Adults born in the 70s, '80s '90s—the most vaccinated generations in American history—are now leading a movement to ensure their children don't receive the same protection that kept them alive. They attended schools where immunization was mandatory, benefited from herd immunity they now actively undermine, and never saw a classmate in an iron lung because vaccines worked. Now they share memes about "government propaganda" while their own vaccine scars fade on their shoulders—physical evidence of the system they reject. This selective amnesia isn't just ironic. It's lethal. As measles outbreaks surge across the United States and vaccination rates plummet, children are dying from diseases we'd already defeated. The danger isn't the vaccine. It's a vaccinated generation's willingness to doom the next generation because they've forgotten why those childhood shots were necessary in the first place.
Category: Freedom
Kansas is at a Crossroads as Raids, Bills increase the High Cost of Criminalizing THC
Kansas raids dozens of hemp shops while considering legalization bills that could generate $20-50 million annually. The state arrests nearly 5,000 people yearly for cannabis possession at a cost of $7-54 million in criminal justice expenses—money that could fund schools, roads, or treatment programs instead. Meanwhile, legislators debate three competing approaches: medical cannabis (SB 294), adult-use regulation (HB 2405), or tighter hemp restrictions (SB 292). The math is clear: prohibition costs Kansas taxpayers millions while generating zero revenue and saddling thousands with criminal records that reduce lifetime earnings. The question isn't whether Kansas can afford to reform—it's whether Kansas can afford not to.
From Robert Charles to ICE: Echoes of State Violence and Resistance in America
The summer heat bore down on New Orleans that July night in 1900 when gunfire first cracked the air. Robert Charles, a Black laborer who had dared to sit on a porch in a white neighborhood, would be dead within four days—his body riddled with bullets, then mutilated by a mob drunk on the kind of rage that newspapers cultivated and police sanctioned. Before he fell, Charles killed several officers in what he surely understood would be his final stand. The city erupted. White mobs roamed the streets hunting Black residents. At least 28 people died, most of them Black civilians guilty of nothing more than existing in the wrong place during a wave of sanctioned terror. The rhetoric that summer was familiar: dangerous criminals, threats to public safety, the necessity of force. Charles was not portrayed as a man defending himself against a violent arrest in a society that offered him no legal protection. He was a monster to be exterminated, and the Black community that harbored him deserved collective punishment. More than a century later, the same language of fear and control echoes through the detention centers and deportation raids of today.
Statewide TB Outbreak Shows What Happens When Public Health is Dismantled
In early 2025, Kansas became the epicenter of one of the worst tuberculosis outbreaks in recent American history—an outcome both shocking and entirely predictable. With at least 67 active and 79 latent cases, including children, the crisis has exposed a deeply fractured public health system gutted by years of legislative sabotage, professional hesitation, and a culture that mistakes defiance for freedom. Drawing on the ideological themes of What’s the Matter with Kansas, this investigation traces the origins of the outbreak through policy failures, community apathy, and medical inaction—laying bare how anti-science fervor, vaccine resistance, and erosion of public trust created the perfect conditions for an entirely preventable tragedy.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia and America’s Slide into Authoritarianism
In Trump's America, citizenship has become disturbingly meaningless. The horrifying case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia illustrates how swiftly constitutional protections vanish when executive power goes unchecked. Denied legal counsel, blocked from courts, and stripped of his right to due process, Garcia's story is a chilling warning: no citizen is safe if the government can arbitrarily erase your rights. As the administration moves closer to openly targeting political dissenters, human rights activists, and anyone branded an "agitator," Americans must confront the terrifying truth—today it's Garcia, tomorrow it could easily be you.