South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the young Democrat seeking the party’s 2020 nomination, has introduced a new freedom into the catalog of so-called freedoms used to justify the expansion of government: the freedom from cable companies.
Buttigieg, who has been a bit of a rising star among Democrats, has as part of his stump speech a riff about how conservatives have the wrong idea about freedom. He thought his comments were so insightful that his social media team clipped them and posted them to his Twitter account.
“We’ve allowed our conservative friends to get a monopoly on the idea of freedom,” Buttigieg said. “Now they care about freedom, but they care about a very specific kind of freedom: freedom from. Freedom from regulation, as though government were the only thing that could make us unfree. But that’s not true, is it? We know that your neighbor can make you unfree, your cable company can make you unfree. If they’re telling you who you ought to marry, your county clerk can make you unfree. You’re not free if you’re afraid to start a small business, because leaving your old job would mean losing your healthcare. You’re not free if there is a veil of mistrust between you as a person of color and the officers who are sworn to keep you safe. You’re not free if your reproductive choices are being dictated by male politicians in Washington.”
WIBC host Tony Katz responds to Mayor Buttigieg’s lunacy in today’s Popcorn Moment:
