What are our freedoms these days?

[tinanator]

I really cant come up with too many that fit my idea of the historical notion of freedom. What passes for freedom nowadays?

[mike_c]

1. freedom to buy cheap crap built by wage slaves...

...at the Walmart of your choice. Shop for Victory!

[tinanator]

4. wage slaves?

they just work there. That crap is manufactured by prison slave labor courtesy of GW's uncle I thought? God bless communist China and good ol Bush ingenuity!

[mike_c]

5. wow, that was such a classically bad sentence...

...that I'm leaving it unedited just for self-punishment! I think if you'll increase your serum alcohol titer just a bit it'll make better sense. :spank:

[billybob537]

2. You have the

right to cable tv. You have the right to, I guess thats about it!:wtf:

[Donkeyboy75]

3. Know your rights -

You have three rights, according to The Clash

You have the right not to be killed
Murder is a CRIME!
Unless it was done by a
Policeman or aristocrat
Know your rights

You have the right to food money
Providing of course you
Don't mind a little
Investigation, humiliation
And if you cross your fingers
Rehabilitation

You have the right to free
Speech as long as you're not
Dumb enough to actually try it.

-Scary how much it rings true today.

[Mistress Quickly]

8. You have the right to food money

Is that in the Constitution?

:shrug:

[Donkeyboy75]

9. Nope. Just a Clash song.

[Mistress Quickly]

11. Well color me an

oldie but a goodie. I didn't know that.

But it doesn't really have anything to do with the historic notion of our rights, right?

[Donkeyboy75]

12. I guess my point was that the song was

an overexpression of how overbearing government can be, and now it's actually not far off. Rights #1 and 3 are especially fitting, don't you think?

[AP]

15. It has to do with a moment in British history -- Thatcherism --

which is pretty much what's going on in the US today.

[Dirk39]

6. New York 1989 and New York 2004:

Hello from Germany,
I did travel to New York and did stay there for about a month in 1989, somehow to escape the reunification of Germany then. I loved it. I did travel to New York a few month ago again, and it wasn't the same city and it wasn't the same country. I was always a kind of leftist, far left, but if there's one thing I love about capitalism, it's exactly what the puritans and Bushists hate.
I did experience some somehow pervert and absurd situations in the Soviet Union, when it was still communist and even more so in eastern Germany, but the absurdities New York and the USA have to offer now only compete with the pictures of the stalinist Soviet Union, when workers were watering the streets during heavy rains, 'cause it was ordered and otherwise they could be seen as saboteurs.
I see somehow the same things happening in Europe: we're not citizens anymore, we're children, who need a leader, to tell them how to live their lives.
Hey there's a disco, but you're not allowed to dance.
You can buy a beer, but you're not allowed to smoke. You have to leave, in order to smoke, but you're not allowed to take your beer with you, 'cause it's not allowed to drink outside a building.
Really sounds like a satire...

I'm pretty much aware that other people have other problems, but this isn't just a minor change.


The decadent socialist in Germany,
Dirk

[Donkeyboy75]

7. Howdy! Looks like you all have it better there than here

though.

[ShaneGR]

10. I have the freedom to move 1500 miles without telling anyone

That's right, I can sell off my furniture, shut down my utilities, hop in my car, and drive 1500 miles to Gainesville, Florida without telling a soul. Secret police won't chase me. Border guards won't stop me, asking for bribes to get through.

In fact, when I get there, they'll open their arms, tell me where to find an apartment and let me go to their University for a Masters Degree, just because I'm a good student! They might even let me go for free if I help grade papers! Amazing!

I guess I'll do that. Sounds like a plan, and the freedom to do whatever the hell I want!

[tinanator]

14. why should they chase you?

they know your every move. I think your point is missing, unless you are assuming they should chase you, they have complete access to everything you do through every record you make. If you think that technological convenience equates to freedom, perhaps you should follow Zappa's instructions when you get your diploma?

[leftofthedial]

13. we are completely free

to pretend that we are free


just as long as we don't really act like we are free.


After the Patriot Act, each of us literally is *exactly* as free as John Ashcroft lets us be.