Freedom of speech? Yes and no. The government has freedom of speech, but American TikTok clones do not. If TikTok users are successfully forced to use YouTube Shorts instead, they’ll get stuck with YouTube’s censorship and content control for corporate friendliness and user engagement. People like Elon give “free speech” a bad name, but it is actually a problem if for most people “the internet” is controlled by a small number of big technology companies and those companies use their positions, intentionally or not, to suppress ideas and control public discourse. TikTok users will still need to use words like “unalive” on platforms owned by American corporations.
Constitutional protections for your home and property? Not really. Many people are renting and protections for renters vary by state. Property can be stolen by police through civil asset forfeiture.
The opportunity to improve your socioeconomic standings, ie The American Dream, is largely a myth. Recently, the poor get poorer. Real estate values and cost of living are climbing much faster than wages for those at the bottom. If you’re at the bottom, it’s even more difficult than usual to get the four year degree and years of prior job experience required for many entry level positions with better pay.
America has legal slavery enshrined in the constitution. If somebody is convicted of a crime, they can be sent to private prisons to do slave labor for somebody else’s profit. This disproportionately affects poor people and minorities.
These freedoms are a strength indeed, but they are also a vulnerability that can be exploited by foreign powers. Freedoms remain free so long as the people exercising those freedoms do so responsibly. I think a lot of people in the US do not exercise this freedom responsibly. I think a lot of Americans are being manipulated into voting in autocracy. Ironically.
Complete and total freedom is just anarchy, and anarchy collapses on itself and turns into autocracy.
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Freedom of speech? Yes and no. The government has freedom of speech, but American TikTok clones do not. If TikTok users are successfully forced to use YouTube Shorts instead, they’ll get stuck with YouTube’s censorship and content control for corporate friendliness and user engagement. People like Elon give “free speech” a bad name, but it is actually a problem if for most people “the internet” is controlled by a small number of big technology companies and those companies use their positions, intentionally or not, to suppress ideas and control public discourse. TikTok users will still need to use words like “unalive” on platforms owned by American corporations.
Constitutional protections for your home and property? Not really. Many people are renting and protections for renters vary by state. Property can be stolen by police through civil asset forfeiture.
The opportunity to improve your socioeconomic standings, ie The American Dream, is largely a myth. Recently, the poor get poorer. Real estate values and cost of living are climbing much faster than wages for those at the bottom. If you’re at the bottom, it’s even more difficult than usual to get the four year degree and years of prior job experience required for many entry level positions with better pay.
America has legal slavery enshrined in the constitution. If somebody is convicted of a crime, they can be sent to private prisons to do slave labor for somebody else’s profit. This disproportionately affects poor people and minorities.
These freedoms are a strength indeed, but they are also a vulnerability that can be exploited by foreign powers. Freedoms remain free so long as the people exercising those freedoms do so responsibly. I think a lot of people in the US do not exercise this freedom responsibly. I think a lot of Americans are being manipulated into voting in autocracy. Ironically.
Complete and total freedom is just anarchy, and anarchy collapses on itself and turns into autocracy.