The Last free American..
- Thread starter usfan
- Start date
Sonny Clark
Diamond Member
- Banned
- #3
In America, freedom is one's luck. I hope you remain lucky.
BlackSand
Nobody
- Oct 23, 2013
- 23,348
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Luck is an excuse for those who think it happens by accident.
Freedom comes from accepting responsibility and taking responsibility for your own decisions.
If you choose to shackle yourself with responsibilities you cannot manage ... Then you have given up your freedom.
.
Not2BSubjugated
Callous Individualist
Can't afford to be free? That's a thing?
What amount of wealth constitutes freedom? Bill Gates is insanely wealthy, but he doesn't have enough money to buy China. If Bill Gates can't afford to buy China, are any of us -really- free?
You seem to be confusing the concept of freedom with the concept of capacity. The fact that an achievement is not within your current capacity doesn't indicate a lack of free will, simply a lack of resources. The lack of resources only equates to a lack of freedom if your definition of freedom is the ability to accomplish literally anything one desires. This could be expressed as freedom from the very constraints of reality. If -this- is your criteria for freedom, then freedom doesn't actually exist and you're being disingenuous for implying that it's possible to "afford" such a thing.
In essence, saying that one is only free if one has enough money to do as one chooses, is like saying that one is only free if one is tall enough to dunk. One is only free if one has a rocket ship, otherwise one isn't free to go the moon, and therefore isn't free at all. Freedom from circumstance isn't a remotely realistic expectation.
For those of us who have a definition of freedom that isn't self-defeating, it generally means being able to exercise one's free will and -attempt- any accomplishment one desires free of anyone else forcing him to action/inaction against his or her will. Freedom is the absence of oppression as opposed to the complete absence of limitations (economic realities being the latter). The complete absence of limitations doesn't exist for a human being under any theoretical circumstances.
Last edited:
Moonglow
Diamond Member
Bloated personal ideology, Just say hello...
Yeah. Lot's of bloat around here though. Sort of the point of posting, idn't it?
Moonglow
Diamond Member
I'm here for the titties and beer..
usfan
VIP Member
- May 28, 2013
- 194
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- 68
- Thread starter
- #9
I probably posted in the wrong place.. sorry. I didn't realize i had already done an 'introduction' a couple of years ago, when i first signed up. I'm not into flame wars, or pissing contests. I'm more into human liberty, & hope it can continue for another generation or so.
I thought introductions are better if they have a short summary of ideology, instead of making it a mystery.
I thought introductions are better if they have a short summary of ideology, instead of making it a mystery.
Don't sweat. You can post about the nice weather we've been having and someone around here will bitch about it.
There is a kind of magic included in the usage of a word. In the real world that exists for actual people, the word hasn't lots of meanings. Its usage by the right is merely a kind of prayer or feel good slogan. One should try to sit down and define a meaning that includes reality. Tough task. Long ago I wrote end of democracy US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum needs revision but still addresses lots of today.
"Kristol was trying to detach conservatism from its schizophrenic devotion to free markets on the one hand and tradition on the other. He knew that you can't revere tradition if you admire the "creative destruction" that capitalism brings to life. He knew that you can't insulate the nuclear family from the heartless logic of the market if you accept the dictates of free enterprise. He knew that conservatism had to become more liberal if it were to sound like something more than hidebound devotion to a phantom past. A "combination of the reforming spirit with the conservative ideal," he declared, "is most desperately wanted," and cited Herbert Croly, the original big government liberal from the Progressive Era, as his source of inspiration.
Kristol also knew that the competitive, entrepreneurial economy Friedman and Hayek posited as the source of freedom was a mere fantasy. Capitalism had long since become a system in which large corporations, not small producers, dominated the market - those anonymous and unknowable laws of supply and demand which once made all producers equally subject to the discipline of market forces had been supplanted by the visible hand of modern management: "There is little doubt that the idea of a (free market,' in the era of large corporations, is not quite the original capitalist idea." Some producers had more market power than, others: some persons (and this is how corporations are legally designated) were more equal than others. So everyone was not "free to choose," as Friedman would have it, simply because he or she inhabited a market society. Corporate capitalism remained a moral problem. For in "its concentration of assets and power-power to make economic decisions affecting the lives of tens of thousands of citizens - it seems to create a dangerous disharmony between the economic system and the political." P11 'The World Turned Inside Out' James Livingston
"...Self-discipline has not been seen as a great virtue by citizens of the West over the last few decades. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was popularly assumed to be a preference of the Right, and this misapprehension remains in the political debate. But nothing could be less disciplined than the New Right, with its romantic mythologizing of freedom, equality and individualism in order to obscure such practical policies as the legalization of dishonest speculation through financial deregulation. The New Right is even more undisciplined than the liberal middle classes, which have redefined personal freedom as the privilege not to give of themselves when it comes to protecting or advancing the public good. Throughout the West they have gradually withdrawn from public life, claiming that politics is too damaging to their private lives. These lives tend now to be devoted to careerism, travel, holidays, sport, exercise and the caressing of a private state of mind which might be described as an obsession with their personal well-being. For both the New Right and the middle-class liberals, individualism has come to mean self-indulgence.... Such a childlike approach to the role of the citizen has allowed them to invert logic in a remarkable way. The public servant - police officer, soldier, tax collector, health authority - who is paid by the citizen, now becomes the enemy of the citizen. This transformation is, in part, the result of individuals feeling that they have lost control of the public mechanism. But what is self-discipline in public life if not working to ensure that one's beliefs have some effect? The tendency among Western elites is rather to evade paying taxes wherever legally possible and to pay the remainder resentfully, taking government services for granted, while grumbling about them and looking upon public servants and public services as money and time wasters. Thus our elites sink into precisely that childish, irresponsible mold which a technocratic society assumes is the real character of every citizen in a democracy." p337 'Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West' John Ralston Saul
"Kristol was trying to detach conservatism from its schizophrenic devotion to free markets on the one hand and tradition on the other. He knew that you can't revere tradition if you admire the "creative destruction" that capitalism brings to life. He knew that you can't insulate the nuclear family from the heartless logic of the market if you accept the dictates of free enterprise. He knew that conservatism had to become more liberal if it were to sound like something more than hidebound devotion to a phantom past. A "combination of the reforming spirit with the conservative ideal," he declared, "is most desperately wanted," and cited Herbert Croly, the original big government liberal from the Progressive Era, as his source of inspiration.
Kristol also knew that the competitive, entrepreneurial economy Friedman and Hayek posited as the source of freedom was a mere fantasy. Capitalism had long since become a system in which large corporations, not small producers, dominated the market - those anonymous and unknowable laws of supply and demand which once made all producers equally subject to the discipline of market forces had been supplanted by the visible hand of modern management: "There is little doubt that the idea of a (free market,' in the era of large corporations, is not quite the original capitalist idea." Some producers had more market power than, others: some persons (and this is how corporations are legally designated) were more equal than others. So everyone was not "free to choose," as Friedman would have it, simply because he or she inhabited a market society. Corporate capitalism remained a moral problem. For in "its concentration of assets and power-power to make economic decisions affecting the lives of tens of thousands of citizens - it seems to create a dangerous disharmony between the economic system and the political." P11 'The World Turned Inside Out' James Livingston
"...Self-discipline has not been seen as a great virtue by citizens of the West over the last few decades. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was popularly assumed to be a preference of the Right, and this misapprehension remains in the political debate. But nothing could be less disciplined than the New Right, with its romantic mythologizing of freedom, equality and individualism in order to obscure such practical policies as the legalization of dishonest speculation through financial deregulation. The New Right is even more undisciplined than the liberal middle classes, which have redefined personal freedom as the privilege not to give of themselves when it comes to protecting or advancing the public good. Throughout the West they have gradually withdrawn from public life, claiming that politics is too damaging to their private lives. These lives tend now to be devoted to careerism, travel, holidays, sport, exercise and the caressing of a private state of mind which might be described as an obsession with their personal well-being. For both the New Right and the middle-class liberals, individualism has come to mean self-indulgence.... Such a childlike approach to the role of the citizen has allowed them to invert logic in a remarkable way. The public servant - police officer, soldier, tax collector, health authority - who is paid by the citizen, now becomes the enemy of the citizen. This transformation is, in part, the result of individuals feeling that they have lost control of the public mechanism. But what is self-discipline in public life if not working to ensure that one's beliefs have some effect? The tendency among Western elites is rather to evade paying taxes wherever legally possible and to pay the remainder resentfully, taking government services for granted, while grumbling about them and looking upon public servants and public services as money and time wasters. Thus our elites sink into precisely that childish, irresponsible mold which a technocratic society assumes is the real character of every citizen in a democracy." p337 'Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West' John Ralston Saul
Not2BSubjugated
Callous Individualist
Won't be me bitching.
I'll be the guy calling you arrogant for implying that your personal views on sunshine get to dictate what sort of weather is "nice", as though "nice" can be objectively defined.
God damn self-assured dogmatists!
Moonglow
Diamond Member
I see boobies...
- Banned
- #17
Well, as you can see from some of the responses here, you're going to need a great sense of humor, along with the emotional ability to ignore dumbass trolls and half-wits with high self-esteem. Welcome. Many of the cranks are pretty entertaining, as you can see.
The Irish Ram
LITTLE GIRL / Ram Tough
to freedom.
usfan
VIP Member
- May 28, 2013
- 194
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- 68
- Thread starter
- #19
no worries. I'm no stranger to forums or polemy. I don't even take myself seriously, much less strangers on the net!
But I am a dying breed. I remember when you could bitch about the government, regardless of which party was in charge, and no one cared.
I remember when you took responsibility for your life, & did not expect others to support you.
I remember when hard work was a virtue in society.
But now, the Great Fiction rules, & government is worshipped.
I'm glad I got to see a glimpse of what made America great, before she collapsed from opulence, greed, & dependency.
Statistikhengst
Diamond Member
- Banned
- #20
Well, hell fucking yes!! Be free, be free, be FREE!
And look, it only took you two years after you signed up to introduce yourself!
You are becoming free!!
Well, time to go clean out my sock drawer....
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