Are we truly free?

Freedom in the U.S. has always been a subjective thing, accessible to some but not all, otherwise special interest groups wouldn’t have to fight for rights (like voting, etc.) that can really only be withheld and not granted in a ‘free’ society. You can be free in your mind, if you want to be, no matter what society you live in at any time.

I don’t feel free and I feel that it is ultimately money that binds us. If you want to move into the forest and live off the land then I think you might possibly be truly free.

Of course we’re not free. We are born to work and occupy our time until it’s time to go back to work, unless we want to be homeless, then we die. We’re slaves to the system, maaaan.

I’m certainly not free. But I’m attractively priced, for the budget-minded buyer.

@CyanoticWasp starting bid $1,000.

Freedom is realitive and subjective. The freedoms we have enjoyed in the United States have been the best this world has to offer but they are being destroyed and will be non existant if we continue on this path. Our entire world is changing and until we get on board and understand what is happening and make adjustments we will be caught unaware. The time of what we understand and are now living is coming to a close. We all need to wake up and open our hearts, minds and eyes.

We are utterly free, and yet, we have no freedom at all.

What is free? That is almost as good a question as the meaning of life one!

No. I think everyone is in a kind of , stronghold?

Anyone complaining about having to work for money and have health insurance should consider what “free” meant in the context of, you know, legal slavery.

Yes, you have to go to work. Yes, you have to abide by government regulation.

However, another human being cannot purchase you as property and beat you to death for disobedience.

This is a pretty important concept that took humans—and particularly Americans—a long time to figure out.

@JustmeAman, what freedoms are being threatened, exactly? What “path” are you referring to? I’d appreciate it if you could be a lot more specific.

As the late comedian Bill Hicks said; if you want to see how free you are, try going anywhere without money.

Perhaps I can weigh in as a person who grew up in the US and then left….. I found more freedom in New Zealand. They had socialised medical care and a system that truly supported the small business person. Things weren’t bogged down in layers of bureaucracy and tax laws and if you were transparent and honest, so was the system. It seems EVERYTHING is regulated in the US under dumbbells of weights the clog the system and the brain of creativity. They have created a maze that only the best mice and rats can solve…. become famous, invent a fad, get elected in the right place…... it’s not freedom…. it’s a rats maze.

Sure, if you’re debt free.

I would sell myself for over a million dollars, therefore I am not free.

Individuals can often be pretty free, I guess, if they’re not tricked by the system that was designed to trick them before they were born.

The way I see it is that we think were free, but were really not free at all. Our founding fathers finally agreed on a government that would be controlled by the people. Well most of the time now the people of this united states don’t stand up for what they really want. If we did stand up, we would pretty much be told to shut up. We’ve let the government pretty much take over how we live. There are things we have no idea about that the government knows about. Arn’t we supposed to tell them what to do?!

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It is an interesting quote. We are never truly free as we are constrained by societies’ rules and laws, wrongly or rightly. (I believe mostly rightly).

Who gave you the idea you’re “free?” Well if you’re going to use the term, we should define it carefully. You’re free to vote for any candidate you want for president, as long as you’re old enough, qualified and registered to vote, and as long as you vote for one of the two candidates of the major parties. This is American style freedom. You’re allowed to say anything you want, except when you’re told you can’t. You can say Hi to your friend Bob in the privacy of your own home, but you can’t say “Hi” you your friend “Jack” when you’re waiting in line for airport security. You’re free to pursue “happiness” as long as happiness involves paying your taxes, keeping your lawn trim, serving in the army when you’re told to, and anything else that your government thinks you should do.
American freedom always comes with strings attached, but then again, that’s probably true of most places.

They say if you give a man a fish , he ’ll eat for a day , but if you teach a man to
fish… . then he ’ s godda get a fishing licence, but he doesn’t have any money. So
he ’ s got to get a job and get into the social security system and pay taxes, and
now you ’ re gonna audit the poor cocksucker, coz ’ he ’ s not really good with math.
So he ’ ll pull the IRS van up to your house, and he ’ ll take all your shit . He ’ll take
your black velvet Elvis and your Batman toothbrush , and your penis pump , and
that all goes up for auction with the burden of proof on you because you forgot to
carry the one, coz ’ you were just worried about eating a fucking fish , and you
couldn ’ t even cook the fish coz ’ you needed a permit for an open flame . Then the
health department is going to start asking you a lot of questions about where are
you going to dump the scales and the guts . ‘ This is not a sanitary environment ’ ,
and ladies and gentlemen if you get sick of it all at the end of the day… not even
legal to kill yourself in this country . Thanks again John Ashcroft you weird bible
addict, can ’ t even handle your own drug. You were born free , you got fucked out
of half of it, and you wave a flag celebrating . The only true freedom you find, is
when you realize and come to terms with the fact that you are completely and
unapologetically fucked , and then you are free to float around the system .” Doug Stanhope

We are nowhere near free and tranquilsea’s quote is dead on. In america, most people are so distracted, that they have no idea that not only are we not free, but that we are becoming more and more enslaved by a totalitarian government that will soon be controlling information and truth on a global scale to the point of no turning back.

Yes. Free to do what you want to.

Do not get FREE and CONSEQUENCES mixed up.

We are all born free, and that freedom gives us the freedom to contract and give up our freedom. Why we do this I will never know.

@cazzie, I would love to be able to emigrate. But because I now have a pre-existing condition I got at 22 I can’t now. So I just have to work to change the US into the country that it should be!

I think we’re taught that we’re free at an early age so that it’s harder for us to believe else wise. They give us one choice, that choice is to get a job and work the rest of your lives, they call that free by giving us a bunch of different jobs that we can choose to be enslaved at. We’re also busy 24/7 with work just so that we can survive in this “free” world without being homeless or starving, which keeps up from realizing that we’re actually enslaved. If anything about what they taught us in school about our founding fathers is true I really doubt this is how they pictured the world when they fought and died for our freedom. The people that are supposed to be our protectors (the police) are more like people who make sure we don’t break out of our chains. For me freedom should be us, the people, having the choice of how we want to live. Not having to follow the path laid out to us by our government. If anything it’s the people that should choice how the government works. Our protectors should be protecting or fighting for our freedom not making sure we obey. If we were able to casually walk up to the government and tell them how we would like things to be done and walk up to our protectors and tell them how we wanted to be protected then we’d be free. Being given a path to work for the rest of my life just so we don’t die and having to look at our protectors like they’re unjust isn’t free. If the majority of the population rallied together peacefully and tried to change the government I feel like the government would retaliate to keep us at bay in the invisible shackles they put us in.