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"The Right to be Let Alone" as a Campaign Slogan [1]

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Date: 2023-12-26  

In one of the most famous Supreme Court dissents in history, in Olmstead v United States, Justice Brandeis enunciated the basic principle of a Constitutional democracy:

The makers of our Constitution . . . sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone -- the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men. 277 US 438 (1928) at 478

Brandeis’s dissent later became the basis for Griswold v Connecticut, in which the Supreme Court struck down Connecticut’s contraceptive ban precisely because it violated the right to be let alone.

That right, that fundamental right, is, I suggest, the ultimate target of the fascists behind the GOP; they do not want to leave people alone. Whether sexually, religiously, politically . . . they want the power to dictate who and what we are. It doesn’t matter what excuse they give — God commands it; we must protect the children, they stole the election — it’s all about telling other people what to do because they can. It’s saying we have no right to dissent, no right to our own opinion, no right to question them.

Trump wants everyone to bow down to him. Mike Johnson want everyone to have sex only according to his rules. The Kochs and the Mercers want everyone’s money. These are not exclusive desires (though Trump probably doesn’t care what people do in bed unless he’s in the bed with them). But they cannot do this as long as the people have the right to be let alone.

I propose this as one part of the 2024 campaign: Trump and the GOP want to take away your right to be let alone. We are already doing this in one detail: the right of a woman to control her own body — and not just in terms of pregnancy, but also her right to say no to sex, her right to earn the same living a man makes, her right to be a whole human being. Blacks and Hispanics have the right to be let alone when they walk down the street and into a store. Non-Christians have the right to be let alone when they worship (or don’t worship). And not at all by the way, this applies to Christians as well; fundamentalist Protestants don’t like Catholics — or other fundamentalists quite often.

If you want the right to be let alone, you have to give everyone that same right. Otherwise, the government that arbitrarily decided to take that right away from people you don’t like might one day take that right away from you too. You gave them that power; you can’t complain.

I’m not phrasing this argument very well; it’s late and I’m pissed at my country and very upset at the thought that Trump, win or lose, will destroy it. And he has turned the GOP into a hate mob that will also try its worst to destroy the country because he has made it acceptable for them to hate the idea that people other than themselves deserve the right to let alone.

Pitching the right to be let alone is not a slogan for all audiences. But properly pitched, it should be part of our arsenal.

I’ll let Brandeis have the last word (which was also the last word of his dissent):

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[1] Url: https://dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/26/2213996/--The-Right-to-be-Let-Alone-as-a-Campaign-Slogan?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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