Land of the Free?
Recently Fascism has slowly been making its way into modern-day American society.
For those of us rusty on the meaning of this political term, fascism is when the government has full control of what goes on in a country. Meaning, that the government controls labor and business, and opposition is not permitted in a Fascist nation. Three recent examples of Fascism in the U.S. are the Book Banning laws passed in August 2022, the “Don’t Say Gay'' law passed in Florida, and national changes to Women’s reproductive rights due to the 2022 Supreme Court Ruling Dobbs vs. Jackson that overturned the earlier ruling of Roe vs. Wade. The people who initiated these laws and rendered this court ruling have their public reasons for these legal changes, but what if there is an underlying agenda? These laws limit student rights to a thorough education, freedom of education choice, and women’s freedom of “my body, my choice”. The Declaration of Independence states, “They are [the people of America] endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” How are we, the people of America, the home of the free, supposed to live by the foundation of America when our own government seems to oppose the thought of living our lives with liberty? The American government is supposed to be a democracy, but recent actions are bringing up the question of whether or not the government values our forefather's democratic views, it is seen as un-American. Not only can we call these new legal changes un-American, they are hurting the American people and those in power promoting them are disguising the true intent of these new laws.
Book Banning Doesn’t Protect American Kids
The Booking Banning Law passed in Florida last year, CS/HB 1467 - k-12 education, states “the bill (chapter 2022-21, L.O.F.) establishes 12-year term limits for a school board member and modifies school district requirements for instructional materials, including instructional materials in school libraries and media centers to provide increased oversights, and public access to, all materials used in instruction.” This bill is broad and allows for different people to interpret it in whatever way they wish. Promoters of this legislation and those who voted to pass it argue it was put into place to “protect” the children, to keep them from knowing information the “do not” need to know. Their argument is the same one given by many parent groups in the U.S. who are working to ban specific books from school libraries and curriculums, which is that the bans are needed to keep the teachers from teaching “explicit” information to kids.
This should lead us to ask what is actually classified as “explicit information”?
According to the article “Banned in the USA: State Laws Supercharge Book Suppression in Schools” from Pen America, in most cases books being removed from classrooms are any that include conversations about or by characters that discuss Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender community (LGBTQ) and/or People of Color (POC). Conservatives are gaining access to what children, and students, learn and because of this, they have the power to shape the students’ minds to what they believe in. There is no room to learn about the true history of America.
Women’s Rights are Vanishing
Over the years women have fought long and hard to be treated equally to men, to have the same rights men have. Historically from Suffragettes to the Black Lives Movement and The Women’s March, American women have gathered together to protest and change the unequal ways of society. Women were viewed as in-superior to men, all races of men. Women did not receive the right to vote until after the African American people were given the right to vote.
Today, women are running companies, to achieve their goals. But due to recent changes in laws, such as Roe v Wade, women are going back into a suppressive slump. Recent abortion laws have opened up the gateway to the suppression of women’s rights once again.
Picture Marisol, a fifteen-year-old girl and straight-A student living in the U.S. She teaches STEM classes to younger kids at the Science Workshop in her community. After feeling nauseous she decides to take a pregnancy test. As she waits for the results to come in, she begins to panic. Her palms sweat and her lungs tighten. She cannot have a baby; she has the rest of her schooling to think about! The test is positive. Marisol talks to her mom, but because of recent abortion laws in her state, it is now illegal to terminate the pregnancy. To even reach a state where abortion is legal, would require a three-day drive. However, she cannot go alone and her mother can’t borrow a car or take off work to get her to the clinic. Marisol spends most of the school day paralyzed with fear about her future. What was once promising will now be shaped by the welfare of her child and not her academics.
As a nation we need to unite and protest against these fascist laws, we have the right to do so, especially if it goes against our right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. We need to spread the word about these fascist views in the hope to end it for good. The United States is a democracy, and it is our job, the people of America, to make sure it stays that way for our own protection.