We are the land of the free What does that mean? What does FREEDOM mean? How free are we really? Rocket River
Empowered, informed, accountable and upwardly mobile. The early '60s and mid '90s were probably the peak years and undone by costly, elective wars, questionable fiscal policy and expanding drug use and trade among disenfranchised subcultures.
Freedom to talk crap to a cop? Hmm, don't see that in my copy of the Constitution. Will re-read tonight.
The sad thing is that money has an effect on freedom. Those that are rich have more freedoms than those that are poor. They have different freedoms in regards to who they sue, who won't sue them, how they will be defended if they are charged in any crimes, what they can say to their bosses, how hard they have to try at their jobs, etc. If a rich person is hungry and needs to feed their family they have a different freedom of choice than those that are destitute.
In the physical world, as we are all interdependent, we are never completely free. Every single action someone does, however small or undetectable, has an impact to everyone. In the mental world, up to you.
If I locked you in a box and gave you the right to say whatever you wanted inside the box, pray to whoever you wanted in the box, write anything you wanted about the box and petitioned to be let out of the box... are you still free?
No, but your scenario seems to overtly contradict the actual conditions of countries (like ours) with free speech.
You can do what you want, but if what you do or did infringes upon someone else's ability to do what they want, then your peers have the right to determine if they should limit your ability to do what you want. We have that in the United States. We are free. And we fought for it. And that's that.
You are as free as the society you live in lets you and as your own mind and psyche lets you. Complete freedom means anarchy and chaos. The law of the jungle. As long as you are a member of a society you give up some of your freedoms. The extent of those freedoms depends on the historical time and the type of society. Freedom doesn't mean only freedom of speech or of religion. It also can mean freedom from money, freedom from the burden of preconceived notions and ideas that were instilled into you by your culture etc etc.
Freedom is purely subjective. It's a broad topic but I'll chime in with ramblings of the topics current context. Just as some people pursue comfort as a form of happiness, others see freedom as a bargain between what gains we get out of it at the expense of groups whom are excluded from it. That's the free market system as American culture lives it. Is the alternative a democratic socialist (or more extreme) contract? Not too sure it has to play that way, but I've had many Germans say while they love the US they were strongly soured by the way police handled themselves with people. Their attitude was in a position of higher authority rather than a face to face between people. The pressures American law enforcement deal with have a lot to do with wealth inequality and government forced segregation in our past and even today. Some people are afforded to be freely ignorant or freely defensive of that divided status. This is why you see some citizens vehemently defend abuses by the police because they view them as frontline warriors to battles they don't have to fight themselves. More soldiers dying for our freedoms. So when do you know you are "free"? When you're in the other side of the line your country of citizenship promises you. After that it's up for you to figure out.
