An analysis of the illusion of freedom

POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Friday, April 24, 2026 16:13
VIEWED: 7512
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FLETCH2

Saturday, February 18, 2006 1:12 AM

Very few people had "their own land" all the land they farmed belonged to their lord and master, just that some they farmed for food for themselves and some as his "cut." In any case what he got for that kindness appart from a workforce was the ability to impress them into his service and therefore in theory order them to their deaths.

FLETCH2

Saturday, February 18, 2006 1:20 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
"At a big or small level we make rules"

That is the democratic ideal. OTOH I think Americans live in a system $ 1 = 1 vote. The rich have power over the laws the rest have to live by.

The issue is not whether or not people have to live by 'rules'. It's whether or not they decide on them or get them imposed.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

If I am born into a society even a democracy I inherit rules and laws that I myself didn't vote on. So every law passed before I reach voting age is "Imposed" on me. Even after I can vote the rules others pass are still "imposed." Several thousand soccer moms fearfull for lil Jimmy pass vehicle ordinances that curtail PN's rights to drink and drive. HE certainly didnt vote for those rules and yet he is still expected to obey them. That is the nature of society that to be "in the tribe" and able to access it's benefits and protection you have to abide by rules you don't agree with.

As to if your political society is corrupt, yes it is, but that's not a fault of democratic society in general or your society in particular. If it REALLY troubled you that much you'd be out there doing something about it and not whining on an internet forum.

For the record I live in the US, I pay the same taxes you do and I get no vote at all as to how my money is spent. You have a vote, use it.

CHRISISALL

Saturday, February 18, 2006 1:23 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Chris:
Is they live that film with the aliens that you can only tell they're aliens with the glasses?

Yep. Go here:
http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/reviews/review.asp?Index=2517&User=6204

My favourite conspiracy flick!

Chrisisall

SIGNYM

Saturday, February 18, 2006 2:49 AM

Quote:
If I am born into a society even a democracy I inherit rules and laws that I myself didn't vote on. So every law passed before I reach voting age is "Imposed" on me. Even after I can vote the rules others pass are still "imposed." Several thousand soccer moms fearfull for lil Jimmy pass vehicle ordinances that curtail PN's rights to drink and drive. HE certainly didnt vote for those rules and yet he is still expected to obey them. That is the nature of society that to be "in the tribe" and able to access it's benefits and protection you have to abide by rules you don't agree with.

I guess my concept is not how laws (or rules of society, or economic relations, or memes, or paradigms, or whatever you want to call it) come into being but how easily they can be changed.

There is resistance to change at all levels, but the most significant resistance comes from two forces: those who benefit the most from "the way things are" and can consciously support and abet them and (b) those who remain prisoners of assumptions so fundamental they don't even know they hold those assumptions no matter how detrimental those assumptions might be.

I'll give you a quick example from "Man Against Myth". The rationale for social order changed from religion to the "natural world" some time during the French Enlightenment. Looking to nature as the paradigm for the way things "should" be opened the world to social Darwinism, which was a terrible misapplication of science- but a hand-in-glove fit with the emerging capitalist class. You could no longer use moral or religious arguments against capitalism because you would simply be fighting "human nature", "the way things are" etc.... even though the previous several centuries of power structures had been built SPECIFICALLY on that idea.

All of the assumptions about 'human nature' are that- assumptions. Not only that, using closeness to 'human nature' or even 'nature' as the basis for society is itself an assumption. Those kinds of deep-seated assumptions are the hardest to find.

---------------------------------
Free as in freedom, not beer.

RUE

Saturday, February 18, 2006 3:22 AM

Quote:
If it REALLY troubled you that much you'd be out there doing something about it and not whining on an internet forum.

Uhm, why do you think this is all I do?

Quote:
You have a vote, use it.

I do.

And really, do you want to be an a**hole by presuming you know me?

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, February 18, 2006 3:43 AM

Quote:
Freedom isn't free . Freedom cost a buck O five!!

Lol. I think this is the first thing Jenny's posted that I agree with.

Quote:
Man is born into a state of freedom but gives up some of those freedoms in order to obtain the benefits of living in society.

Maybe once this was true, but now he gives them up at gunpoint to people who want his money. Because of this, in the case of the feds, the govt. offers nothing in return. Not even 'less than it should,' but 'nothing,' or perhaps much better put as 'less than nothing.' When you consider that you might be whisked away to a foreign land to fight in a war, or to be tortured in guantanamo, have your property taken by a force much greater than any band of brigands could ever muster, this is a govt. which truly is delivering serious negative conseqeunces, and about the only thing it gives out for free is drug money for addicts to generate chaos they could never generate on their own, and oh, yeah social security, otherwise known as: 'One third (1/3) of your own money back after a forty (40) year wait with no (0%) interest. (The truth is privatization of soc. sec. is such a good idea that abandoning soc. sec. at this point would be an improvement, IMHO.)

Anyway, I could go on and on, but my point is: If govt. were a product, no one would ever buy it. It would have to become much much better to even generate a modest amount of consumer interest.

Perhaps society only works on a graduated scale. If there were total chaos in the country, and as you approach a city things get more and more civilized, then everyone could choose their own level of civilization vs. freedom. Societies like the US would crumble if they didn't reform drastically, but a new form of competition would open up. The laws of NY would compete with the laws of Chicago for customers.

I actually wrote this at 9 AM but we've had no power all day. It was a pleasant reminder of life without power. We had no power our first two years up here. It was okay. I would miss the internet, but it strikes me, as a society, we rely too heavily on electricity. Most 'modern conveniences' are irrelevant to quality of life. I guess I would take chaos over the current state, I think there needs to be more competition of govt.

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, February 18, 2006 3:53 AM

I thought I was saying something new, but I think Zisker said it, and Signy too, and this

Quote:
Originally posted by Rue:

You want nothing to do with them but they are doing what they want to you.

They determine your choices, your laws, your knowledge and even your beliefs. They run the economy, the government, the schools, the churches.

You get to decide Pepsi or Coke and therefore think you are free.

... is very true as well.

Without getting personal, and leading into a flame war I have no interest in, two things strike me:

1. Many of us are off in an extreme position where we feel that authority, at the very least in its present state, is something we could do without, and perhaps lacks a reason for being. Some of us are on the other end, and what does that make us?

2. The above split is completely unconnected to the left-right political continuum. I think of people in both positions at the extremes of both ends of the political spectrum, as in all four corners.

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, February 18, 2006 3:57 AM

There were no shortage of free blacks in 1776. Esp. here in NY. Yeah, there were also slaves, not so many of those here. I don't want to get into it, just posting the correction.

FLETCH2

Saturday, February 18, 2006 3:58 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:

And really, do you want to be an a**hole by presuming you know me?

dunno

Quote:

For those in denial, this non-freedom is a non-issue.

It only becomes real when something happens to THEM.

These are the same people who claim that all is right with the US but choose not to go downtown after dark.

You can't reason with them, since they block out massive chunks of reality. They prefer to keep their vision tightly focused on the little things they want to see.

Do you want to be an a**hole by presuming you know them?

RIVER6213

Saturday, February 18, 2006 6:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
A police officer can pull you over and give you a ticket almost any time for almost any thing. There are so many traffic laws that you can't not break some every time you drive.
An NSA official can pull you off the street at any time, for any reason and detain you for an indefinite time without notification of anybody.
You can buy a house, pay your taxes and your mortgage, and have it taken away by laws like Eminent Domain.
You can defend yourself against a violent attack, and have lawyers get you put in jail for 'using too much force' in your defence. God forbid you should break a man's leg when he's just trying to knock you unconsious.
Or, you could be killed by someone famous or wealthy, and he could get off because of these same high-priced charasmatic lawyers.

Freedom is like life; a bus might hit you, you could have a heart attack, you could get a fatal disease.
We like to think we'll live forever, and we like to think we're free.

The world is a jungle, there are no rules, only suggestions- and some are more emphatically stressed than others.

Like, the law says you maybe, kinda have to report an accident like Cheney had with that gun pretty soon after it happens...well, maybe not...go home and de-stress (ha! DE-TOX) first, why dontcha? It'll be okay.
Just one example...there are thousands I could come up with off the top of my head. But you get the idea.

The Constitution itself was written at a time when slavery was acceptable. Even a great document like that can be 'interpreted' to curtail freedom...

"These words were not meant just for the Yangs, but for the Commes as well.*beat* They must apply to everyone, or they mean nothing!! Do you understand?!"

Chrisisall, now taking questions and comments

That's a hard one to pin because in the United States people go on, and on about how much freedom they have, but when you really think about it, that "freedom" is in a way a passive illusion. Its a sort of freedom thats so enhanced by so many rules and regulations that it ceases to be freedom in the full sense of the word, and becomes something else all together, and from what I can see, at least here in the USA...freedom equals money.

Also, a good portion of the freedom you have here in the USA is determined how big your pocketbook is....more money equals more freedom. I could go out tonight and kill someone with witness present, but after I get arrested, I can call my really cool, and overly expensive, high-profile lawyer, and in short order he/she could make a good case that somehow the person I shot in cold-blood, and who was truly the victim of this most unfortunate affair, was somehow the perpetrator, and I was somehow the victim...even after I pulled the trigger 5 times and sprayed his brains all over the storefront windows, while laughing. Depending on what race and gender I am, and how much money I have, and any pasts criminal records I and my victim may have, there is a high possibility that I might get away with it.

Less money equals less freedom, and it leaves you open for those small daily violations of freedoms, and race, religion, and sometimes gender plays a large part in how much freedom you have in so-called decent societies.

Sure we can badmouth the government and not get hauled off to prison, or get beheaded for our views, but it depends on how high your status, and even what your race, or gender is, or political leanings are that determines your "unspoken level of freedom.

You can even take it a step further by noticing all the boundaries and rules and regulations that it takes to simply negotiate the city streets. How you can only walk in certain places. How long you can stand in a certain place before people start to become suspicious and someone calls a cop. If you are in a fancy dress, and look like you have money, most people will leave you alone. If you are a person with no money and are dressed in a common fashion, the cops will indeed show up to ask you what are y

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