"The Liberty Way"
Via TPM:
When Mitt Romney stands up at Liberty University Saturday to deliver the school’s commencement address, he’s unlikely to be faced with the kind of long, floppy hair that reportedly so angered him in high school… According to a copy of the school handbook, “The Liberty Way”, shared with TPM by People for the American Way, the rules governing hair on Liberty’s campus are very strict. From the rules for men:
Hair and clothing styles related to a counterculture (as determined by the Student Affairs Deans’ Review Committee) are not acceptable. Hair should be cut in such a way that it will not come over the ears, collar or eyebrows at any time. Ponytails for men are unacceptable.
When did words like Liberty and Freedom become codewords for authoritarianism?
ReplyDeleteFrom the moment the GOP defined itself by its opposition to the New Deal, exacerbated when it defined itself in opposition to the Great Society and became an effective anti-labor movement by mobilizing white working class race-hatred via the Southern Strategy. Oh, wait, was that a rhetorical question?
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't a rhetorical question. I noticed that Reagan used the word Freedom a lot when I was a teenager and I found his usage of the word odd. But it's only in the past ten years that I noticed that it was used as a code word for authoritarianism and triumphalism. I'm aware that it's been used that way for longer.
ReplyDelete> I noticed that Reagan used the word Freedom a lot when I was
ReplyDelete> a teenager and I found his usage of the word odd. But it's
> only in the past ten years that I noticed that it was used
> as a code word for authoritarianism and triumphalism.s a code
> word for authoritarianism and triumphalism.
"Freedom" is a bi-valent word (I just made that up ;-> ).
If you've got the short end of the stick, it means getting out
from under the thumbs of the oppressors.
If you're one of the privileged, it means being able to do whatever
the hell you want without having to listen to the whining
of the losers you might have to step on along the way.
It's a great political word, because **some** positive interpretation
of the speaker's intent can be conjured up in the mind of any hearer,
although some of those interpretations will be diametrically
opposed to each other.
IOW, YMMV. ;->