STer

Sure there are, there are tens of thousands of them... http://ericpetersautos.com/2013/06/18/another-car-we-cant-buy/ How about not purposely curtailing my full quote which said: "There is no law saying they can't buy a certain car that they really want (if there was I bet that would really upset them in a whole other way if it was one with any popularity at all - and note that I'm talking here about cars many people would actually really want)" I went out of my way to put that last part. Do you know of any car that tens of thousands of Americans are really wanting to buy and can't buy due to the law who are upset by that? If so, which car? I'm not denying there may be some cars they can't buy, but it seems most people are pretty content to shrug their shoulders and just choose from the huge range of options that they are allowed to buy. Again, my point being not that there aren't limits the government puts on us, but that within those limits the freedoms are big enough that most people are content with them. This also is an example of first-world problems. Compare the kind of oppression where people don't have freedom of speech to the "oppression" where an American has to choose from hundreds of available state of the art cars, but can't get a few other ones that aren't allowed. Do you see why they aren't really up in arms? And again you seem to not be grasping my point. I'm not saying the government doesn't indirectly create conditions that may lead to circumstances people don't like. I'm saying people don't often perceive it as the government actively oppressing them and taking away their freedoms. In this case, most people probably just perceive it as car dealerships being annoying. They put up with it when they need to, complain to their spouse over dinner how annoying it was, and get on with their lives. Very very few spend time tracing it back to government policies and losing sleep over the whole thing. Why? Because they'd rather just get their new car out on the road and drive around and exercise their large freedom to travel almost anywhere they want in that new car!

It's true that there are some bars there that they don't see. It's also true that there are some bars they simply don't care about because they wouldn't want to break through them anyway. And then there are other bars that are more upsetting which are put in place more directly by entities other than the government. So there is a mixture going on. But you still have to grapple with the reality that, in the West, people really do in fact have quite a large range of freedoms. They may not have some freedoms you would like to have. But they seem to have enough freedoms, at least in terms of their relationship with the government, to be mostly content. It might be interesting for you to explain which specific actions people would really want to take that the government prevents them from taking, especially ones you really think most people lose sleep over. Unless there are things that people are longing to do and are prevented from doing by the government, many will not perceive it as being caged or to really be that concerned even if you did frame it that way.

I think you're still missing my point. It is not quite the same as slavery since, as you yourself said, people have "the freedom to choose our lifestyles and hold onto at least 50% of our wealth." You can say there is authority involved, hierarchy involved and so on. But you can't honestly call it the same as slavery with those conditions in place. And, as I keep pointing out, this isn't just an illusion. People really do have a large range of everyday freedoms. Do you think slaves are allowed to get a permit to go in a public square with a bullhorn and speak against their masters? No. But people can do that in the West all the time. You can say it's ineffective and doesn't change much if you wish. But they are allowed to do it and so they feel free (and in this way they are indeed free.) It's just not going to resonate with most people comparing their situation in terms of the government to slavery when they feel so accurately free to say and do and move about mostly as they please. Where you will hear the slavery comparison resonate more is when it comes to employment. People will speak of "wage slavery" and they feel this kind of thing viscerally since at work they actually cannot dress and speak and move as they choose. Their employer can control them in ways the government does not.

I don't think people perceive these economics complaints as cases of being "unfree." They just perceive them as not being able to afford certain things currently. They look at people who make more money and have those things and that shows that clearly people are not being forced to be unable to do these things. There is no law saying they can't buy a certain car that they really want (if there was I bet that would really upset them in a whole other way if it was one with any popularity at all - and note that I'm talking here about cars many people would actually really want) The opportunity is there and it is allowed. They just don't personally have the money right now, but aspire to have it someday. So I don't think most people think of that as a freedom issue in the way they think of censorship or shutting down minority places of worship or things like that as freedom issues. Here is another way to put it: There are government policies and laws that directly stifle personal freedoms. We don't have a lot of those in the West relative to most people's desires. Then there are government policies that, because of their effects, may put someone in a position where they don't have enough money to afford something they might want or force them to work longer than they otherwise would to get it. You could call this an economic freedom issue if you choose. But people viscerally feel this in a different way than a direct stifling of a personal freedom where a policeman is taking them to jail for political speech or something like that. I'm not saying the case can't be made that these economic complaints ultimately tie into a freedom issue in a sense. But my point is that it's more indirect and not felt viscerally in the same way so it doesn't really resonate when people talk about it in the language of "freedom."

But what I'm arguing is that most people don't feel unfree at all in the ways libertarians and anarchists focus on, not that they feel it but attribute it elsewhere. The only really widespread feeling of lack of freedom that I hear about very often is people complaining about having to go to their job (which is kind of like a cliche thing they shrug off as just how life is) or not having enough money to do what they want to do. But all of the basic freedoms - freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom to worship as they please and on and on - people generally feel they have. And the truth is they do have them in the West for the most part. So it's a valid point that if people believe the government represents them and is of them they wouldn't necessarily blame it as easily if they felt unfree. But my argument is that most people in the West do not feel unfree in the most basic ways.

I believe he meant "violence in the context of human society", which precludes taking some agonizingly tedious review of human, mamalian, or animal evolutionary history. In order to validate the claim that exploitation was a profitable long-term strategy (since Alan used the qualifier short-term, I presume this is what you mean to reply) prior to "civilization," which is an incredibly troublesome claim in and of itself due to the flexible definition of civilization; you would have to provide some pre-historic evidence that this was the case. While I do know quite a few anthropologists who would be more than happy to provide you just that conjecture, I don't think they would be able to present much more than their baser assumptions based on some pretty tenuous archeological evidence. To the best of my knowledge, nobody could justify such a claim on the time scale you are suggesting. I'm sorry that you find taking the evolutionary view, rather than simply the very narrowly focused view of 10,000 years out of millions of years, "tedious." However, I find it necessary to understand the roots of exploitation since deceptiveness, manipulation and exploitation - and violence used in the service of them - are traits and strategies that we see throughout nature. Where the environment is conducive to them, they persist. Where it is not, they don't. Alan seems to be claiming that the only environment conducive to them is one with a modern state. If this is so then I must ask how they survived all that time to even still be around today. With thousands and thousands of years of human existence before any modern state existed, why didn't those traits completely go extinct instead of remaining latent, ready to escalate in our modern age? As OP has proposed, I think our task is to understand the conditions in which such traits and strategies become maladaptive and work to move in that direction. Those who want to promote more cooperation and less exploitation would do well to understand how these things evolve since what you are really trying to do is make it so future evolution will select for cooperation. Hence the perfect title of the book The Evolution of Cooperation.

Exploitation has been a profitable strategy for some long before the state existed. In fact, it has been a profitable strategy for species other than humans. The battle between cooperators and exploiters is a fundamental evolutionary one. Viewing it as only existing within the modern civilized setting of the last 10,000 years is to miss hundreds of thousands, if not even millions of years of evolutionary forces involved in this dynamic.

I don't think most people even think in terms of "threats to personal freedom." It's more just a sense of who is "keeping me down." And I think most people who feel that feel it's "the man" keeping them down which refers to authority figures in their daily life, like parents or other family members, bosses and so on. I don't think most people feel that the US Congress is keeping them down. And that's just the people who do feel "kept down." A lot of people feel pretty free to do as they please as long as they are at work 9-5 and keep their boss happy. They may be frustrated with feeling they don't have enough money. But I don't think they feel unfree.I agree that many people never even consider homeschooling. Someone in that situation is going along unquestioningly and so they would have no reason to feel that public schools are any source of oppression. Only the ones who question the system would be thinking that. And those people who do that and want to homeschool but can't due to personal economic reasons are unlikely to feel that's an example of the government keeping them from being free.>The limits most people feel don't come from the government.>>>More importantly though, how sure are you of that (in bold)?I didn't say I'm sure. But this is my sense. I started the thread to get some more feedback. And ultimately it would be interesting to see some actual research on this. But I don't know many people that feel a lack of freedom is a big problem in their daily lives. I hear these howls from libertarians and anarchists about a need for greater freedom. Yet there is this huge gap between that and the perception I pick up on from people I know which does not involve feeling any great lack of freedom. Their concerns are other things apart from, sometimes even the very opposite of, lack of freedom, at least on a day to day basis.I agree that many anarchists see the deeper roots of things. But we are not talking about anarchists here. We're talking about the general public and why I don't think they are moved much by the argument from libertarians/anarchists that we are so unfree and need some freedom agenda.

As I've gotten into many times on the forum, all my searching ended up leading me to ponerology.and the influence of psychopathy as central issues. Sharing that idea was what really drove me to start posting here in the first place. Stefan also hits on this, to some degree and with a slightly different angle, in "The Fascists that Surround" you series of videos, for example here where he focuses on sociopaths. One difference though is that I look at it through the lens of not just "market forces," but evolutionary forces that have always existed and always will exist, as discussed in this section here. And a number of times I've shared that there actually is a resource that focuses on what kind of incentive structure must be in place so that "cooperators" can thrive within a world that will always include some proportion of "exploiters." That book is The Evolution of Cooperation. Those things, along with the issue of parenting for healthy neurodevelopment, are about as far as I can get in proposing the foundations of any real strategy for improvement.

Okay, I overlooked this part when responding to your thread. I don't think that this is the case, because we see in more obviously-oppressed countries/economies that the people still advocate for government action and expansion in certain areas. I don't think my personal complaints about government, no matter how intense, will actually convince nonlibertarians that government is the reason they feel prevented from doing the things they want to do in life. That's a philosophical conclusion that the person in question has to arrive at themselves. I think the most we can do is provide the principles and arguments in as civil a manner as possible, and let the other person take those arguments how they will. I've actually convinced several people that they like anarchist principles, they just don't see the practicality of them. But I figure that's a step in the right direction. For a while I also thought anarchist principles were mostly idealistic, even though I really appreciated them as well. Then I began searching for practicality. Let me ask this: Did you arrive at anarchism because you felt prevented from doing certain things or having certain freedoms? I'm not entirely sure that that's why I arrived at anarchism. If anything, it was a more objective view that government wasn't handling problems in society very effectively. I think the very first thing that got me on my philosophical path to libertarianism was how much hatred and disdain I noticed that people in other countries held about this country. It wasn't so much that I felt personally violated or restricted, although in time that factored in as well. It's possible that that was a strong underlying reason for questioning government, I just didn't realize it at the time. Sure some people, even in very oppressed countries, will still support the government. That doesn't mean that rising awareness of the oppression doesn't drive more resistance though. Just that it isn't enough to drive 100% resistance (nothing is). You mention that it actually wasn't the "freedom" issue that brought you to libertarianism and anarchism. And that's fine. In this thread I was just focusing on the "freedom" argument and why I don't think it speaks to most people in our society. Perhaps other arguments will speak to them more. I actually would not say I'm an anarchist exactly. I'm kind of an agnostic who sees merit on multiple sides of these arguments. In the end, I'm not sure there is just one answer to this for everyone. There might be various different solutions that work in different places. That's another whole discussion. But my views on it pretty much stem from what I wrote in one of my blog posts (I can post the link if people want). So shouldn't you be asking, "What caused you to become fed up with government and pursue liberty?" ? No because I was specifically curious about this gap between how some in the lib/an community feel so oppressed by the government while most people I know don't feel that at all. They feel more oppressed by their boss at work than by the government. I think the real reason that people don't recognize a lack of freedoms in this country is that they're taught from an early age that government is necessary. Media and public schools and other institutions push this manipulative hypnosis on children. Pledge loyalty to a piece of fabric, recite the declaration of independence, support the troops, read Lord of the Flies, go to school and learn nothing particularly useful there, learn obedience to authority figures, etc. etc... That might contribute. But I still think it's more that the government really doesn't take away that much day-to-day freedom that people long for. Even with taxes, they still keep most of their money, just not all. They can travel where they want pretty much unfettered. They can wear what they want, say what they want, with very few limits (other than limits imposed by people other than the government). But how much of a choice do some parents have, when they need to work 9-5 to earn enough money to support their children? Other options also cost more. This is not to excuse the parents for never questioning why they feel they have to subject their children to public schooling, but I can at least understand that some parents are limited by options. The state has a tendency to limit options. It also helps to remember that I only recently became an anarchist. So, for about 20 years of my life, I didn't really question the school system, or government. I went through the same thought processes as a statist. It takes a lot of constantly reassessing personal values and beliefs to arrive at anarchism. This self-questioning and transformation process is not comfortable for a lot of people. Again, not excusing them, but I can see why blind contentedness so wide-spread. Why would people perceive the state as oppressive because their job keeps them from homeschooling? They would perceive that as their job being oppressive. This is part of my point. The limits most people feel don't come from the government. They come from their jobs or their own families and so on. As you seem very aware, this thread isn't questioning anarchism as a whole. It's just considering this "government is keeping me from being free" perception. There are lots of other arguments for anarchism than just feeling personally oppressed on a day to day basis by the government. Those can be looked at elsewhere and may be more effective arguments. But I've just always been curious about this "I feel unfree" one, specifically.

As a means to undersatnding the mechanics of the wider world and the thoughts and motivations of those around you, yes it is helpful. But of course, as I'm sure you realise, that is a whole diifferent pursuit to that of attempting to change a persons mind. Of course. And I think a lot of people on FDR care about changing people's minds. But I was simply pointing out that the thread still has some value even for those who do not. No I wouldn't disagree with that as a general sentiment. And within the wider world of the 'freedom movement', they do tend to focus most of their attention on govt like you're suggesting, which does become frustratingly dull (at least for me). I think a whole lot less of that occurs here at FDR (in my experience). The focus on personal relationships and well being are a big part of what gets discussed here. Perhaps less so on the boards, but then again I wouldn't say the boards are necessarily a great reflection of the community as a whole. Personal freedom being a much more achievable goal because it only involves the individual making changes and not the rest of the world. That being said, I agree that many people in the west are oblique to the idea of not being free. Most have been convinced by years of indoctrination in schools and a media that just reads out govt missives verbatim with little critcism. Then there is the other side in which people are often dependent on govt for their jobs, food, health and shelter or at least aware of a loved one that is. Perhaps that's an over simplification of why many people are reticent to the 'liberty message', but it covers the majority I think. I thought you raised an excellent point earlier in the thread, in response to MrCapitalism, regarding the neglected and abandoned. I would wholeheartedly agree with you that these people are important. That merely feeling aggressed upon or violated is just one (albeit valid) outcome of abuse. Stefan has addressed this in some of his earlier podcasts if I recall. Of course peaceful parenting goes some way into avoiding being neglectful of your childs needs. However, I would agree that there is still much to learn, as these are often the hardest people to reach, because the journey to recovery for them is usually a longer and more painful one. However, I am still mindful that there are always going to be people that are uninterested (unreachable). In my opinion learning how to detect those kinds can be just as useful as finding ways to reach others. I basically agree with most of what you said here. The only thing I'd add is that the obliqueness to the idea of not being free comes, at least in some part, from the fact that people in the West really are significantly free in many respects that they care about. It's not just an illusion. We really do have a lot of freedom in certain areas. And that's why I think the freedom message is a tough sell to those who aren't philosophers thinking deeply about the more subtle, insidious dynamics that might go on in a system.

What is it that the state robs you of specifically? And if your argument is how childhood is lost due to public schooling, that doesn't completely hold because homeschooling is allowed. I feel sad for having to explain this, but it's ok. I understand. I have a 1 year-old daughter. Her life is exciting and wonderful. She has a powerful drive to learn and play and is full of love and laughter. She's safe and surrounded by happy people interested in what goes on in her life; people eager to get to know her preferences and respecting them. Now I know what I missed as a child. The state, the institutionalization of violence and the externalization of responsibility, the collectivization of debt... I have no experience of a world without it. And I know it is simply impossible for me to accurately imagine a world free from this, just as I could not ever imagine a happy childhood while living a crappy one. All I can do is dream. It's impossibly hard to imagine a world where people can travel the world freely and live and work where they decide it's best for them; a world with no invasions or armies; a world without thugs administering/pillaging the wealth of billions; a world where people are not hiding from and adapting to a violent hierarchical hegemony of vicious manipulative thugs; where there are no secret police and mafias and intelligence services and government sponsored cartels; a world where people relate with one another individually with respect and with full expectation of quality... I'm an imaginative guy, but I cannot get that far. Can you? Oh so you weren't saying the state makes a happy childhood impossible. You were saying that the state makes it impossible, once beyond childhood, to have the analogous adult experience to what a happy child experiences? The interesting thing is that everything you lament not being able to experience due to the state - I have heard almost this exact same lamentation from anarcho-primitivists who make a case that it is not just the state but civilization itself that brought about this situation. They would say that civilization itself is the root of institutionalized violence, massive hierarchy, and so on. But that's a whole other discussion.

Homeschooling is not allowed by most parents, so the fact that it's legal according to the state is irrelevant for most children. My point is that if the parents choose not to homeschool, and you believe that public schools corrupt childhood, then you could say it's the parents preventing the kid's childhood, not the state. Yes the state obviously puts forth influence there. But the ultimate decision to put the child through it is the parents'.

Stef starts with personal relationships, not with morality, which is one tool for finding and building meaningful relationships. I would say self-expression is where I've felt least free in my life. Yes, I'd like to not have an astronomical amount of my money and time stolen from me, but being able to express my deepest thoughts and feelings, and talk about my most cherished interests, with the people around me who claim to love me is the freedom that is most important to me. I wouldn't say I'm prevented from that anymore, though, now that I've staked my claim on my emotional, intellectual, and physical life. I don't care what anyone in government does, but I do care what those I am closest to do. They have way more power to respect or disrespect my freedom than a stranger from an institution. As far as I've seen, Stefan argues for pure deontology. Does it get more hardcore deontological than the idea that there is "universally preferable behavior"? He does not like arguments from effect. So if doing something moral were to alienate you from friends and family, he would say that's the cost of being moral. I have not seem him put relationships above morality. In fact, I've seen him advocate that relationships that involve any immorality should be discarded. The fact you could go from unable to express yourself with those around you to able to do so says to me that the state was not the entity primarily preventing it. The state didn't change and yet you are now able to do it. So I have a hard time seeing that as something the state was preventing. And I doubt very many people perceive the state as preventing it in their lives either.

What is it that the state robs you of specifically? And if your argument is how childhood is lost due to public schooling, that doesn't completely hold because homeschooling is allowed.

Right tasmlab. So I see two big gaps here. As you say, most people in the West don't seem to perceive a personal effect of their liberty being seriously curtailed. So arguing from effect, if that's the case, is unlikely to work. So then you say "Well let's use the moral arguments instead." But like I said earlier, moral arguments alone only work with people who are deontologists. If they are consequentialists or a mix of the two, then they won't necessarily be moved by moral arguments alone. They can weigh the moral arguments against some consequences they see as beneficial and determine that it's worth some moral imperfection. It's interesting because Stefan does seem to constantly go back to the argument from morality and discourage arguments from effect. But (and maybe I simply missed this since I have never had time to listen to all his work) I haven't heard it addressed that a lot of people simply are not pure deontologists so purely moral arguments will not be effective with them. I recently posted in a thread about personality types/Myers-Briggs and I wonder how that might tie into this too. Perhaps certain types are more likely to be more deontological and others more consequentialists. Or maybe it's an aspect of temperament separate from MBTI specifically. But in any case, people have different epistemologies and different ethical stances.

I didn't dismiss them (at least most of them, a couple of them I do dismiss if they just aren't accurate). I mainly keep pointing out that their answers don't seem to be ones that most people in the public would be motivated by. I'm shining a light on the gap between the things people on FDR feel strongly about, leading them to this general sense of being somehow oppressed by the government and the sense in the general public, which I think is more on the other side, if anything - that they are too often neglected and left to fend for themselves. Like I said, I certainly don't mean to diminish the frustrations people really do feel. And I'm sure many of them are quite real. I just find it an interesting contrast between the view of government on FDR as oppressive and limiting of freedom and the general sense in the public that, for the most part, in the West, we can do as we please as long as we aren't being too extreme (more extreme than most people care to be anyway.) It goes back to the last part of my OP where I said "I think this topic is pretty important because if you're trying to convince people to work and make sacrifices to bring about more freedom and liberty, there would have to be clear things people really want to do but can't currently to motivate them to put in such effort." The thing I find interesting about this view (of FDR), is that it doesn't quite live up to my experience of it. Having said that, I imagine everyone has a different experience of FDR and what draws them here. So perhaps you're right and there are people on this board that think this way. Certainly I've seen many people come and go on this board over the years and mostly for very individual and personal reasons. That said, my take on this idea of convincing people is a somewhat null one for me. Insofar as I realise I have very little effect on changing people. Trying to convince them of my way of thinking, often just leads me into a world of frustration and despair (at least historically). Personally, it's hard enough convincing myself of a better course of action in my own life, even when I'm presented with the evidence. That to imagine I could change someone else’s mind, would I think be tomfoolery on my part. I enjoy a good debate and argument like many do here on this forum. But I try not to emotionally invest in it (unless it's a loved one), because debate and discussion are often fun, interesting and a great way to meet people. I feel a lot more peace, now that I'm no longer responsible for changing peoples minds. Even for those who opt not to try to change other people's minds, it's still very helpful to understand how one's position compares with that of the people around them. I doubt you'd deny that the general sentiment at FDR is that government is oppressive and stifles our freedoms to an unacceptable degree. For me, it's just interesting when I hear the framing of it as a liberty/freedom issue because I just don't think that's how most people in the West, in their day-to-day lives, experience it.

My personal opinion is that this is the language of emotionally dependent people. and this is the language of self sufficiency and personal efficacy. What's your personal relationship to 'dependency' vs. 'self sufficiency'? Which do you consider superior? I find it pretty surprising that on a forum that almost revolves around awareness of the massive levels of abuse and neglect that go on that you would refer to "emotionally dependent people" in some derogatory way. You can't both promote the idea that abuse and neglect of children are rampant and at the same time chastise people for not being self-sufficient. You can promote self-sufficiency as a goal which will require a lot of healing to achieve. But this is just my point. Many people, until they get that healing, will feel the wounds of their abuse and neglect in the form of feelings of abandonment. Certain people react to certain forms of abuse by feeling violated and intruded upon - fear of engulfment. I think it is often these people that become very resistant to authority, the State, etc. Other people react to other forms of abuse or neglect by feeling very needy and alone - fear of abandonment. These fears are just as understandable as the fears of engulfment. But they lead not to a feeling of being violated or intruded upon, which might lead to a strong disdain for authority or the State, but a feeling of great need for an authority figure - or at least some other people - to help take care of them - dependence as you might call it. My point is that I think anarchists/liberatarians should be very aware that while they may, for whatever reasons, have developed more of the anti-authority, intrusion feelings, there are many people who, out of very similar roots and in a quite valid way, develop the needy, dependent feelings. Preaching liberty/freedom does nothing to address their wounds and feelings and this is why I think this movement will fail to capture a huge percentage of the population. If, however, anarchists/libertarians came to view both intrusion and neglect as two sides of the same wounding coin, they could tailor their approach more to speak to both wounded groups in ways that would resonate. Feelings of being limited in freedom are important to address. But so are feelings of having plenty of freedom and being left lost and abandoned, able to go anywhere, but with no idea where to go or how to get there.

I wholeheartedly agree! I think the public would think I was batshit to not require doctors to be approved through the state and require 10 years of education. How long would it take to convince people that they should probably spend four hours a year with a nutritionist instead of seeing a guy who makes a $1,000,000 a year for five minutes? Or that anybody should be able to approve thier own pharma? Yea, people would think I was nuts. But just think of the low cost options people would have if the insurers, pharma and the doctors didn't fascistically hold on to this thing. I didn't know the point of the thread was to find oppression releif that would appeal to the public. That's quite a fish to fry! A couple things. Those who complain about too much government control tend to focus on the con artists in government (who certainly exist) and how we need to get things out of their hands to have liberty. But on the other side, you have con artists who would run rampant doing tremendous damage if not for some standards, as well. And that also has costs. I believe most people in the public, for all their skepticism about government, still fear the con artist down the street more than they truly fear government officials when it comes to their day to day lives. As far as the point of the thread, like I've said it was both to hear what people's answers were and to see how they compare to the general public sense. I guess it comes down to the fact that anarchists and libertarians frame things in terms of freedom and liberty, which implies that there is this huge level of oppression going on. But if that's the case, why do so few people feel it? The reason is that the government in Western countries allows most everyday freedoms at this point. You can wear what you want, go pretty much where you want with minor inconveniences and so on. These things are not true in some countries and that's where I think a person starts to feel "I'm not free." So I wonder how effective the entire freedom/liberty message really is when you're talking to people who don't feel unfree in their basic day to day lives (and actually feel quite the opposite.) And that brings up another point which is that there is a failure to speak the language of those who feel neglected and abandoned rather than intruded upon and violated, which keeps a huge portion of the public from being reached at all.

I didn't dismiss them (at least most of them, a couple of them I do dismiss if they just aren't accurate). I mainly keep pointing out that their answers don't seem to be ones that most people in the public would be motivated by. I'm shining a light on the gap between the things people on FDR feel strongly about, leading them to this general sense of being somehow oppressed by the government and the sense in the general public, which I think is more on the other side, if anything - that they are too often neglected and left to fend for themselves. Like I said, I certainly don't mean to diminish the frustrations people really do feel. And I'm sure many of them are quite real. I just find it an interesting contrast between the view of government on FDR as oppressive and limiting of freedom and the general sense in the public that, for the most part, in the West, we can do as we please as long as we aren't being too extreme (more extreme than most people care to be anyway.) It goes back to the last part of my OP where I said "I think this topic is pretty important because if you're trying to convince people to work and make sacrifices to bring about more freedom and liberty, there would have to be clear things people really want to do but can't currently to motivate them to put in such effort."

Well for me it was about both. I am curious what people feel limited by on a daily basis. And I also am curious whether the things that people here feel limited by are things that the average person in the West is significantly upset about. If not it might explain the gap between the two audiences. This raises a very related discussion that I'm not sure I've seen on these boards, per se, although it is absolutely core to Stefan's approach. Are people more deontological or consequentialist in our society? It seems that with this thinking people are counting on them being deontological almost completely. But I don't think they are. I don't think they are as totally consequentialist as you claim here either. I think most people blend the two. They do care about moral rights and wrongs. But they also are willing to put up with a moral wrong in principle to some extent if they can point to some good coming out of it. So even if you do convince people on basic principles that the State isn't moral, they can say "Yes perhaps technically so, but still it's helping in these various ways so I can live with it," which I think would be a very very common answer. You can't convince people with purely moral arguments unless they are extremely strong deontologists.

I don't think most people blame taxes for putting them in this position. I think they blame companies who they see as becoming greedy and giving fat bonuses to their higher ups while laying off workers. I'm just saying I think that's the common perception. I think most people see these types of regulations as protecting them. They want to know their doctor had to get through a lot of regulation to get to that position, for example. So I don't see people being driven to revolt because it's not easy enough for people to become doctors without licenses. I wonder how low the poll #'s would be supporting making it easier to become a doctor. Again not to minimize any frustration these things cause you. But I'm just trying to put it in perspective as to why - if these are the things that personally upset people about government on FDR - I don't think they translate that well to motivating the general public.

The government is forcing you to buy a $350,000 house? Never heard of that before. And I already said that yes people are annoyed that the government takes money from them. But most people don't find that alone a high enough price to cause them to rebel. Especially because at least some of it is spent providing things that they use. I actually think many millions of people, if they lived elsewhere and were told "You can come live in the West but you'll have to pay 25% taxes" would consider that a steal for themselves and gladly take that deal, not be enraged at having to pay that.

I doubt many Americans would describe feeling "oppressed" by our government. How does the government control what I can wear? Maybe you can come up with some extreme examples that few people would ever care about, but I have never had any issue wearing anything I wanted. I guess someone like a nudist could complain a bit more, but even then there are places they can go to be nudists, they just can't do it on a public street. Hardly enough to motivate most to revolt. We don't have freedom of speech? Not totally 100%, no, there is the yelling fire in a crowded theater type exception. But I have never felt unable to speak on any topic I cared about. The very existence of this website is a testament to how strong freedom of speech is in most Western societies, even if you strongly criticize the government. I didn't say the State doesn't affect us. What I said is that in the West the State allows most of the surface level freedoms that the everyday person cares about and that's why I don't think most are in a constant state of outrage at the government. It takes a lot more theory and consideration to see through to the level at which the State limits freedom in the West and I don't think most people feel driven to do that consideration. The limits are more indirect than in some other regions of the world is my point. I'm not even sure what your last paragraph means. I don't know anyone prevented by the government from "having a childhood." That's especially true since, if your argument there is about schools, homeschooling is allowed here. The government is preventing you from going back to school and entering a profession? Or do you just mean they are putting some red tape in the way that would be a hassle? You seem to be talking in all or nothing terms about things that are actually shades of grey. The government doesn't prevent you from keeping any of your pay, but some of it. It may prevent you from buying a few things you want, but certainly not all. And my point is that I don't think most people feel terribly personally encumbered by the things the government won't let them buy. I'd be interested to see polling on these kinds of questions. I hope you aren't misunderstanding my point. I'm not saying the government doesn't limit freedom and do some very harmful things in some cases. And I'm not discounting the frustration the people in this thread expressed. What I'm pointing out is simply why I think there is such a lack of concern about the whole topic among most of the public. It's because they don't really feel any massive prevention of freedom on a daily basis linked to the government. And even taxes, which pretty much annoy everyone, don't seem to most people a big enough encumberance to want to actively resist anything.

Well we know the government imposition isn't so invisible to them as we are seeing uprisings like the Arab spring. When the government controls things down to the level of what you can wear and being unable to even have freedom of speech, that is serious lack of freedom that is very keenly felt. I don't deny, as you say, that many people have internalized this or have it rationalized. But I think a lot more people find it stifling than we know since it is dangerous to say so out loud. Also, even when that level of repression is rationalized, unconsciously the anger can build. My point is simply that there is an important distinction between the types of indirect lacks of freedom felt immediately only by a portion of people (such as having to fill out papers to start a business) and very overt lacks of freedom like having extremely limited freedom of speech or movement or expression. In the latter case, many people have a very specific, basic and precise answer to what they wish they could do but can't. It only takes a few words to say something like "I wish I could criticize my government" or "I wish I could go outside with my face uncovered." It takes a lot more explanation to get into the kinds of complex lacks of freedom that we in the West may experience. And that's why I think it's a lot harder to generate the motivation for any great level of resistance. Most people don't really wake up in this society and feel unfree as a result of the government. I think the only major lack of freedom they feel is the rat race, which they don't really blame on the government. In fact, the people who lack jobs are only wishing to get back into the rat race. What I'm also pointing to here is that I think in the West a lot of people feel more of a fear of not having their needs met than a feeling of being repressed or their freedom being limited. They don't so much feel violated and pushed out of their freedoms. They feel abandoned, left to the whims of fate, neglected.