FFS Friday 7/4/2025- freedom*

Today is the 4th of July and our nation’s independence day.

The asterisk? Well, let’s talk about it.

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the asterisk is used as an indication of the omission of letters or words.

Independence through resolution in three parts: separation from the British Crown, a call to form foreign alliances, and a plan for confederation. Seems simple enough.

This means that we were separating from England and all that entailed, looking for friends that were not England, and grouping together. This grouping of people is also known as a confederacy.

No, not that one. The original one.

At the time the new country was a group of people who wanted to leave British rule and strike out on their own. With their own laws and their own ways of doing things. Where no king could wave his fat white hand and make nonsense rules for everyone.

Sound familiar? America just had a multi-million people nationwide protest on June 7, 2025 about it.

At the time to be a voting member of this new society you had to be a land owner, white, and male.

And that was it.

Women need not apply.

Slaves that were forcibly brought here from Africa and sold to these men need not apply.

Men who did not own property need not apply.

In the nearly two hundred and seventy five year history, these marginalized groups have fought and bled and died to be seen as a citizen. As a voter.

Strides were made. And the rich white men were not happy about it.

White men who were not property owners were granted the right to vote in 1787.

Slaves earned their ability not to be owned by another human with the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.

Black men earned the right to vote in 1870.

Women earned the right to vote in 1920.

Poll taxes that were just racism by another name were abolished in 1964. As was segregation.

America has a checkered past and those of us who were not thought of or dismissed as not a person in the original documents has fought for every single step along the way.

And those who don’t think women are people or black people are people or native Americans are people have fought tooth and nail to maintain their grip on control.

Inch by inch, legislation by legislation, the rights that were bled for and wept over and fought for are being taken away by rich old white men who remember the “good old days”. When non white people were property of the whites and women were kept under their husband’s thumb.

That is the meaning of the asterisk in today’s post title.

Freedom for old rich white male property owners.

Crickets for everyone else.