Freedom

[moment]

Once rated the freest country in the world, the USA is now rated dead last, of all first world countries, by most freedom watch organizations.

[Marblehead]

And you know what part of my body those watch organizations can kiss, Right?

 

More NWO BS.

 

[moment]

1 minute ago, Marblehead said:

And you know what part of my body those watch organizations can kiss, Right?

 

More NWO BS.

 

I respectfully suggest you actually do some research as to their credibility.

[Marblehead]

2 minutes ago, moment said:

I respectfully suggest you actually do some research as to their credibility.

I know.  I am biased but I like my biases.  What's a poor man to do?

 

[Wu Ming Jen]

If freedom is made by a country that is not actually freedom.The freedom watches are looking in the wrong direction. If interested in freedom one must find that inside themselves. Other is a wonderful distraction and mastered by many. few are willing to even come close to remembering their true freedom.

[moment]

53 minutes ago, Wu Ming Jen said:

If freedom is made by a country that is not actually freedom.The freedom watches are looking in the wrong direction. If interested in freedom one must find that inside themselves. Other is a wonderful distraction and mastered by many. few are willing to even come close to remembering their true freedom.

Agreed.  But, I want both.

[Lost in Translation]

2 hours ago, moment said:

Once rated the freest country in the world, the USA is now rated dead last, of all first world countries, by most freedom watch organizations.

 

Give three examples of how the USA is dead last in freedom.

[Marblehead]

Only Anarchy is total freedom but we know that won't work.  So we try for second best.

 

I think Lao Tzu presented a good possibility in Chapter 80.

 

 

[futuredaze]

On 11/2/2018 at 2:18 PM, moment said:

Once rated the freest country in the world, the USA is now rated dead last, of all first world countries, by most freedom watch organizations.

U.S. less free than some countries?  Sure.  Maybe Iceland, Switzerland, and a few others.

U.S. the LEAST free country in the world? Bullshit.  Many  countries don't have freedom of speech, property rights, right to bear arms, etc.

 

Looks like an anti-Trump hit piece wearing the disguise of an "objective statistician's breakdown."

[Lost in Translation]

On 11/2/2018 at 2:19 PM, Lost in Translation said:

On 11/2/2018 at 11:18 AM, moment said:

Once rated the freest country in the world, the USA is now rated dead last, of all first world countries, by most freedom watch organizations.

 

Give three examples of how the USA is dead last in freedom.

 

Perhaps three examples is too many. Please give one example of how the US is dead last in freedom.

[Marblehead]

On the other hand, I forget if it's the left or the right, look at how many people have risked their life to get into the USA.  They must see something better than what they left behind.

 

[Lost in Translation]

3 hours ago, Marblehead said:

On the other hand, I forget if it's the left or the right, look at how many people have risked their life to get into the USA.  They must see something better than what they left behind.

 

Good point.

 

The Left: "The US is so racist and imperialistic and nationalistic. It sucks and is filled with Nazis."

 

Meanwhile people are literally filling caravans and trekking thousands of miles on foot for the chance to enter illegally and start a better life here.

 

So it's better to be an illegal alien living in the US than to be a citizen of some other countries? Yeah, the USA must be a really crappy place. Uh, huh.

[moment]

On 11/4/2018 at 4:09 PM, futuredaze said:

U.S. less free than some countries?  Sure.  Maybe Iceland, Switzerland, and a few others.

U.S. the LEAST free country in the world? Bullshit.  Many  countries don't have freedom of speech, property rights, right to bear arms, etc.

 

Looks like an anti-Trump hit piece wearing the disguise of an "objective statistician's breakdown."

Read it again, I never said the whole world. I am not anti-anything.  Jumping to conclusions and putting words in peoples mouths seem to be the norm here.  Truly an enlightened group. 

[Marblehead]

I used to be able to jump rope.  Never saw a conclusion I wanted to jump.

 

[moment]

My apologies.  I take a five day retreat twice a year.  This time it was the Olympic National Park.  I leave all electronics behind.

I am not going to do nit-picking point by point trivial time-wasting arguing here because it is a useless waste of time that never gets anyone anywhere.

 

What I will do is list some of the freedoms that I believe are a lot less than thirty years ago.

 

1. We no longer have the right to personal time.

Most developed nations recognize that the right to the "pursuit of happiness” includes the ability to enjoy leisure time – in the evenings, on weekends, and on vacation. But each of these rights is being lost to the systematic reversal of gains that Americans first started making in the 19th century.The US is one of the few developed nations that doesn't require employers to offer paid vacation time to their employees. Employees are increasingly unable to take the vacation time they've been promised.

 

2. . Our American liberties end at the workplace door.

If you have a job, the Freedom Train stops at the workplace door. More employees are hired on a part-time or temporary basis to deny them rights and benefits. Many of your privacy rights are gone.

Free speech? You can be fired for expressing political views online, even when you're not at work. As employment lawyer Mark Trapp told Bloomberg Business Week, the“freedom to speak your mind doesn’t really exist in work spaces.” Or, in some cases, outside it.

3.The attacking of Medicare, one of our most popular government programs, and defending one of our nation's least popular institutions, HMOs. In fighting for Medicare Advantage's HMO subsidies and resisting wider access to public health insurance, Americans are being robbed of the freedom to make their own medical decisions.

4.We're losing the ability to rise up, earn a decent living, or work in the career of our choice mainly due to an over-concentration of money going to about 1% of the population.  The USA had a decent middle class, but, that is being rapidly eroded.

5.We've lost our right to privacy.

The CEOs of Facebook and Google have both said essentially the same thing: The age of privacy has ended. Get over it.

Privacy is supposed to be an essential right. Yet Americans who claim they'd defend it to the death cheerfully sacrifice it every day to play Mafia Wars. Or to search for a celebrity. Or to connect with high school classmates they never really liked anyway.

Internet companies sell our personal data for profit, often by using cookies on our computers to track our activity. Facebook sold users' video rental records. Google pulled Americans' personal information via WiFi when it created Street View. Apple iPhones were tracking and storing their owners' movements.

The government is already using corporate data, sometimes without subpoenas. Corporations have voluntarily allowed 

the government to use their technology to spy on citizens, included one reported case where the government placed a spy server at an ATT location to track the activities of its subscribers. There's a lot more that we don't know.

We were taught that a person' home is his or her castle. But our electronic devices have breached the castle walls, and have placed spies in our living rooms, dens … and bedrooms. Americans, especially conservatives, should be demanding that corporations give us back our privacy rights.

6. We're losing the right to representative democracy.

On issue after issue, the wishes of most Americans are ignored or marginalized by the nation's political and media elite. Views that are held by most Republicans – and in some cases even by most Tea Party members – are dismissed as “extreme” inside the Beltway. While 75 percent of most Americans and 76 percent of Tea Party supporters opposed Social Security cuts to balance the budget, leaders in both political parties were meeting to negotiate those cuts. (They were scuttled by a fallout between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner; similar cuts were being negotiated between Speaker Newt Gingrich and President Bill Clinton when the Monica Lewinsky scandal erupted.)

Most Americans want tighter control on US banks, and that's considered politically impossible. They want much higher taxes for millionaires, which is also dismissed. Meanwhile, the nation continues to pursue policies that benefit the most unpopular institutions in the nation, according to that Gallup poll: big corporations, HMOs, and Wall Street banks. The only thing on on Gallup's list that's more unpopular than these three institutions? Congress.

In the words of Corey Robin, “It’s long past time for us to start talking and arguing about ... the principle of freedom.”

Edited November 9, 2018 by moment