Freedom.

[phoenixbyrd]

When I think of freedom, I think of our inalienable right to survive. Our right to freely procure what is necessary for our basic survival, food, shelter, and water. Anything else is just a luxury created or intended to make our lives easier.

As I see it, we are not free nor never have been for quiet some time now. I'm not free to go out and procure my own food without paying someone else. I'm not free to build a modest shelter on unused land without paying someone else. I'm not free to procure water without paying someone else. If I were to even attempt to do any of these things without paying for it, I'd either be fined or put in jail.

Since when did our basic right to live become a matter of how much money you have? It seems utterly wrong and outrageous to me. We're not free to survive if we don't have money to pay someone off to allow us to survive.

It is also to my personal belief that no one is more important then anyone else. We're all human, we all bleed the same red blood. People can apply whatever title they'd like to themselves, but in all honesty, none have any real power over another. We've become a weak society, a week people where we willingly allow other's to control and subjugate and rule over us. Without even thinking that we gave up our freedoms when we allowed this.

I understand that we have more perceived freedom then other people have in other countries, but we honestly don't. We like to delude ourselves into thinking we are the most free country on this planet. Those perceived freedoms are differing laws between countries. Some laws have more dire consequences then other laws of other countries, but every country has one thing on common. You are not free to survive, to procure the basic necessities required for your survival without paying someone for it.

No one owns this planet, it is here for all of us and we are all it's natural born citizens. We didn't have to pay to be born here and we shouldn't have to pay others to live on what doesn't rightfully belong to them. If we had just maintained the same lifestyle we enjoyed for well over 12,000 years of taking only what we needed instead of raping our planet then we wouldn't have so many people choking each other out of existence. We wouldn't have any pollution threatening to destroy us. We wouldn't have weapons of mass destruction pointed at each others heads. We wouldn't have as many wars and conflicts between people. We wouldn't have a need for money. We would however, have the freedom to survive, a basic freedom that NO ONE SHOULD FORCE YOU TO PAY THEM FOR.

[333]

Peace,

Feels good to vent once in a while don't it?
You are among kindred folk. Glad to read you.

333

[Txanne]

Our freedoms have been paid in blood--by Americans .

And to me that is the most agonzing part of our lost freedoms!!

Have they died for naught?

They have if WE let it go by unaddressed.

I will not nor can I stand by for it---will you?

Good post---and excellent thoughts.

annie

[phoenixbyrd]

A lot of people say they won't/can't stand by and watch what's happening to us as a people/species. Nearly none follow through with such a statement. I can understand why, it's hard to go against what society dictates you should do. Nothing can nor will ever be done until every single one of us wakes up and says enough of this BS, including our supposed leaders.

Hell, if every working man/woman were to stop going to work and helping the rich get richer for one week, this country would have serious problems. It might not get destroyed (unfortunately), but at least it would wake people up to something bigger then themselves and the peices of paper they enjoy more then life itself.

[333]

A lot of people say they won't/can't stand by and watch what's happening to us as a people/species. Nearly none follow through with such a statement. I can understand why, it's hard to go against what society dictates you should do. Nothing can nor will ever be done until every single one of us wakes up and says enough of this BS, including our supposed leaders.

Peace,


Hell, if every working man/woman were to stop going to work and helping the rich get richer for one week, this country would have serious problems.

A NATIONAL SIT IN ;D ;D ;D APRIL 15- 22 2008 ???
It might not get destroyed (unfortunately), but at least it would wake people up to something bigger then themselves

Me neither, I don't want to see that which is "America" destroyed, that would be completely dis honorable to all those that have "bled" on the "altar of freedom".


and the peices of paper they enjoy more then life itself. ???

I am confused, please explain.

333

[phoenixbyrd]

The pieces of paper being money. It's become more valuable then life and freedom. Without our precious pieces of paper, we have neither life nor freedom. People enjoy these pieces of paper over everything else, just look at the world around you, its driven by paper and the greed associated with it.

America was never founded on freedom. Certainly doesn't run that way today. America today has become the England we ran from yesterday. America was founded because they were sick of how they were being ruled. They were tired of laws they didn't agree with, but never once was it founded on what I consider true freedom, and that is the freedom to survive without having to pay people for that inalienable right that every single one of us is entitled to. We may have better laws then other countries and less severe punishments for breaking those laws, but don't mistake that for freedom.

[phoenixbyrd]

When you can't eat, sleep with a roof over your head, or drink water without paying others to do those things, you are not free. Never free.

[CarolAnn]

Phoenixbyrd,

I think I understand what you are saying, but people have never been all that free. Before taxes, people lived in communities to share work and for safety. Larger groups allow labor specialization and protection, but those communities also set perimiters on behavior (different depending on the culture - but the lack of freedome was there all the same.)

Hunter gatherers fell prey to maruders and those that did better were always in danger of being robbed because of it.

That's because it's more efficient to steal than to produce. So it looks like the choice is to pay the government who will put you in jail if you don't pay willingly or to have marauders who will take it because there's no government to protect you.


:P Ack. I'm going outside now, and listen to the birds for a while and enjoy the sunshine!

[phoenixbyrd]

The government are the marauders. They don't protect *us*, they protect their own self interests, we're just lucky to fall under that category as without us they've got nothing much at all. No one to produce the food for them, no one to build the houses for them and no one to dig the wells for them. They feed off of us so that they can live.

We are what keeps this nation, or any nation, together. It's the people who produce and provide, who do all the grunt work. Without people like us, a nation would crumble. Yet we see people playing games, or singing, or making rules against us making more money then us. We put in the most effort to keep things running and we get less then those who play games. IDK, I personally find that the purest BS in the world.

I'm not complaining about money issues or such. I'm just sick of not having the freedom to live. Even in a hunter gather society people did not pay other people to build a house, hunt for food, or drink from a stream. Yes, there were rules/codes of conduct/laws, I'm not saying those are bad. It's when your forced to pay someone just to LIVE that is bad. And we should only be producing what we need to survive anyways, not raping the planet for our own entertainment and pleasure. I don't see how putting ourselves at the risk of extinction from lack of resources is any better then living a more simple lifestyle. Do you really need tv's, cars, bombs, nuclear weapons etc. to survive?

[CarolAnn]

The government are the marauders.

Ironically, those are the very words I edited out of my own post. :P

Too true!

I've often thought about the fuss that the media is making over the corruption in Russia now that they're trying capitolism; all the bribes they have to pay to the organized crime to stay in business.

To get just like us, all they have to do is change three words. "Bribe" to "taxes" and "organized crime" to government. :P

[phoenixbyrd]

I don't understand why people look at freedom as being free from laws that they don't like and not as being free to survive. I don't disagree with having laws and punishments for breaking those laws. Some laws are ridiculous and some are obviously needed. People today for some reason don't think paying others just for the right to eat, sleep, and drink water is wrong. Government run education at its best I suppose?

[Rick_O_Shea]

...I can understand why, it's hard to go against what society dictates you should do...
It isn't apathy as far as people like me are concerned...it's a recognition that 'society' is another environmental challenge to be survived, and it requires a different skillset. ;-)

To enjoy any quality standard of living, phoenix, commerce is inevitable...you will always need to 'pay' someone for something - you can't provide everything for yourself, and nobody owes you a living - but I agree you should be at liberty to 'go bush' (as the kiwis say) and wander out into the wilderness and live freely off the land. You'll have a hard and short life, but you should be free to make that choice.

[Eastex]

"Our right to freely procure what is necessary for our basic survival, food, shelter, and water."


Sounds like one of my previous renters.

[Txanne]

The pieces of paper being money. It's become more valuable then life and freedom. Without our precious pieces of paper, we have neither life nor freedom. People enjoy these pieces of paper over everything else, just look at the world around you, its driven by paper and the greed associated with it.

America was never founded on freedom. *Certainly doesn't run that way today. America today has become the England we ran from yesterday. America was founded because they were sick of how they were being ruled. They were tired of laws they didn't agree with, but never once was it founded on what I consider true freedom, and that is the freedom to survive without having to pay people for that inalienable right that every single one of us is entitled to. We may have better laws then other countries and less severe punishments for breaking those laws, but don't mistake that for freedom.


IMO---This country was founded on freedom---sought
religious freedom ---that in turn --turned this country into an industrialized nation.

In by gone days --people were free--and the powers that became great powers saw that as bad---Free people?

If their free then we have no control--hence the law-makes--

I do believe as eagle so beautifully puts it---we have to be free in ourselves---

annie

[Txanne]

A lot of people say they won't/can't stand by and watch what's happening to us as a people/species. Nearly none follow through with such a statement. I can understand why, it's hard to go against what society dictates you should do. Nothing can nor will ever be done until every single one of us wakes up and says enough of this BS, including our supposed leaders.

Hell, if every working man/woman were to stop going to work and helping the rich get richer for one week, this country would have serious problems. It might not get destroyed (unfortunately), but at least it would wake people up to something bigger then themselves and the peices of paper they enjoy more then life itself.


How do you know they do nothing?

Truckers brought this nation to a stand still in the 70's--

We have to work all these hours to pay for all the entitlment programs ----welfare babies and of course the biggie--our illegal problem sucking this country dry.

But my thoughts are this---We have become a nannyiezed nation---What I do believe has to happen is ---let the tit sucking whelps drag this county down---
let is go bottom up---not only will the wefare lines dry up---the gene pool will be cleaned out---Then the true patriots of this country can rebuild her---

Are you up for that?

Plan for yourself---withdraw from it---
BTW---do you work?
How do you pay your bills.
And since when has it become a problem to work for a living.

Work or welfare----thats the way big gooberment want it---and as you say its up to us what line we draw for ourselves.

Txanne

[Rick_O_Shea]

For all you hard-workin' blue collar screw-the-rich types...go read Atlas Shrugged

[phoenixbyrd]

I do work, don't really have a choice. The type of work I do is to make the owner of the company more wealthy then he already is, I just get a tiny cut of the profits he makes so I can squeeze out a meager living.

The type of work I would like to do is to provide for myself, build my own house for my family, grow my own food for my family, dig my own well for my family. Not for some fat lazy corporate scumbag who cares nothing about how little he pays me. But if I dare try, I get fined and/or goto jail. And what was my crime? Trying to provide for myself without making use of money or making others rich or paying other people just to eat?

I can provide everything I need for myself. Clothing, food, shelter, water. So why again is commerce inevitable? Greed is the answer your looking for. Because people want bigger, better, and more more more and now now now. People are just greedy. It has nothing at all to do with we can't provide everything we need for ourselves because that's pure BS and a weak argument. We've done just that for thousands of years, every species on this planet provides everything it needs for itself, all without money/commerce.

[Txanne]

I do work, don't really have a choice. The type of work I do is to make the owner of the company more wealthy then he already is, I just get a tiny cut of the profits he makes so I can squeeze out a meager living.

The type of work I would like to do is to provide for myself, build my own house for my family, grow my own food for my family, dig my own well for my family. Not for some fat lazy corporate scumbag who cares nothing about how little he pays me. But if I dare try, I get fined and/or goto jail. And what was my crime? Trying to provide for myself without making use of money or making others rich or paying other people just to eat?

I can provide everything I need for myself. Clothing, food, shelter, water. So why again is commerce inevitable? Greed is the answer your looking for. Because people want bigger, better, and more more more and now now now. People are just greedy. It has nothing at all to do with we can't provide everything we need for ourselves because that's pure BS and a weak argument. *We've done just that for thousands of years, every species on this planet provides everything it needs for itself, all without money/commerce.



I understand what your saying--But--greed makes it possible for us to sit at these computers and talk over these things.


If you can do it---go for it!!

I too use to be anti--rich people---and discovered their only as rich as WE make them.

i have nothing againest rich---people!!

They gave to multiple charties--lots of money.
They gave schlor ships to colleges.
They have grant money for new inventions--
and working for rich people provides better salaries.

I do think however--you may be confusing rich ---with the interfering goverment ---gooberment has No BUSINESS in business--they have regulated--made new laws and stuck its nose in all areas of business.

No big business no money.

But give it a little while longer----we'll all have our oxens in a ditch.

Big business doesnt take our dollars and give it too welfare suckers----The government does.

And i too believe we should have the freedom to do as we chose---it aint big business fault we dont--its ours we let it happen.

I blame myself---but I too was working 12-16 hours a day so the powers that be could illegally take my tax dollars and disperse it too those who wont work.

txanne

[phoenixbyrd]

The thing is though, we don't need these computers, cars, and luxury items. These aren't the things we should be working towards obtaining in life. My computer was given to me by my grandmother thankfully, else I wouldn't own one. My car I had to get out of necessity for if I didn't then I couldn't get a better paying job to support my family.

My issue doesn't lay with the rich or laws and such, my issue is that we are not free to just *LIVE*. My issue is that *no one* should *force* you to pay them so you can eat, have a place to sleep, and drink water. You do these things without paying someone and you are going to be fined and/or thrown into jail. This is what is wrong. It is now illegal to just LIVE. Some guy with some meaningless title attached to his name has taken away our right to friggin live.

No one seems to understand what freedom really is. Big deal, we have better laws then other countries and less severe punishments. Where's my right to LIVE. Until people wake up to this simple problem, we'll never have freedom, just as we don't now.

[333]

Peace,

No man is an Island unto himself. There would be no society at all, if men didn't need to work together. The sporadic small communities or clans if you will, will always be under threat dis united. The great experiment that was the U S A at inception was so new a prospect, it boggles the mind.

Sovereignty what a concept, what is yours, is yours. Communism and Socialism are the removal of this notion, private property, and all liberties.

There have always been despots looking to capitalize off the weak and ignorant. There have always been royal or elitists that believe they deserve to rule over those ignorant masses.

Yes, generally it is their desire to have more then they need, their greed, that provides the impetus, to justify things like serfdom or slavery, while you and I are ALLOWED to eeek out a moderate, nose above water living, they have to worry about paying the taxes on their several homes through out the world.

For what ever reason they deserve what they have, and are accustomed to that form of life. Its Marxism to take from one to give to many. Just as its despotic to take from many to give to thy self.

But alas, thats the accepted version of society, TO COMPETE OVER RESOURCES that the ultra rich have monopolized. Competition keeps us at each others throats, to have more than we really need. Next time your in the supermarket have a good look at all you require to be somewhat happy, then imagine going with out all the stuff you can't manufacture.

Then go to the soap isle, thats right the soap isle, see all those varieties, so much competition, just amongst soap for goodness sake, now heres the catch: Healthy capitalist competition right? Many producers means lower or fair prices through competition? RIGHT

TURN THOSE BOXES OF SOAP OVER AND READ WHERE THEY COME FROM, CHECK EM, SEE TRULY HOW MANY MANUFACTURERS THERE ARE.

There were hundreds of soaps, and 10 producers of soap, each maker put out 10 brands to create the illusion of competition. Now of those ten producers, half were parent companies of the others. So really there was not much competition at all. Funnel it up to top 1%

Although 90% of the wealth in the world , in the hands of the top 1% doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling and my stats are a rough guess but close none the less.

I am with you on most of your points Bones, I am working hard to free myself of the needs of society by homesteading, but I still wish to participate in some form of fair and decent trade and commerce with my local neighbors. I would like to know my neighbors are safe and happy. I would like to see them and share with them. I have no desire to keep up with the Jones's with the new latest toys and such. I have no desire to be a billionaire retail mogul, but there are a plenty folk who do.

To secure the blessings of liberty for yourself and your posterity has not been instilled in America for a long time. Me now, me want, me me me me me me. WE THE PEOPLE have become ME THE SHEEPLE.

Atlas shrugged for those of you who haven't read it, is about the possession of intellectual, private, property, and the suppression of free sovereign business enterprise to the needs of the state. It was an excellent book.

Essentially the Almighty State and its need based society versus the Self motivated Individual to create and own privately that which he created.

333

[Rick_O_Shea]

... I can provide everything I need for myself. Clothing, food, shelter, water. So why again is commerce inevitable?...
Really? In a given 24 hour period, how long are you awake and active? Everything you mention is possible to do individually, but your time is finite, and you must make economical decisions.

Seriously...imagine yourself naked and in the wilderness...no tools, no food, no shelter...what do you do first? Answer - prioritize...and if you wish to live to see the dawn, I'd suggest building a rudimentary shelter and a fire. Now, next morning, you're still naked, hungry, thirsty...and you'll need to gather a supply of firewood at some point to keep you warm through the night - a constant time-resource drain.

I know I'm waffling a bit...but what I'm leading you towards is a realization that you can only do so much before you are exhausted. Alone, it is tough to provide the basics of survival...perfectly possible, but tough. As I said earlier, you would have a hard life...and you wouldn't look or smell good ;-)

The reason we're so advanced as a species is because we used our huge brains to figure out that we can accomplish more by distributing the survival effort. Small family units thrived better when men could hunt & gather, while women raised children and kept shelters intact...small tribes allowed us to specialize in tasks (hunting, building, cooking, clothing etc) and to accumulate stores, which had to be used wisely and economically. Communities grew and spread. Different areas had different resources in varying levels of abundance. With horses and wagons came the possibility to trade goods over greater distances. Transportation and communication proved to be phenomenal economy-enablers.

Throughout all this development, one constant factor was in play...trade. Even in primitive times, before monetary currency, our currency was our life, which we traded as part of our dues to exist in our tribes. If you sat on your ass, you were either expelled or left to die...there was no other choice.

I say that commerce is inevitable, not with a sense of doom, but with a sense of vitality. It is part of the natural order. To paraphrase - you would not even have a common pencil to draw a design for your rustic log shack (hewn from logs you cannot saw, felled from trees you cannot axe). Come to think of it...you wouldn't even have the education to know how to draw and calculate such a structure, without having traded for someone's time to teach you.

IMHO...a great many people totally underestimate what a freakin' phenomenal success story human life is. They think they're survivors, and they are, to an extent, but they lack the humility that comes from realizing that we're all armed with masses of knowledge, experience and property that we did not have to provide for ourselves...we largely traded for it all.

Commerce is not evil. Commerce is a dynamic, distributed survival mechanism.

[Funkhouser]

Indeed, no man is an island unto himself. *The Amish and Mennonite communities understand this, are able to distance themselves from the trappings of our modern pop culture society, and from our government's various free handout programs...yet they thrive socially and economically. *They have no concerns about free health care...they pay their doctor bills with cash, they never want for food or housing, and they work with great efficiency despite for the most part being 'off the grid'. *They are able to do this because they don't have an attitude of self-entitlement and they actually don't mind WORKING for their well-being. *That's one very valid definition of freedom...being unencumbered by unnecessary luxuries and being willing and able to stand up and move for what *you believe in without fear of repercussion (note: not that repercussion will not occur, but being free from the fear that would otherwise hold you back from standing your ground...the Founding Fathers understood that there would be hell to pay if they failed in their plans, but they went though with them anyway, because they did not want to live with the alternative).

That's right...I invoked the Amish way of life to prove a point about freedom. *They let their kids decide whether to stay with the community or go out on their own (when they reach age 16 or 17)...and the old order Amish were the very people who sought freedom from religious persecution by the Church of England way back in the 1700's, so they all tie in together. *Perhaps we should start an 'electric Amish' group and make that same sort of stand...that way I can keep plugging in my cordless phone to recharge it! * ;D

My apologies for the long, drawn out rant. Comments?

[333]

Peace,

Thanks funk,

A good rant, my family fled Europe over religious idiocy in the late 1600s, they arrived here in New Amsterdam, 1709.

You're right that the society of today confuses the irrefutable rights guaranteed by the constitution, as a pack of self entitlements. One is born with nothing and must earn or deserve, all in their life.

333