An analysis of the illusion of freedom by chrisisall

So which of the many hats you wear makes you the judgemental jerk?

I knew a guy once who matched your resume almost exactly, counciller, union rep, small town politician. He was without doubt one of the most corrupt individuals I have ever known and every one of those "noble public works" either lined his pocket or was a way to enhance his standing so you will forgive me if I don't immediately fall to your feet in shame.

The point, which you miss or ignore is that people will tolerate almost any system that doesn't actively persecute them. Why? Because most regular human types have a need for stability because it takes a long time to raise children. As long as the system you live under lets you clothe, feed and educate your children anything extra is just gravy. If these folk let you down because they fail to follow your lead on what constitutes "freedom" for you well that's just too bad. They have important things to do sorry.

There is one title a man can have that is far greater than any of your "great works" hell it's more important than President of the US F*** A. That's the title of husband and father. If doing that job and providing for the family means the guy doesnt share your love of abstract freedoms or sells out to "the Man" well sometimes that's just the cost of doing the job.

If that means that they let you down, if that means they are the sheep in your little scenario then whoop to you.

You can dump a skunk in rose oil and he still stinks. You can have any honorific you like and you are still a Jerk.

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Friday, February 17, 2006 9:27 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I don't get paid for most of what I do - except for my regular "real" job which supports the household. I'm not a politician, I'm a yeoman. I don't get honorifics. I don't get influence, take bribes, or get or make deals.

My family BTW adores me - because I am always, always there - in my book family comes first.

My energy level takes a beating b/c I take up more than I should. Not b/c of what it gets me but b/c I don't believe in criticizing, I believe in action.

I don't look down on those for whom managing day to day is all-consuming. I was that once and that could have been my entire life. I acknowledge I have had advanatges that others don't - mostly a family that revered education and told me I was smart enough to learn. And white skin.

I look down on the bastards who bleed people every day as part of doing business. And I despise the bastards who support the leaches.

BTW - I am now a chemist, not a legal/political schmoozer.

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

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Friday, February 17, 2006 9:49 PM

I'm not implying anything about you, just saying "good works" is not always the same as "good man." Learnt that lesson early. I don't think that our backgrounds are that dissimilar and if I misinterpreted your point then I apologise. However, I can't stand some of the pseudo interlectual claptrap badmouthing the average Joe for not being politically active enough. A lot of these guys are busy doing things for their families and to my mind that's a valid reason. If you have the time and energy to do more, good for you. If politics stinks it's because bad folks run it and by all means complain, protest and educate but don't blaime your fellow citizens if they just want to pay the next round of bills and raise their kids.

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Saturday, February 18, 2006 12:00 AM

PIRATEJENNY

Quote:
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.

I totally agree with your whole post!!

I spend the majority of my time between a full time job and school, and I could think of 20 things off the top of my head I would rather be doing. I'm not free and your probably not free either, People with money have more choices , which equals more freedom. The reality of the situation and I think this is espeically true for most Americans who are brainwashed from the time they are old enough to walk to think we are free, but really the less money you have the less power and the less choice you have ,which equals less freedom. most of us are so busy working and consuming that we don't give our freedoms or lack of freedom any real consideration.

I think part of the real illusion for most Americans is that many people in this country enjoy a higher standard of living,(then say a person in a third world country such as Mexico, even people living in the inner city ghettos and rual areas have a t.v and access to running water and electricity for the most part. As the standard of living, for the middle class in this country startto decline people will start to take a closer look at their freedoms.

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Saturday, February 18, 2006 5:51 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
The point, which you miss or ignore is that people will tolerate almost any system that doesn't actively persecute them. Why? Because most regular human types have a need for stability because it takes a long time to raise children. As long as the system you live under lets you clothe, feed and educate your children anything extra is just gravy. If these folk let you down because they fail to follow your lead on what constitutes "freedom" for you well that's just too bad. They have important things to do sorry.

There is one title a man can have that is far greater than any of your "great works" hell it's more important than President of the US F*** A. That's the title of husband and father. If doing that job and providing for the family means the guy doesnt share your love of abstract freedoms or sells out to "the Man" well sometimes that's just the cost of doing the job.

Fletch, you're normally an insightful person but I really have to disagree on this point. There is no cost to thinking differently. No fee, no arrest, no argument, no lost wages, no unattended children.... no problem. Sure we may be forced to participate in the system and in many ways we may not be free to express our views, but nothing says we "must" believe in it.

And, speaking of work- I have a work emergency and I have to go.

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

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Saturday, February 18, 2006 7:14 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

To continue- but it's so much easier to sit on the couch and gain insight from that cyclops that most people give a place of honor in their living rooms. I swear, if an instant tragedy were to befall much of the world and archaeologists were to dig us up afterwards, they might wonder about that "shrine" in the largest room of many houses in thew world- the one that family members spend hours in front of every day.

I have a special gripe about TV. Sure it occasionally brings us great shows like Firefly but it's a choke-point of information. Not only can it be - and is- easily manipulated to present an narrow (wealthy, ultraviolent, non-working, superficial) view of the world it prevents us from going out and finding out for ourselves because it is so seductive. And yet strangely, altho people watch TV to "unwind" and "relax", the more people watch TV the more agitated and depressed they feel, and the harder time they have falling asleep no matter WHAT the content. I used to think that Marshall McLuhan (The Medium is the Massage) was full of bull but now I think of TV as velvet handcuffs or a mass drug.

So add TV to the "illusion of freedom": it makes you feel that you can choose your experience but it modifies you instead.

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

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Saturday, February 18, 2006 7:20 AM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
So add TV to the "illusion of freedom": it makes you feel that you can choose your experience but it modifies you instead.

I agree. The only shows I ever watch (Infrequently) are on PBS, usually science-related. The only other use I have for cyclops is to play my Firefly and Dark Angel DVD's

.

And my son likes Cyberchase Chrisisall

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Saturday, February 18, 2006 8:33 AM

Fletch,

While I try to stick to annoying you on my own behalf, and I'm grateful that you've given up paying much attention to what I post, I'm going to briefly butt in here and say "Stop beating up on Rue."

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Saturday, February 18, 2006 11:11 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Fletch,

While I try to stick to annoying you on my own behalf, and I'm grateful that you've given up paying much attention to what I post, I'm going to briefly butt in here and say "Stop beating up on Rue."

With all respect to Rue, she has never had any problem "beating up on" people her ownself, nor any hesitation to do so (please note who threw out the first "a**hole" above). I could show you my own contusions, but...

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, February 18, 2006 11:38 AM

I guess my reaction was due to the persistant nature. Rue had countered my posts occassionally, but not persistantly one after another. I guess my bruises from fletch color my vision, still, just callin' as I sees it.

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Saturday, February 18, 2006 11:59 AM

I disagree. One of the problems people have in assessing the human condition is that they refer it back to themselves. I suppose the argument goes “I’m human, I have these motivations therefore so should everyone else.” I’m afraid that is a self-delusion. Coming to the conclusion that people are lazy/stupid/ignorant because they don’t share your obsessions just takes self-delusion and makes it arrogance.

People are concerned chiefly about things that affect themselves and their families. Use eminent domain to drive a 40 lane super highway through “Anytown USA” and the locals will protest. If however the track was going to run that highway through the middle of “Nexttown USA” how many Anytowners do you think would be protesting? Very few I suspect. In fact most likely Anytown would be lobbying for an off ramp so that they could see some business benefits from the road.

You probably think that that makes them small minded and ignorant but I say it’s just not that important to the day to day running of their lives. That was true way back before “Cyclops’s in living rooms” or any of that. Those of us that think any of this is a big deal are the mutants here, the rest of humanity look after themselves and their loved ones. A lot of folks reached into their pockets to help those people in NOLA affected by Katrina but a LOT more bitched about the rise in petrol prices. Why? Because if you didn’t live in the south Katrina was an abstract concept that didn’t affect you and yours, that extra 20c at the pumps however, that was personal.

The reason folks don’t protest the war. We haven’t lost that many kids, very few people have lost a loved one or someone they know. A dead GI remains for them an abstract concept. Institute a draft and potentially place little Jimmy in the firing line and protests will go up. Had the US been able to fight Vietnam with a purely volunteer army there would still be GI’s in Saigon.

The economy? Makes no difference how big the deficit is, it’s an abstract concept, push up mortgage rates 20 points, throw dad out of work or watch fuel costs sky rocket and that would be a different story.

People want two big things from governments, they want security and economic stability. Anything more is gravy (or fat if you are conservative.) People only get upset over “unjust laws” that affect them. PN apparently has a problem with the drink drive laws because it restricts his freedom of action to do something he would want to do. I don’t drink and drive, as a result I don’t think the law unjust, in fact I don’t even think of it much at all.

That famous quote about “they rounded up the Jews but I was not a Jew and I said nothing,” that is the nature of people that was their nature then it remains so today. They have lives and family to be getting on with. That does not make them stupid.

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Saturday, February 18, 2006 4:43 PM

HAYWARD79

"And yet strangely, altho people watch TV to "unwind" and "relax", the more people watch TV the more agitated and depressed they feel, and the harder time they have falling asleep no matter WHAT the content. I used to think that Marshall McLuhan (The Medium is the Massage) was full of bull but now I think of TV as velvet handcuffs or a mass drug. So add TV to the "illusion of freedom": it makes you feel that you can choose your experience but it modifies you instead."

Why not add the Internet, in which you seem to spend an inordinate amount of time. It's hilarious that you would, on the one hand, bash TV as some sort of imposed "illusion of freedom," and then spend so much time and effort posting and reading on a fan forum of critically acclaimed TV show.

Additionally, no one is arguing that we have any semblance of "perfect freedom" here in US. But to siggest that freedom is merely an illusion in this country, or that money/class alone determines how much freedom you have, is such a narrow and ignorant conception of this country that it is amazing to see it expressed here. Again, I have to ask, to what state of freedom are you comparing the present situation in the US? If you are talking about the Hobbesian or Lockian "state of nature," then you really should be on your hands and knees thanking God or fate or whomever that we do NOT have "perfect freedom."

I may have been more inclined to agree with some of your sentiments before I spent a significant amount of time in other countries. It helped to realize that the freedoms we enjoy in this country, while very far from perfect, are not mere illusions at all. Normally, the people (like some of the people posting on this thread) who complain about "the system", or some meaningless, nebulous idea such as "illusion of freedom" are compensating for their own short-comings, placing blame on the government because of what they are unable to accomplish. The best advice I give you is that if you really want to grow as a person and exercise the freedoms available to you, you need to stop blaming the system and exert some effort.

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Saturday, February 18, 2006 6:07 PM

I think that the content, firefly, itself, is not the problem. Neither is the internet. It's the vast array of TV programming designed to waste you time, and keep you misinformed.

If there was a sight to download stuff to watch, you'd only download the best stuff, and ignore the rest. On TV, you are left hanging on.

In fact, I think that's it. TV has master the art of perpetual mediocrity.

TV is entertainment, but not good entertainment. It rejects anything truly good usually with haste, because anything too good threatens the line up. It wants to attract viewers to other programs, so If people sign on the watch "the excellent hour" they will not then later tune in to the "sort of okay hour" But watchers of the "somewhat funny hour" will.

Think about everything Tv does. It's porn, it's not wild orgy sex fest prostitutes on call teen masturbation porn, it's slightly titilating sex shows, designed to keep the viewer slightly excited so they will keep watching forever. This, for both boys and girls, is probably best personified in MTV.

The news is dangling non stories. Rather than give you direct access to the news, as the internet does, where you seek out what you want and you're done, TV is carefully sturctured, again, to waste your time. They dangle 12 stories at you and keep saying "coming up later, the latest updates from Iraq." They don't have to be structured that way. They could say "And now on CNN-14, the latest updates from Iraq," as this technology has been available for 20 years. But then you wouldn't watch "Paris Hilton's new dog." If you don't watch Paris Hilton's new dog, then you don't subscribe to the social myth that you want to be like Paris Hilton, which will send you off in a mindless manner to do whatever they want you to be.

The enless works up fiction, mostly PC propaganda pieces with slight story-like qualities, are designed to keep you waiting for a good one. They're always "sort of watchable" and then once in a while one is "pretty good" and you keep hanging on for more. Always emphasizing quantity over quality, because 12 hours of Jerry Springer is twelve hours of people watching. More ads, more money, and yes I know that TV is a capitalist tool. But that doesn't mean that I can't oppose it. Or that I would support it if it became the propagnda machine for conservative family values instead of liberal self-righteousness.

Overall, I don't regret the no-tv decision. It keeps you busy and uninformed. Firefly exists within TV becuase it's the medium avialable for expression. But we need a new one.

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Saturday, February 18, 2006 6:57 PM

Don't actually watch that much TV (loads of channels, nothing on) thanks to the internet I get news from the BBC same as always.

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Sunday, February 19, 2006 6:02 PM

CAUSAL

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
What I think of as "The Illusion of Freedom":

Charmin or Scott
Burger King or McDonalds
WalMart or Target
channel 11 or channel 2
minimum wage here or minimum wage there

In Twilight of American Culture, Morris Berman argues (among other things) that the slow decay of Western democracies into something else (mostly likely authoritarian states, on his view) is being aided by the consumerist identity: we define ourselves by what we buy. So I'm not Caleb Keller, Christian, Independent, art/music lover, movie snob, Aristotle/Kant/Adler fan and all-around nerd (Star Wars, Dune, Firefly, BSG)--no, I'm Scott, Burger King, Target, Channel 11, minimum wage here-ish. Of course, defining myself via consumerism numbs me to what has real value and perpetuates the economic hegemony. Fer cryin' out loud--Bill Gates has personal wealth equal to that of the lower 40% of Americans combined. Why does that not register? Because I'm busy convincing myself that drinking Aquafina makes me hip, and wearing Axe makes me sexy.

Also, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman makes a convincing case that our addiction to entertainment is actually hindering our ability to think and process information in complex ways--instead we've been programmed to expect to be amused 24/7, which of course, bombards us with consumerist messages.

Oh, and nice side-swipe at Cheney, Chris.

________________________________________________________________________
I wish I had a magical wish-granting plank.

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Sunday, February 19, 2006 7:38 PM

I think Postman's a bit of an alarmist, but he does have a point. I'm not going to join you on the down with capitalism, or course, but I think people aren't really defined this way. It did come out very Metro though, you'd fit right in in NY, with a spot on NPR. But I think that we're defined more by our lesser choices, such as firefly fans. This is a consumer choice. I, well, I almost bought firefly, except they never charged me for it, so I got it for free, little bit of a confession there, but I assume they still paid Joss for it. Amazon has so much of my money anyways. I'm a dell owner. Used to be a great company, now it's a good company, but not a great company. I'm over the whole "now it sucks" teen overstatement thing. They make good machines, still, they have awful customer service. Used to be aces. Anyway, but less choices, I use firefox, not ie. But i have windows, not linux. I use amazon, ebay less, but still. Not horridly fond of it. Gmail. I"m still a member of AOL who randomly gave me the screenname. But that's not likely to last. But I'm not sure which choices define me.

Maybe none of them. I'm not sure, it's something to think about.

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Tuesday, February 21, 2006 3:53 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Geezer,

Quote:
please note who threw out the first "a**hole"

My comment was in response to this - which was a personal attack.

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

Stop slithering.

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

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Tuesday, February 21, 2006 4:06 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

TV has an interesting property. In one of my many different hospital jobs I was an EKG technician. I did EKGs on pre-ops (and ER patients, 'codes' etc.)

At the time not many people had ever had an EKG. So when I started attaching wires with wet cold electrode pads, most people made some comment about being electrocuted and asked at least a few questions, unless they were watching TV. If they were watching the boob tube, they barely stopped to notice. They went through a novel experience that was vaguely threatening, with strong stimuli (cold wet pads), and they could hardly be detached from the TV.

It was at the time that I formulated the attaction of TV as a SENSORY experience - it is colorful, it has variation of sound (loud and soft, music and voice), and, with camera cuts back and forth, it is always moving. It also has the simulation of emotion which people tend to focus on.

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

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Tuesday, February 21, 2006 4:13 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I think some people are just born attuned to others. For them the suffering of someone in Guatemala is meaningful. Others have a strong sense of justice. For some it might be a sense of duty. There are probably several paths by which people are involved in things larger than themselves and their family.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind..."

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

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Tuesday, February 21, 2006 4:45 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Geezer,
Quote:
please note who threw out the first "a**hole"
My comment was in response to this - which was a personal attack.
Quote:
If it REALLY troubled you that much you'd be out there doing something about it and not whining on an internet forum.
You have a vote, use it.
Stop slithering.

Okay. So I can add "thin-skinned" and "lacking a sense of humor" to your profile.

I just thought it pretty funny that anyone who's spent any time on this forum (Dreamtrove in this instance) would think that you need defending.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Tuesday, February 21, 2006 5:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I think some people are just born attuned to others. For them the suffering of someone in Guatemala is meaningful. Others have a strong sense of justice. For some it might be a sense of duty. There are probably several paths by which people are involved in things larger than themselves and their family.
.

I'm not discussing empathy, I would hope people had that, if you don't you barely qualify as human, what I'm taking about is people's willingness to even notice issues that don't impact them personally.

Back when I was a student I shared a house with a friend. He was by all accounts the least thoughtfull individual I have ever known. To give you an idea how his mind worked he once watched an argument between me and another guy that almost came to blows. Afterwards pretty riled I walked home with him and he told me I shouldn't have been such a jerk with the other guy. Now by then I'd cooled off and was starting to think the same, that I'd pushed the other guy too hard. But my friend said --- you shouldn't have alienated him he might have been usefull to you in the future.

Anyway, you might imagine that the guy was irredemable except that when it came to donating to charity, both money and his valuable time, he was always generous even though there was obviously no benefit to him in being so. I concluded that he really was a selfish bastard by instinct, but when faced with something that pushed through that emotional isolation he was extremely generous.

In my view he's an extreme version of the standard human type. Day to day he lives his life and does his thing. Occasionally he's shocked out of that and rises to the occasion. The rest of us are mutants be we the truely selfish sociopathic kind or the selfless care givers.

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Tuesday, February 21, 2006 5:24 PM

To get this back to Firefly for a moment. When Mal takes Niska's offer to rob the Paradiso train he doesnt ask what he's taking or if it would hurt anyone or anything much. That's because Mal needs the coin for him and his. Had the heist gone smoothy the folks in Paradiso would probably have died miserably.

Faced with the consequences of his action Mal does the right thing because at that point he can see beyond him and his. I think that's why we find these characters interesting, we recognise that they contain some of those common truths that make us all human.

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Wednesday, February 22, 2006 2:34 AM

Quote:

TV has an interesting property. In one of my many different hospital jobs I was an EKG technician. I did EKGs on pre-ops (and ER patients, 'codes' etc.)

At the time not many people had ever had an EKG. So when I started attaching wires with wet cold electrode pads, most people made some comment about being electrocuted and asked at least a few questions, unless they were watching TV. If they were watching the boob tube, they barely stopped to notice. They went through a novel experience that was vaguely threatening, with strong stimuli (cold wet pads), and they could hardly be detached from the TV.

It was at the time that I formulated the attaction of TV as a SENSORY experience - it is colorful, it has variation of sound (loud and soft, music and voice), and, with camera cuts back and forth, it is always moving. It also has the simulation of emotion which people tend to focus on.

And thus the power of the internet has been demonstrated. If Rue had been watching TV instead of using the internet, she would have said "Oooh, Look at the little pictures. Dancing lights. Pretty."

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Thursday, February 23, 2006 5:12 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Huh?

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

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Thursday, February 23, 2006 5:20 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Fletch2

People have a reward circuit in their brains that makes them happier cooperating in a friendly way. Contention is biologically stressful, a secure social environment is comfortable.

I think like any brain circuit that needs to be developed (even binocular vision) it's possible to permanently stunt connections to others during childhood.

It's probably a mistake to say 'human nature is like ....' b/c it's a trainable system.

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

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Thursday, February 23, 2006 5:23 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Geezer,

Quote:
I just thought it pretty funny that anyone who's spent any time on this forum (Dreamtrove in this instance) would think that you need defending.

You know, I never initiate an attack, though I do respond to them. Except for when it comes to you. You're special. And not in a good way.

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

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Thursday, February 23, 2006 6:36 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Why not add the Internet, in which you seem to spend an inordinate amount of time. It's hilarious that you would, on the one hand, bash TV as some sort of imposed "illusion of freedom," and then spend so much time and effort posting and reading on a fan forum of critically acclaimed TV show.

I'm not sure I see the point. The internet- as I use it- has more to do with reading, writing, and communicating than TV. Multiple inputs and freedom of expression, hardly the top-down passive TV experience. SO I wonder if you understand what I'm saying, 'cause I sure don't know what YOU'RE saying!

Quote:
But to siggest that freedom is merely an illusion in this country, or that money/class alone determines how much freedom you have, is such a narrow and ignorant conception of this country that it is amazing to see it expressed here.

Have you ever spoken to a parent whose child is suffering and dying from lack of health insurance? I have. To suggest that class and money have nothing to do with freedom is lunacy.

Quote:
Again, I have to ask, to what state of freedom are you comparing the present situation in the US? If you are talking about the Hobbesian or Lockian "state of nature," then you really should be on your hands and knees thanking God or fate or whomever that we do NOT have "perfect freedom."

Finally, a point I can agree with! Primitivism doesn't equal freedom. Freedom is being able to control the forces that control you.

Quote:
I may have been more inclined to agree with some of your sentiments before I spent a significant amount of time in other countries. It helped to realize that the freedoms we enjoy in this country, while very far from perfect, are not mere illusions at all.

It would be nice to be free to walk safely downtown at night.

Quote:
Normally, the people (like some of the people posting on this thread) who complain about "the system", or some meaningless, nebulous idea such as "illusion of freedom" are compensating for their own short-comings, placing blame on the government because of what they are unable to accomplish.

Really? What do you suppose I've accomplished? What do you suppose I'm "compensating" for? You really don't know, do you? Of course not.

Quote:
The best advice I give you is that if you really want to grow as a person and exercise the freedoms available to you

and part of that is my freedom to try concincing others of my point of view, right?
---------------------------------
Free as in freedom, not beer.

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Thursday, February 23, 2006 7:20 PM

The 'system' is wrong.
It's always wrong.
It's never going to be not wrong.

That's why it's the system.
It is a part of us, and we are a part of it.
It behooves us to find what's wrong and fix it.

And then there will be other things that are wrong.
This process of perpetual improvement is called evolution.
The fact that we have such a system says that our system is dynamic, that we are not socialists, with a top down utopian ideal system, but instead have a pragmatic, adjustable, system.

Yay us. Mock on.

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Friday, February 24, 2006 10:20 AM

BEKKA

They went through a novel experience that was vaguely threatening, with strong stimuli (cold wet pads), and they could hardly be detached from the TV

This would be me completely. I call it "TV hypnosis". Can't have a conversation with anyone if the TV is on.

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Friday, February 24, 2006 2:30 PM

THEINCOMPARABLENOTION

Since this is going off in all kinds of haphazard ways...I think I may have something to contribute to this discussion. Perhaps just to eleborate. It may be relevant...or just redundent.

Anyways, freedom is somewhat difficult to define, as it can interpreted in so many different ways, I gather that it's commonly seen as the ability to choose what we'd like to choose, live like we'd like to live, and to live by your own ethics and moral code. And, in that traditional sense, the freedom of society as a whole has been hindered considerably (This is prevalent throughout most societies in the world, in my mind) by a myriad of aspects. Whether they be politcally, legally, intellectually, whatever; but is a result of society itself. I'm essentially paraphrasing Thoreau here, but Civil Disobedience is always relevant and is always going to be, and can be applied to so many aspects of society. But, I presume that we don't like not being free, I know I appreciate the smallest iota of freedom alloted to me...

I can't conjure any witty analogies at the moment...that's a bit dissapointing. Oh, i'd like to take this opportunity to commend you guys on your analogies, very clever.

At any rate, if the government commits any reprehensible violation of our rights...it's really a reflection of ourselves, before we jump to blame the government and their (or rather, our) laws, we really have to examine our own iniquities. A government's only people, and a person (and people, for that matter) can only do so much. So, I really have to pose this question: "Are the laws of government a reflection of our own morals and ethics, or a contradiction of them?" It can be true one way or the other, it's just really dependent on the specific case, whatever it may be. This is on account of the fact that the whims of our politicians (again, just people) factor into this, as do the wishes of the minority (which aren't always acknowledged), and the exploitation of the naivety (and ignorance) of people (that may sound more than a bit cynical and condescending, but everyone knows that it's true). This leads one to deduce that perhaps we are solely responsible to the acts of our government, which isn't always the case, and this certainly doesn't exonerate our politicians of their mistakes that inevitably affect us. It's a vicious cycle. Granted, this can fluctuate in times of adversity or hysteria (hey, that sounds a lot like the current state of America). And in regard to perpetual attacks on civil liberties and human rights, which are about as stable as a three-legged chair, this equates to, basically- we've allowed this to happen. It wasn't just Rumsfeld and 'Dubya,' McCarthy and his committee (i'm using them as examples, they're typical scapegoats) some of it can also be pinned down on us.

Freedom is an ambiguous term, and it'll only get fuzzier.

Dear lord, I just go on and on...I generally don't much like writing or speaking quite that much. Next time it'll be considerably shorter.

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Friday, February 24, 2006 3:28 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I think it's quite a compliment that the Illusion of Freedom thread gets so many replies. As for being haphazard- I guess that IS in the nature of freedom.

I like your post- there is much to think on.

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

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Friday, February 24, 2006 4:10 PM

THEINCOMPARABLENOTION

Thanks. But there were quite a few spelling errors, mostly subtle though, nevertheless, that vexes the perfectionist side of me.

Grr. And...blah.

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Friday, February 24, 2006 4:42 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Incomparable,

Thanks for the post. It was nice to see you around these parts.

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

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Friday, February 24, 2006 5:21 PM

CITIZEN

It could be worse, we could be global capatalists, we could believe that one day we'll all be rich because we will, cause they said they would, and they wouldn't lie, cause they wouldn't

I'm not drunk matey, I'm not pirate steve arrr

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
You should never give powers to a leader you like that you’d hate to have given to a leader you fear

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Wednesday, March 1, 2006 12:19 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
we could believe that one day we'll all be rich

Isn't that what TV is for? We watch rich folk and have it in our minds that that's us, WHEN we get money like them (only we won't take it for granted, like those jerks...).

Later, got a short span here...

Chrisisall, temporarily computer-less at the library
*holds up cardboard sign that reads "Need cpu, any spare change will help..."*

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Wednesday, April 26, 2006 6:42 PM