Still working. Still working. I’ll produce something brilliant soon. I promise.
Well … er, I’ll produce something soon.
In the meantime, I thank Karen for reminding me that I did produce something pretty darned good a few years ago — something that relates to the recent and ongoing series here on “Responsibilities of a Resident of the Police State.”
If you haven’t seen these before, or if you’d just like to bask anew in some freedom hopefulness, I give you:
“Sustainable Freedom: The Dilemma”
“Sustainable Freedom: Paradigms”
“Sustainable Freedom: Shifting the World”
Back soon with more.
To me, freedom is as much spiritual as physical. You might lock up a free man, way him down with chains, flog the very life out of him, but even after death he will not cease to be free.
Sometimes all freedom takes is one man to stand tall and say NO.
“Sometimes all freedom takes is one man to stand tall and say NO.”
I agree with you 100%… but there is the reality of freedom, and there is the perception of freedom — and you are speaking of perception, the ability of one man to FEEL free in the face of non-freedom (a la The Shawshank Redemption).
Will we ever achieve the reality of freedom? Many people want more than the perception alone. Many people cannot perceive freedom without the reality of it.
How do you define the reality of freedom, Pat?
In fact, I wasn’t only speaking of perceptions when I wrote of one man saying NO.
When I speak of “reality”, I’m speaking of reality in the world as it exists (and in opposition to freedom), i.e. government intimidation, economic controls, corporate tyranny, TSA, arbitrary legislation, etc. — most anything that takes freedom of choice, and our freedoms, away.
The _reality_, as it applies to freedom, would be an absence of those things, as well as a conviction and determination in the individual that he/she has a natural right to be left alone to live as he chooses without interference.
I was responding to Matt, another, and was thinking of his entire Comment, including his first paragraph. I don’t think NO applies only to perceptions, either, but to a very *real* world — but I thought his NO sentence was additional to his first paragraph.
I was thinking that some of the issue of addressing freedom is that most people believe they are free already. It isn’t purely a perception issue but the fact that most people are used to freedom within set parameters. Since that is all they have known they don’t ask who set the parameters or why, or if they had the right, they just accept those parameters. When the parameters of “freedom” close in, if it is done subtlely enough, they don’t notice much and get used to them.
Kind of like trapping hogs. Build a trap they are comfortable with, bait it with enough corn and when enough are milling around in content ment, quietly close the gate.
Pat,
I understand what you were saying. In reality, the man that stands and says NO will possibly dissappear, or get beaten to death by the cops, or by the very people he is trying to set free.
Gandhi was succesful because his followers were ready for freedom and the British at that time were not willing to commit overwhelming force. I think the British were also ready to be rid of the expense of administering an ever growing colony.
But, no matter what the external circumstances are, freedom must start from within. I think some of our problem with society is many people equate freedom with license. Freedom to to many equates to not having to take responsibility or suffer consequences for their actions.
Sorry for missing that you were responding to Matt and not to me! (Matt and Pat, thanks for your patience in not pointing that out; Matt’s opinion is one I’ve uttered myself.)
But really, I think it’s futile to insist upon/expect/aim for a world without government intimidation, economic controls, etc. — a world in which (somehow!) individuals could control outside forces so well that all our natural rights would be respected at all times.
Nice vision, of course. But it would require magic for freedom-loving individuals or whatever institutions or documents they create to prevent power-mongers from being power mongers.
And Pat, I’m sure you know that very well. But why even bang your head on the concept of such a Libertopia?
Matt, another said: “Pat, I understand what you were saying. In reality, the man that stands and says NO will possibly dissappear, or get beaten to death by the cops, or by the very people he is trying to set free….
“But, no matter what the external circumstances are, freedom must start from within.”
This I realize, and I’m not questioning that. I’m just saying there are two ways to look at this (and that’s my problem, I often can see two or more sides to a question, even if I only believe in the one). There is the real (unfree) world we live in, and there is freedom that we long for, and perceive as the ideal, and in fact may very well have arrived at from within.
How to reconcile the two? In fact, I think this is what Claire is trying to tell us in the “Responsibilities” blogs.
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Claire said: “And Pat, I’m sure you know that very well. But why even bang your head on the concept of such a Libertopia?”
Not banging my head, Claire. (See above: I understand both sides. Guess I sometimes play devil’s advocate, and misconstrue my own position.) But I do believe we need an ideal to hang onto, if for no other reason than something to compare with. Compromise is so easy in this unfree world, and so hard to recognize; many people (see L.P., minimalists, tea partiers, Ron Paul, etc.) slide over the line without realizing where they’re going or how far they’ve slipped. We need to keep the ideal intact and always before us.
You cannot enslave a free man. The most you can do is kill him.
— Robert Heinlein
It is a time way overdue. We must stand in soladarity once and for all before it is too late.