This may be my final post as my eyesight is failing. The response to previous posts have been meager and upon examination I am probably too general, not concerned with current events, and more involved with trends and the big picture.
How unfortunate. As the extreme right moves America towards fascism in the form of Corporatism we are focused on the ills of the middle-east.
I have put away my Peace signs, I don't speak as an advocate of women's right anymore, I don't march for civil-rights - my time has come and gone.
Here is one last thought piece.
Freedom: The power to personally act without restraint.
This is different than “freedom from something, such as slavery. When asked what freedom Americans have, many respond, “Freedom of Speech”. Not really. Americans may say whatever they want provided it is not libel, incites a riot, is part of a conspiracy to break a law, does not violate a copywrite or a trademark, or, in modern criminal justice – arguing with a policeman.
There is always a restraint of so-called free speech. If you are a politician it is safer to lie than to say something that makes voters uncomfortable. Retail clerk cannot insult a customer without an expectation of consequences. Hate speech is out and so is road-rage.
The Fourth Amendment protects you from search and seizure yet, the police may seize your property if they think it was bought with the proceeds from illegal drug trafficking. No trial, no judge, just a cop’s judgment.
Driving your vehicle is a privilege, pay your property taxes or go homeless, one cannot walk across America without breaking some law such as walking on a freeway. All of this is if you are white.
Should your skin be dark you may even have difficulty walking the sidewalk in the neighborhood where you live and if you can afford it, you cannot live anywhere you wish.
Thinking! Is the patriotic shout of “freedom” propaganda? Do we live in a society with qualified freedom?
Suppose one day you gather up your passport, get on your large sailboat and slip out to sea, you would then have the freedom and the responsibility for yourself; the responsibility that American law attempts to shoulder for you. Yes, laws that are passed “for your own good” usually rob you of some freedom. Some of those laws are necessary but not many. How much freedom have you given up? What freedoms without restraint are left?
While I do not pray to the flag at the start of a meeting, I am loyal to my country. Living in the backwoods offers a small degree of freedom that most folks do not have. The elements of freedom we do have should be cherished and those proposed laws proclaiming they are for our own good should be avoided, and we do have should be equally applied. Equality! If I pay 28% of my income to taxes, so should the wealthy. Without equality we become slaves to an economy. 1984!
Equality, that is another subject.