If you really want total political freedom, vote Democrat but...

[Twilight Hue]

If you really want freedom over yourself, vote Democrat.
If you really want to stop crime and inflation, vote Democrat.
If you really want moral responsibility, vote Democrat.
But in the Matrix Insurrections they said people don't really want freedom, so oh well.

Yea I see how prosperous, free, and peaceful the blue states are.

Good job.

 

[Audie]

What you call freedom in America is just selfishness. It's being free to do whatever YOU want and to hell with anyone else. That's not freedom, that's just selfishness. That's the selfishness that the republican party pushes because the wealthy elites that own them want to continue doing whatever they want and to hell with the rest of us.

They tell you that when the democrats talk about social responsibility, they are trying to stop your freedom. But what they call freedom is just selfishness. And you bought their BS hook, line, and sinker.

Which book did you find yours in?

 

[Sand Dancer]

That's mean and tacky.

 

[Sand Dancer]

Yea I see how prosperous, free, and peaceful the blue states are.

Good job.

The red states have the highest crime though. They don't have a lock on peace for sure.
The states with the largest populations are the most prosperous.
Freedom depends on if you're talking personal, regulatory, or fiscal freedom.
The least independent states are in the south.

It's way too complicated to say "blue state bad, red state good."

 

[Sand Dancer]

What people really want is control, not freedom.

I think people mostly want to be safe, healthy and happy.

 

[Sand Dancer]

I voted Democrat after being a lifelong conservative and a registered Republican for 26 years because of Trump, his fanatical cult-like backing from Republican Party leaders, and his voting base. One reason why I left the Republican Party, registered as a Democrat, and voted for Biden was because I don't consider him a threat to democracy, but I do consider Trump and his supporters to be a threat to democracy. After his numerous lawsuits attempting to overturn the 2020 election results and the insurrection at the US Capitol by his supporters to overturn the results, my suspicion that he and his loyal supporters are a threat to US democracy has been solidified.

I was GOP for 28 years. The 2016 election was the first presidential one that I did not vote GOP. I tend to favor GOP fiscally and Dems socially, but both parties' focus is getting into stuff that the majority don't find as important.

 

[PureX]

I don't think Democrats understand what freedom means. Through most of history the vast majority of people were under some form of monarchy rule. They majority of humans had little freedom. Monarchies would try to control everything, including the masses, to keep themselves in power; keep the blood line pure. There was no elections. There was little chance for upward mobility for the masses, with most people, generation after generation, peasants and serfs.

Much like today. Only instead of monarchies based on bloodlines, we have corporate dictatorships based on the investment of excess wealth. We still have the 'overlords' keeping the 'peasants' poor and trapped in lives of servitude by the overlords owning and controlling the means of production, and by gleaning all the profits from these for themselves.

The USA, via the Constitution was an experiment in individual freedom. It was a new and unique type of country where the people would rule themselves. This experiment required getting rid of the monarchy and then limiting government, with checks and balances. They knew if too much power ended up in the government, there would be an urge among the connected elite to move the government toward a monarchy state; Big Brother control. That would kill the experiment. The biggest threat to Democracy is Big Government that is out of the control of the free citizens.

Sadly, they had no way of envisioning the real threat to this great democratic experiment, which was capitalism combined with industrialization. Industrial strength greed becoming systematized. Almost no government on Earth, big or small, has been able to withstand that threat. And that's true even now, when we can see the threat for what is it, and we can see it coming. The U.S. founders could see neither. And could not possibly have envisioned the power of billions of dollars to warp and corrupt government, the press, and even the minds and behavior of most Americans.

To have a free society, with only small government, the people would need to learn to be more self sufficient, more self reliant, more moral, since everyone would need to avoid the social pitfalls, that would allow the government an excuse to get too big. If you wish to be a dependent, you are forcing everyone toward the direction of lost freedom, since Government will use this as an excuse to grow.

Self-reliance and self-sufficiency are nothing more than a childish, selfish fantasy. Humans are and have always been a collective and cooperative species. Even the family farm of the founder's day was itself a collective cooperative enterprise with some form of 'government' determining all the participant's behavior. There is not and has never been any "individual freedom" that was not subject to collective limitations and controls because as lone individuals we cannot survive. We need each other for that. We need to work with and for each other's mutual benefit to survive and thrive in this world. And we Americans need to grow the F up and face the truth of who and what we are. And start working together, for everyone's benefit, and stop pretending we are lone wolves roaming the prairies, free to do and be whatever we want. We humans have NEVER been that. And we never will be.

When the Constitution was written there was no federal income tax. The founding fathers knew that freedom meant most of the money people earned should be theirs to use, and not commandeered by over bearing government, who will waste and skim or use it for political advantages; buy votes. Taxes were mostly usage taxes, such as toll roads that the Government built; turn a profit. At times of war, taxes could be raised, but lowered once the war was over. Freedom meant the people were the boss, and public servant were there, but only when needed.

This is irrelevant gibberish. The U.S. is WAY too huge and complex for any of that kind of nonsense to actually work.

For freedom to reign, what we now call social services, would need to be performed through charities. Rather than use the government to steal from Joe to give to Sue, which adds waste and takes away freedom of choice from Joe, charity allows Joe to be free to give while preserving his freedom. A Christian country made this easy, since giving was part of their philosophy. Atheism played a role in the dumb down of charity and the movement toward Big Government.

This is just the childish fantasy of "selfish freedom" talking. It has never worked in the past, and it never will in the future.

Free enterprise was also about freedom.

No human enterprise is "free". It requires an investment in resources, time, effort, and intelligence. It also requires cooperation, and that will require that there be a mutual benefit for all the participants. Why you think it's free is beyond me.

I had the choice to buy and sell which them promotes competition and efficiency.

That's true in a free market. But the only markets that are free markets, now days, are the luxury markets. Everything else is a "buy or die" market, now (called a "captive market"). Try living in the modern world without a car, or a house, or food, ora phone, or any of a hundred other things that you will need to live in a very complex, inter-dependent society f humans. And then try getting those things without having to buy them from someone. That's not a "free" market.

In a free country I should be free to chose gasoline or electric based on cost and supply and demand.

You are. But you are not free not to buy them, because you will have to have them to live in the modern world. And because the sellers all know that you have to buy them, they are not going to compete with each other to sell them to you on the cheap. They are only going to compete with each other to sell them for the highest possible profit. None of them wants to sell 100 gallons of gas for a dollar a gallon. They all want to sell one gallon of gas for a 100 dollars a gallon. Because that's where they gain the biggest profit. More buyers are not their priority. More money, is. Thinking that you could live in a free market world is another one of those idiotic fantasies that doesn't and can't ever exist. Because we humans are not self-sufficient. Especially we modern humans. And that means out markets are not free markets. They are captive markets.

Freedom also requires freedom of speech.

Humans are a collective, cooperative species. The goal of human society is therefor to enable and protect that collective, cooperative nature. This goal trumps our fantasies about the sanctity of individual freedom, because the well-being of the many is more important than the well-being of the one. Sometimes we need to keep our mouths shut for the sake of everyone else's well being. If you can't understand this, or are too selfish to accept the fact of it, then you will never really understand censorship, and why it is sometimes the right thing to do.

And your rant about the democrats is stupid and pointless.

 

[PureX]

I think people mostly want to be safe, healthy and happy.

Yes, and to that end we seek to be in control of our life circumstances as much as possible. And the more frightened we are, in life, the more control we seek, and the more ardently we seek it.

Unfortunately, that fear and it's attendant desire for control tends to be contagious. The more we see those around us grasping for more control, the more frightened we become of their gaining it, and so we begin to do the same. It turns us all against each other, legitimizing our fear, and driving us deeper into it.

Now imagine all that grasping for control is focused almost entirely on money, as money represents control in a capitalist culture. Money becomes "weaponized". It becomes a weapon that we use against each other, in our struggle to gain ever more control over the circumstances of our lives.

Now consider how we would go about stopping this race into an abyss of fear and greed. The solution is obvious ... we need to more equally distribute the money, and thereby the control, so that we no longer need to fear the "other guy" gaining too much, and using it against our well-being.

 

[robocop (actually)]

Yea I see how prosperous, free, and peaceful the blue states are.

Good job.

Populated areas are subject to different conditions than sparse ones.

 

[robocop (actually)]

Yea I see how prosperous, free, and peaceful the blue states are.

Good job.

Not only are populated areas subject to different conditions than sparse ones, but they also carry more than share of US production.

 

[Revoltingest]

You are just making things up

I think he believes it.
But I know he’s unfamiliar with Dem efforts to curb freedom, eg, qualified immunity for cops, the Petty Offense Doctrine, civil forfeiture.

 

[wellwisher]

If you really want freedom over yourself, vote Democrat.
If you really want to stop crime and inflation, vote Democrat.
If you really want moral responsibility, vote Democrat.
But in the Matrix Insurrections they said people don't really want freedom, so oh well.

The paradox, you do not seem to see, is Socialism; the goal of Democrats, is not about freedom , but about Big Government control. The masses are appeased with bare necessities until they become easy to control.

The only ones who will get full freedom, in this system, are those who are part of the power structure. They can use dual standards, which allows freedom to act in conflicting ways. To protect the dual standard of those in power, the leaders will eventually get paranoid and repressive to the people; Twitter censorship and the Swamp coup against Trump. Real freedom allows even those not in the Government power, to run for President and win. If this makes the leadesr paranoid it is not freedom.

How did lying for two years about Russia and Trump collusion make us free? It created division and not freedom. You were sold a bill of goods by those, who expect to be above the law.

Above the law is a type of freedom, but this is limited to a few. Freedom to have your genitals removed is not freedom, but part of a pathology. It is the freedom to act on irrational impulses that cannot not see long term consequences. This is not free, but has a cost; debt.

 

[Audie]

Not only are populated areas subject to different conditions than sparse ones, but they also carry more than share of US production.

Like all the beef and wheat from Boston,
oil from Chicago.

 

[Audie]

I think he believes it.
But I know he’s unfamiliar with Dem efforts to curb freedom, eg, qualified immunity for cops, the Petty Offense Doctrine, civil forfeiture.

A lot of people seem to believe things
they make up.
And, weirdly, that saying "I believe..." somehow
validates it.

 

[robocop (actually)]

The paradox, you do not seem to see, is Socialism; the goal of Democrats, is not about freedom , but about Big Government control. The masses are appeased with bare necessities until they become easy to control.

The only ones who will get full freedom, in this system, are those who are part of the power structure. They can use dual standards, which allows freedom to act in conflicting ways. To protect the dual standard of those in power, the leaders will eventually get paranoid and repressive to the people; Twitter censorship and the Swamp coup against Trump. Real freedom allows even those not in the Government power, to run for President and win. If this makes the leadesr paranoid it is not freedom.

How did lying for two years about Russia and Trump collusion make us free? It created division and not freedom. You were sold a bill of goods by those, who expect to be above the law.

Above the law is a type of freedom, but this is limited to a few. Freedom to have your genitals removed is not freedom, but part of a pathology. It is the freedom to act on irrational impulses that cannot not see long term consequences. This is not free, but has a cost; debt.

I think you are confusing the left with the far left.

Sometimes that is the left's actual fault for being too extreme.

 

[pearl]

Big Government under the Democrats want to add 87,000 new IRS agents to steal more tax dollars and pressure those whose freedom of choice not Big Government centric, enough. But the House controls the purse of the tax payer, and can cut this off to restore freedom.

Really? The logic of more agents is to find and prosecute those who do not pay their taxes, both big business and the average tax cheater.

 

[pearl]

Freedom also requires freedom of speech.

And that gets more and more complicated. Is all speech acceptable even if it is in actuality a mob mentality in pursuit of doing harm? If so, there's is now a call for the desecration of anything Jewish.

 

[Unfettered]

If you really want freedom over yourself, vote Democrat.
If you really want to stop crime and inflation, vote Democrat.
If you really want moral responsibility, vote Democrat.
But in the Matrix Insurrections they said people don't really want freedom, so oh well.

I want freedom, reduction and crime and inflation, and moral responsibility, but in my lifetime I haven't seen a candidate from the Democratic party that had any interest in any of those things. Could you point me to where you're getting your information?

 

[PureX]

I want freedom, reduction and crime and inflation, and moral responsibility, but in my lifetime I haven't seen a candidate from the Democratic party that had any interest in any of those things. Could you point me to where you're getting your information?

Have you seen any republican candidates that cared about anything but cutting taxes for the rich? And imposing the religious morality of their base voters on everyone else? And ignoring and lying about climate change? And rigging and cheating the election process?

 

[Unfettered]

Have you seen any republican candidates that cared about anything but cutting taxes for the rich? And imposing the religious morality of their base voters on everyone else? And ignoring and lying about climate change? And rigging and cheating the election process?

I have no interest in anything coming from either political party. Partisanship is a blight on our political system and will prove a primary contributor to the dissolution of our society if more people don't likewise shun their insanity. If you are looking for a defense of Republicans or their party, you're looking in the wrong place.