, “freedom from pollution,” climate change, or any other item on the progressives’ wish list.  For progressives, rights and freedoms only exist insofar as they are useful for winning elections, establishing control, and enforcing ideological conformity.  Thus, you are “free” to own the car or stove that progressives say you can own.  Free speech is considered “free” when it is the right kind of speech. Even the freedom of religion – our first and most important freedom – takes on a completely different and contradictory meaning when a religion’s adherents reject progressive dogma.

The far Left believes that government exists to create and distribute rights, rather than to secure only those rights that are by their nature inalienable and are inhered in all people by virtue of our humanity.  Their vision is antithetical to that of our Founders, and that is why it is so important to push back against it.  For the last four years, we have seen what the Left’s governing philosophy has done to our country: We have massive inflation, homes are unaffordable, our political culture is deeply divided, and the world is more unstable now than it has been in decades.  If we want to restore the principles that have made America the strongest, most prosperous, and most decent nation in human history, we should begin by discerning which candidates actually believe in them.