Donnie, Prince of Orange: Ruler by divine right? God forbid!

I just read a scary story in the LA Times: Is Donald Trump a new King David? Ask California’s right-wing Sons of Liberty The fact that a number of Americans think along the lines in the article is what I find most scary. I thought the Divine Right of Kings was eliminated centuries ago, but it looks frighteningly like The Donald might be trying to bring it back. Have you read the Project 2025 manifesto? “The Mandate states that "freedom is defined by God, not man."^[13] That's almost as bleak as Kris Kristofferson’s wonderful line from Me and Bobby McGee: “Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose” 

LeGuin: Divine Right of Kings quote

One of my favorite writers, Ursula K. LeGuin, has offered a much more positive perspective on freedom, embedded in an equally concerning warning in her speech at the National Book Awards years ago. That  speech was the source of the quote above. Please go read the whole thing.

Minnesota once had a US Senator who could, from time to time, be infuriating, but he was a real human being. We need to elect more politicians who believe, as Paul Wellstone did, that: “We all do better when we all do better.” Remember, we can’t all be first but we can all do better. Now, ask yourself, if monarchy is so great, why isn’t the United States still a British colony.

Freedom

By Jill McDonough

I talk to the students in jail about freedom, how in America

we obsess over it, write it over flags on T-shirts, spread

it around under eagles. It has something to do with guns

and fireworks, Harley-Davidsons, New Hampshire, living free

until you’re dead. I tell the students I think the people

fetishizing freedom don’t mean it. That they really mean

look over here, away from all the slavery

we did, away from all the jail! I tell them they

are the experts, ask them to write what freedom means:

privacy is freedom and if  you feel held back, afraid

to do something, you’re not completely free.   No fear

of  loss. No fear of  hunger, no fear of  pain.   A body

to call my own, a voice driven by my own mind.

The security of a dry, warm place to sleep.   To own

my own time left here.   Being able to hold my son

at night.   Showering in private.   Freedom to me

is having the choice to walk away from a fight. Freedom

a work in progress. Everyday freedom, the real work for us all.

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