Let's look at who's more free in today's Florida?

As we pause between the twin days celebrating "freedom" (June 19 and July 4), it is right and appropriate to contemplate what freedom is and who actually gets to express and practice it.

After nearly three decades of one-party rule in Florida, it appears we have lost far more freedoms than we gained. 

With one-party rule, the civil dialogue essential for a functional democracy is more elusive than ever before. Laws of transparency are almost never enforced. Reporters are denied access and discerning fact from fiction has become increasingly difficult to ascertain. 

Which leads us to ask: Who among us in the "Free State of Florida" is truly free?

Not women, who lost body autonomy. Not LGBTQ people, who are objects of hate and discrimination in both law and practice. Not Black people, who can find too few celebrations of Freedom Day because neither they nor the holiday is celebrated. Not transgender people, who are targets of health discrimination and worse, by design.

Not the 1 million felons, whose voting rights were supposed to be restored years ago. Not teachers, who are forbidden from teaching holistic history and exercising freedom of speech as they were trained. Not voters, whose rights to cast ballots have been severely restricted, discounted and suppressed. And not consumers, whose rights to sue have been denied by a pro-business, pro-corporation administration.

Not readers, librarians or students, whose rights to read and learn what they choose is limited by censorship. Certainly not college professors, whose intellectual freedoms have been denied. Definitely neither young people nor outside workers, whose hopes for protection from abusive work environments and the harsh temperatures of the Sunshine State have been taken away.

So who among our fellow Floridians are truly free? Isn't it the same group of the privileged, wealthy, ruling class that it has always been? 

Felicia Bruce, Fort Pierce

Published in TCPalm Letters to the Editor on June 28, 2024: https://www.tcpalm.com/story/opinion/readers/2024/06/28/martin-county-voting-sad-fort-pierce-diner-vero-beach-downtown-three-corners-boardwalk/74140646007/

Similar version of Letter to the Editor Published in Palm Beach Post on July 10, 2024: “Freedom’s just another word…in Florida”