“Liberals don’t care what you do, so long as it’s mandatory.” — M. Stanton Evans

This week a coalition of leftist groups released an ad for Kamala Harris that contains what the New York Times describes as the “unified message from the left.” What is the message? The election is all about “our freedom” – by which they mean their freedom, not yours.

As the Times puts it, leftist groups tested its “freedom” messaging in the 2022 midterms to “reclaim the language about freedom and personal liberty,” which they say helped “blunt what had been expected to be a sweeping victory for Republicans.”

As we noted in this space recently, Harris has been talking up the theme of freedom, although she struggled to even name three. (See: “Kamala The Authoritarian Calls Election A ‘Fight For Freedom’.”)

The ad puts it this way: “This election is about two different futures. One where we control our lives. And one where they do.”

The people who made the ad should be charged with false advertising.

Let’s look at the freedom scorecard. It’s leftist Democrats such as Kamala Harris who:

• Proposed a constitutional amendment that would shred the First Amendment’s free speech protections.
• Worked with Big Tech to censor content they didn’t like, something that Democrats – not Republicans – overwhelmingly favor.
• Pushed a California bill that would criminalize speech questioning the “consensus” on climate change.
• Said, as Tim Walz did: “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.”
• Constantly push speech codes on college campuses and block conservative speakers.
• Proposed the “Equality Act,” a bill that, as Rabbi Avi Shafran, explained “insults our nation’s foundational commitment to the rights of religious believers.”
• Gleefully used COVID as an excuse to lock people in their homes, close businesses, ban people from going to church (but not rioting), censor what we could say, and require Americans to wear masks and take experimental vaccines.
• Plan to dictate every aspect of our lives in the name of “climate change.”
• Want to shred the Second Amendment. Harris has previously endorsed Australia’s mandatory gun buybacks and its draconian controls on gun ownership. Last fall, California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a constitutional convention of the states to rewrite the Second Amendment, an idea that the state’s Democratically controlled legislature approved.
• Oppose letting parents choose the schools that best meet their children’s needs and uphold their family values.
• Force workers to pay union dues, even if they don’t join the union, cripple people’s ability to work gig jobs, control what employers pay their workers, and control what prices people can charge for their goods and services.
• Decide what kind of cars we can drive, how we cook our food and how we heat our homes.
• Force everyone onto a single government-run health plan and dictate how doctors can treat their patients.

We could add to this list forever.

Are there “freedoms” that conservatives want to take away? Sure. Things such as: The freedom to burn down cities and deface public property. The freedom to cross the border illegally. The freedom to murder unborn children even after they exit the womb. The freedom of elementary schools to carry pornography in their libraries. The freedom of children to mutilate themselves in the name of “gender identity.” The freedom of unaccountable government bureaucrats to control every aspect of our lives.

Those are the “freedoms” the left wants to protect. Do Americans understand the difference?

They better, before it’s too late.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board