Freedom

[GatoVillano]

For a while, I've been exploring the subject of freedom and lately I have immersed myself in the topic of liberty and the libertarian philosophy.

I work as a pharmacy technician to pay for my university. At work, as in every waking hour, I am a guy that keeps talking and analyzing questions and situations. Sometimes I feel like I talk more in a day then Stephane =P. For the past few months I have decided to analyse everything through a libertarian lens and I have found that everything (politic, economy, right/wrong, family, education...) becomes so clear and easy to understand and the solutions are simple to find. There is no more relativism. Like the universal preferable behavior tells us, an action can not be good and bad at the same time. 

So I have started to observe the reaction of people around me.

- I would say that 90% of people dont give a shit about freedom and about living in a moral fashion. All they care about is earning $$$, having a house and a car, and to have fun.

- A small minority, mostly women, want everything and everyone to be regulated and control by some dictator.

- And then there are people who do not have a backbone. Who do not mind if freedoms are taken away from them, they dont care if small injustices are done to them. As long as they are taken care of, they are fine. 

I can count on my fingers, the number of people who truly care about their natural rights, who cannot stand coercion in any form and who are intelligent enough to see that we dont need a big government, we are even better off without the presence of the government. Very few believe in the free market and most believe that capitalism is a F word.

This has become so bad, that I believe that I am turning into a libertarian snob. I'm my mind, I just cannot accept that someone who doesnt give a shit about his rights and freedoms can be my equal. What kind of birth defect or mental retardation has led them to be such agreeable slaves.

This is when I take 2 steps back and realize that I am going into a bad zone. I realize that it is disgusting to look down on people. That I am wrong. But at the same time, I realize that they are contributing to the problem. They are grown this cancer call the government. They are the ones who are going to deprive my future kids of their freedoms. 

Sorry to leave you guys hanging on this question, but I have not found the answer to this dilemma yet. =( 

[Pod]

I think you do know why most people act as compliant slaves with no backbone.  How useful would a non-compliant  slave with a backbone be to abusive family structures and government?  Stefan isn't joking when he says basically 99% of people you meet have been through the meat-grinder of abuse that shreds the soul down from an independent human being with a moral compass to a compliant slave with no backbone.  And just like people who've had their knees shot out, I think we should have sympathy for what people have gone through when we see compliance or even abusive anger towards us, and even rampant hedonism.  They're all a victim of the same thing that has churned the world into horror after horror.  The cycle is older than most of our family trees and will unfortunately continue for quite a while. If you do catch yourself feeling contempt, just remind yourself that you're looking at a victim of something hundreds of thousands of years old.

Really just think about that.  Even in your case, think about what you were like before waking up to all this stuff.  That should give you some perspective on how to view others. 

[M.2]

Hi, GatoVillano

First, loving the profile pic.
Second, here are my two eurocents on the topic:

Freedom is all about human free will, and the respect for it. It helps to look at it as a value. Human free will, as catholics say, is something that not only God respects, but the Devil too. Whereas humans do not. We always try to impose our free will on others. Which is a natural tendency. Some go about doing it with persuasion, others through deception, a few through force of arms. 

"The limit to freedom is only the freedom of others" as our social contract dictates. You can think of the struggle of freedoms as if it were a maritime dispute between Chile and Peru, as they try to define their exclusive economic zones. The dividing line between the two zones should be of equal distance from both coasts. So the rule claims at least. But if Peru suddenly decides to surrender their claim, chile has moral and legal right over the formerly disputed zone, and Peru has no right to it anymore in international court, even if they were right before.
Analogy aside, we have freedom, but we also have the freedom to surrender our freedom. And consequently, we cannot take it back anymore. We do this all the time in our daily lives. When I took my citizenship card at the age of 16, I subjected myself to the draft, to getting taxed, to all the laws of the country. And no matter what I say now, my freedom to be exempt from the draft, for instance, is just not there anymore. No matter what my free will wants, I have subjected it to the will of the state. And such is the human condition.