What is Right and Freedom?

Lovers. Fighters, Adventurers. Actually, we’re a group of former Marines who witnessed atrocities after we left the service, and decided that our fight wasn’t over.

Now that we’ve been at it for a bit, perhaps it’s time to talk about where our podcast Right and Freedom came from. In other words, who are we, and why would we, three main hosts along with three co-hosts, and a bunch of other allies, use our time to put together a Substack like this?

Who are we?

Lovers. Fighters, Adventurers. We’re a group of former Marines who witnessed atrocities after we left the service, and decided that our fight wasn’t over. Andrew Sweet, a.k.a. Chuck, is an author who writes dystopian science fiction. You can learn more about him on his website and find some great books there. Around 2020, Don reached out due to atrocities happening around the George Floyd protest: a protester had been shot by a man with a gun, and nobody did anything about it. He wanted to make a difference, and so Right and Freedom was founded. A handful of years later, Doctor Christina joined us, a former USMC colleague, as women’s rights were rolled back after Roe v. Wade was overturned unjustly. None of us were activists before things started getting weird, and we’d all rather be doing something else.

But the fight is where the fight is, and so that’s where we have to be.

Why do we do this?

1. The military is not a conservative bloc. Being out there in the world after our tours of service, it became clear relatively quickly that the perspective of non-military is often that the military is a conservative voting bloc. Nothing could be further from the truth. People must realize this. This is precisely why ICE is being used right now to oppress people, and not the military.

2. Black and brown folks are routinely singled out and abused by law enforcement across the nation. Communities have been saying that for years, but for the longest time, nobody listened. It was like screaming in the dark. George Floyd proved that this was true in a way that the nation couldn’t look away from. Neither could we.

3. Women make great leaders and fighters, and it weakens our armed forces to go it without them. In the USMC, our job was to break stuff. But breaking stuff takes a command structure and a civilian force much larger than the handful who do the breaking. Most of our leaders on the civilian side were women. Our fellow Marines were women, too, and held their own in what mattered to our mission.

4. Our values matter: Honor, Courage, Commitment. All of these matter to us because how you are on the inside impacts how you treat the people around you. In fact, as a society, we used to believe in these same values. USMC still teaches them today, even while our military is being used as props to feed Orange Man’s ego.

5. Truth matters. Truth is something that is taken for granted more and more today. But let me tell you a secret: when you’re planning warfare, you can’t lie to yourself or your command about where the enemy is, or what they’re doing. This will get you killed. Truth is paramount in the service. There are plenty of times when information is withheld, but I rarely recall being blatantly lied to until Pete Hegseth took charge. This was a hard-learned lesson for the military, being unlearned under this corrupt administration.

6. We believe in the Constitution, and the whole Constitution. There is no originalist “interpretation” that can be applied to a document that was designed to be changed. If it were meant to be stagnant, then there would not be a method for amending it, and it wouldn’t have come into the world with ten amendments already.

7. We believe in equality. This is fundamental, and as surprising as it is in this day and age, not everyone shares that belief. Usually, with absolutely no evidence, the claim is made over and over about the shortcomings of minority groups, when most of us have had our voting districts gerrymandered to all hell so that we can’t influence change directly, and have to rely on help. This isn’t a weakness of culture or a person. This is institutionalized racism.

All of the above and more drive us to be loud and to be frequent with our messaging. In addition:

• We strive to amplify good judgment and voices that pursue justice and positive change.

• We choose to call out injustices because that’s what everyone should always do…“injustice anywhere” and all that.

• We refuse to be silent. As we were taught, the best way to survive an ambush, and that’s precisely what MAGA’s rise feels like, is to run toward the gunfire.

• We don’t think of ourselves as partisan. We consider ourselves to be American and pledge allegiance to whichever party supports those values we hold dear. Hint: it’s not MAGA right now.

• We believe that too much power in the hands of too few leads to corruption and the betrayal of our nation’s values.

That’s what we do, and we appreciate all of you who take this journey with us. If you haven’t listened to our podcast, just know that we’re crude, loud, and have no qualms about calling a nazi a nazi. There are too many who have forgotten that values drive how we treat others, as is woefully apparent in today’s abysmal treatment of immigrants.

We aim to do something about that. And if you’ve made it this far, you probably do too. One thing you can do is stay informed by following us or subscribing to our weekly podcast. We do two shows per week, and the main one comes out on Sunday or Monday. Subscribe and you’ll get notified when they drop. Donate if you want to help our mission!

Social media image taken from Wikimedia Commons, uploaded from the USMC Archive. USMC does not endorse us, and our messaging is solely the view of Right and Freedom hosts and co-hosts.