Is America still a ‘Free’ nation? By that, I mean, are individual Americans still ‘Free?’ I have several friends who firmly believe we are still ‘Free.’ I just wish I could share their optimism. Sadly, however, I am too bound by the constraints of logic and personal experience to accept their illusion as Truth. America is not now and has not been ‘Free’ for some time, and I can prove it.
First, we need to understand that ‘Free’ has many meanings, so we need to start by settling on how we are going to define ‘Free.’ Fortunately, I have already handled this issue in a previous post, “What is ‘Freedom?‘” In that post, I define freedom this way:
So, what, then, does ‘Freedom, mean? Well, for the purpose of this blog, Natural Law and its relationship to liberty, unless otherwise stated, ‘Freedom’ will mean:
A state of exemption from the power or control of another; liberty.
Or, to put it another way, we could define ‘Free’ or ‘Freedom’ as a lack of external restraint on our individual free will.
OK, now that we have our definition of ‘Freedom,’ let’s apply this definition to the average American and use it to determine whether or not that average American is still ‘Free.’ Contrary to what you might suspect, this is going to take a lot less time and effort than you might think.
We have many anti-vargancy laws in this nation. This means it is illegal for you to live without a visible home or means of support. However, we also have laws that require a person to pay for the privilege of owning a home. We call it property taxes and, even if you rent, you still have to pay the same privilege. Your landlord just incorporates your tax into your rent. You can’t even live on another’s property without permission. It’s called trespassing and squatting, and there are laws against both. Taken all together, this means you cannot legally live in the United States without some form of government permission. But you are ‘free’ to break those laws. You’re just going to go to jail if and when you get caught.
But set this aside. Suppose you manage to find a legal way to live without having to break any laws. You still cannot feed yourself without government permission. If you try to buy food, you are using a system entirely controlled by the government. The money you use is controlled by the government. It used to be legal to have independent systems of currency, but not anymore. And you still face taxes, which is a form of paying for the privilege of being able to use that government money, as well as the privilege of buying your food. So what if we try to live off the land? Well, in many places, the government has made that illegal, as well. In fact, the government has even made it illegal to collect rain water. And if you try to hunt or fish without paying for your license,… Well, that is also a violation of the law. So, yes, you are ‘free’ to break the law, but you are going to jail when you get caught.
This is all we need to decide whether or not Americans are free. If, after reading my last two paragraphs, you still think you are ‘Free,’ then the only ‘Freedom’ you have is the choice of breaking the law. But guess what? That is not ‘Freedom!’ Remember, true ‘Freedom’ means a lack of any external control or restraint on the exercise of your will. Well, if every choice you make forces you to break a law, then the freedom of choice of has actually been taken away from you. This is the condition of every American today: either we live the way the government tells us to live, or we break the law. Either way, we are forced to live immorally. So, if you call that ‘Freedom,’… Well, OK, but you are defining the term in a way totally foreign to any dictionary definition I have read so far.
The simple answer to the question of whether or not modern Americans are free is no! We are not free, and we have not been free for a long time now. It’s just that too few of us realize this Truth — and it is the Truth! The problem is that the loss of our freedom has happened so gradually, and the cage that was built around us is so big and comfortable, virtually no one realizes what has happened to them. But that was the point. If they had tried to take our freedom quickly, or they had tried to take away our luxuries, we would have revolted. And, because Americans are still very well armed, they may have failed in their attempts to take over. So they did it slowly, ‘progressively,’ until now, every last ‘Right’ and ‘Liberty’ supposedly protected under the Bill of Rights has been taken away, ‘sensibly restrained’ or is in mortal danger of being trampled into the ground. Anyone who doubts the Truth of this assertion should just search for ‘violations of the Bill of Rights.’ If you do so, you will learn why I will not entertain any discussion about how we are still ‘Free.’
If you do a search for violations of the Bill of Rights, you are going to get so many returns listing examples of violations that have actually happened that it will be impossible to make a rational argument that Americans are still free. This is not because ‘B3A says so,’ but because the definitions of ‘Free’ and ‘Freedom’ say so. Which then means that anyone who wants to claim Americans are still free will be forced to make an irrational argument. However, because irrational arguments violate Natural Law, they are not entertained on this board. Therefore, I am not going to entertain any argument that says Americans are still free. That is because those are the rules I set for this board when I started it: disagree all you want, but only in so much as you do so using the rules of logic. That means no irrational argument! Therefore, I do not want to hear anyone trying to argue that Americans are still ‘Free’ unless and until they first win their argument for re-defining the meaning of the word, ‘free.’
Oh! One last warning to anyone who actually attempts to re-define ‘Free.’ You might actually succeed, but you still will not be allowed to argue that Americans are still ‘Free’ because you will still be making an irrational argument. If you do not understand why this is True, it is because you will have built your argument for ‘Free’ Americans upon the fallacy of ‘equivocation.’ And, since we should all know that an argument built on a fallacious foundation is — by definition — irrational, then we should all understand that it violates the rules of this board. 🙂
ADDITIONAL READING
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by
— This book describes how the government consciously puts choices before you that are designed to get you to do what the government wants you to do without you ever realizing it. The system is insidious, and it id designed to allow the people forcing your decisions to tell themselves they did not coerce you; that you still had a choice in the matter. But it is the hangman’s choice: do you want to be dropped or strung up? Either way, you’re still going to hang, but the hangman gets to remain guilt free because you still chose to hang yourself. BTW: Sunstein was a key player in the Obama Administration.
You can also read any number of books by Edward Bernays, the father of propaganda. He created the ‘science’ of convincing people to do what the government wanted them to do without the masses realizing they are being consciously manipulated.
And for some real fun, read, “Tragedy and Hope,” by Caroll Quigley.
— Quigley claims to have lived ‘inside’ the system that controls us all, and that the current political system is actually one Party pretending to be two. In this way, they can always present you with the illusion that your vote matters, but, in reality, it doesn’t — which is something President Bush, 43, told Glenn Beck: that it does not matter who we elect anymore, they are all going to do the same thing.
In fact, there are a long list of books — many of them quite scholarly — which illustrate how you and I are manipulated on a daily basis. Face Book, Google, You Tube and Twitter are very good examples of how you are directed to make decisions that others want you to make. But the way they do it is — by definition — an outside force, which means you are not making those choices ‘Freely.’ So, as I said before, you and I are not free, and the people pulling the strings know it because they designed the system so that they can make us do their bidding.
THE ROAD TO CONCORD 