They're Taking Away My Freedom

They're taking away my freedom.  I'm no longer free to enter a bar in Ohio without fear of being shot by someone carrying a now legally concealed weapon, perhaps because this person doesn't like my political opinions, or my posture, or because his or her animus is aimed at somebody else in the bar but the bullets miss or pass through others (or walls) before hitting me.  This is thanks to the Republican governor and legislature of Ohio.

I am not free to even eat in a restaurant, with or without my grand-niece, in certain states and municipalities without the same fear.

I'm no longer free to enjoy nature in a national park without the possibility of being shot by a legally carried weapon.  This is thanks to the U.S. Congress and President Obama.

In various states and municipalities, I am no longer free to participate in a political event, or a sporting event, or any public event at all, without fear of being shot by someone with a legally carried and/or concealed weapon.

In some states--and if a number of current bills become law in many others-- I would no longer be free to register and vote without undergoing a variety of unrelated and even onerous complications.  And possibly I would not be able to vote at all.  In Florida, I would not be free to participate in registering new voters.

There are laws on the books or bills in legislatures that would take away my freedom--and even more so, a woman's freedom-- to obtain medical care, counselling and reproductive health information.  Or to legally use the most frequently used methods of birth control.  A woman would be forced to bear the child of her rapist, which entails so many other legal and moral quandaries that she (or her spouse) wouldn't have the freedom to do much else but work to pay lawyers.  These are all laws or proposals by GOPer Rabid Right zealots who fill state legislatures and state houses across the country.

Now they're talking about taking away my freedom to believe anything but their brand of Christianity.  They're adamant about taking away rights to people whose sexual orientation they don't like.

My freedoms are being taken away most obviously by those who claim to be against having freedoms taken away.  This country is becoming less free every day, not to mention cynically manipulated and manifestly insane.