What Makes Us Free?:

Is it the right to shout from the rooftops, to gather in protest, to buy and sell whatever our little capitalist hearts desire? Is that what freedom is? Because, if so, we should all be feeling pretty free right about now. Yet, strangely, there’s this gnawing sense that something’s off—like we’re walking around in a nation that calls itself "land of the free" while people mysteriously disappear into unmarked vans, and somehow that’s just another Tuesday.

Remember the 1960s and 70s? The civil rights movement, women’s liberation, labor organizing—it was an era when Americans dared to demand that freedom apply to everyone, not just the chosen few. The streets filled with people who understood that freedom without justice is just a marketing slogan. And they fought, bled, and sometimes died to make real change. Laws were passed, minds were shifted, and for a brief, shining moment, it seemed like the arc of history might actually be bending toward justice.

Fast-forward to today, and it turns out that arc is a lot more rubbery than we thought. Because now, in this new golden age of law and order (read: state-sponsored kidnapping), we’ve got government forces snatching people from the streets and shipping them off to El Salvador’s most notorious prison. A place so infamous for its brutality that even actual dictators might wince. And all of this without due process, because who needs the archaic right to face your accuser when you have a government that already knows who the "bad guys" are?

Ah yes, freedom. That cherished principle we are told justifies every war, every tax cut for the wealthy, every surveillance program, and every corporate bailout. But when it comes to something as quaint as the right to a fair trial? Suddenly, we’re told that security is more important. That we should trust the authorities. That if you weren’t guilty, you wouldn’t have been disappeared in the first place. How convenient.

So what makes us free? Certainly not just the Constitution, which these days seems more like a list of suggestions. Not the Supreme Court, which increasingly serves as rubber stamps for executive overreach. And definitely not the idea that we all have rights that can’t be taken away—because clearly, they can. So, are we truly free?

But true freedom is not given; it is demanded. Lincoln understood this when he fought to preserve the Union and end slavery, and FDR knew it when he declared that “freedom from fear and want” were just as essential as speech and assembly. We, the people, are the guardians of our own liberty. The Constitution is not a relic; it is our shield, and we must wield it. When our representatives trample our rights, we must stand up as those before us did, with the unshakable belief that democracy is not a spectator sport. We march not just for ourselves, but for future generations who deserve better. The power has always belonged to us, and when we rise together—undaunted, unafraid, and unwilling to accept anything less than true justice—then and only then are we truly free.