FREE SOCIETIES - for better or worse?

I think we have been living as democratically free as humans can achieve in their present condition and in a world where there is serious competition from other states who are not free.

I am in a sense getting what I want, but it is still really messed up. I believe in oiginal sin 100% as an inherited DNA condition we are powerless to rid ourselves of. There is good medicine out there to control the illness, but it always kills us in the finish, with old age if nothing else before that. Our illness makes freedom a poisoned chalice to us. It is flawed from the start. It will always be mess upon mess with problem after problem. That will never go away and that is why we have politics. In politics we are given a choice as free societies.

When I compare our free societies to others who are not free like China, Russia, Myanmar, North Korea, it becomes instantly obvious it is much less of a nightmare living in our free Western societies. I could not live in any of those states without going crazy, being arrested or killed just for being my natural self. They are a metaphorical torture chamber and dungeon to me and I must fight with all my strength every second of every day to keep them as far away from me and as much of the world as I can along the way too. I do that every second of every day of my life with all my being. If China in its current state of tyranny and oppression regards freedom as an enemy then I am staring them in the face saying I AM YOUR NEMESIS AND NIGHTMARE COME TRUE. I am a 1966 Fire Horse in your Dragon face( an astute Chinese astrologer might fathom that meaning).

We take this freedom for granted. Only when we lose something dear to us do we begin to notice the true loss. Winston Churchill said of democracy that it is the worst thing we as humans could come up with as a system of government apart from all the others. It is the devil we know, the least of all evils. LIkewise freedom is the least of evil possibilities of status quo the human condition can exist in with any true freedom of expression (and all of its chaotic not so pleasant friends).

Don't ever expect perfection in this life. It is impossible. You will only torture yourself with frustration and confusion constantly. I know human beings are still trapped by so much animal unconscious behaviour and I hope evolution moves at Godspeed like a rocket to free us from the darkness and ignorance of our inherited condition.

I see you're fairly new to ATS-and politics. Welcome aboard!

Freedom isn't without consequences. We all have free will given our abilities. Of course what we are able of can be controlled by others like when being imprisoned (or executed in the most extreme example). But even with full freedom based on our natural unrestricted abilities, we can't decide to jump off a cliff and expect to fly.

Laws of nature, among other factors, limit our freedom. Humans are limited in the scope of their freedom even as wild untamed beings under no imposed restrictions by other humans. To be as free as possible we must accept the consequences of imposing our will to live freely. That means having nothing you can't provide for yourself with, leaving you with your instincts and what you can learn through experience. Ultimately if we choose to abandon a society of rules and laws to live as our free will directs, we will be living outside the law as an outlaw or as a wild animal in the most extreme example.

I have a different take on original sin. It was disobedience to God. We used our freewill in a way that brought us pain and suffering. God has the wisdom to know what we need to do in order to avoid it, but we do not have that wisdom. There are plenty of times when the choices we should make are *not* the ones that immediately gratify or seem emotionally satisfying. That makes them hard.

When we live in a free society, we have to have the latitude to make the full range of choices: good to bad, wise to foolish. We also have to be given the latitude to feel the full consequences of those choices. The responsible role of government in such a society is to allow us that latitude as much as possible without interfering. That's hard. It's hard to see people make stupid choice after stupid choice and to see them pull down people around them as well as themselves. And in today's safety conscious, risk averse world, the government is taking advantage by taking control and trying to live lives for us by starting to step in a attempt to dictate. And the ones who don't want to manage themselves or deal with the pain think they'll like it.

A nice line from a song "freedom is another word for nothing else to lose". Think on it.

a reply to: Tarantula777

When I compare our free societies to others who are not free like China, Russia, Myanmar, North Korea, it becomes instantly obvious it is much less of a nightmare living in our free Western societies.

Absolutely , but as the years go by our Western freedoms are being eroded by Big Brother states who seek to observe , control and subjugate us for their own benefit , most recently our freedoms of speech and choice have come under attack and our right to offend has all but been removed , it will not be long until we are little different to the undesirable countries you mention.

People have become compliant through the fear peddled by our governments , the power of Nightmares is an effective tool.

"Man's freedom lies not in being able to do what he wants, but in not having to do what he does not want."
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

According to this, the so called free west isn´t free anymore since the first corona measures were forced upon us people in 2020, destroying democracy, despising the constitution, breaking the law.

The so called free west is not a bit better than China because China is the wests role-model, the wests partner in crimes against humanity. Just go the Event201 website and check who sits with whom at the table during this "exercise". And that was the starting point to the effed up situation we have now, it`s almost 1929 and then 1933 again.

Only because some stinky rich bastards are bored, megalomaniac and want more of money and power no-stop, power especially about the 99% of dispensable eaters, us peasants. If you really think we still live in a free society and in a democratic state structure, make a self-experiment. I don´t even know which country you are from because you didn´t say anything about it but lets say you do this experiment in Germany.

Go to the next market place full of people and start loudly to criticize the government, the politics, the politicians, the agenda they are pushing, say anything about rainbow flags anywhere or that biology only knows two genders, that the corona measures didn´t help but harm, that the jabs don´t work as promised, that you aren´t jabbed and so on and on. Of course in a friendly, moderate tone of voice and of course without lying, just presenting facts.

Or just simply be a member of democratically justified demonstrations against the really bad politics against the average people and tax payers and you will see how the police is your "freedom loving" friend and helper (as they call themselves). At the same time you do this on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, post videos about it as often as often possible wherever possible and you will see how much freedom is left since 2020. Do that as somebody who is well known in the public, with a lot of followers and you will see how many followers you will have after that if you still have a job etc. And watch how the MSM rips you up till you are socially ostracized and by that socially killed.

In minutes you turn into a Nazi, a right-winger, an extremist, a terrorist, they even created a new term for the people that maybe will protest in the near future against all that madness that a logical thinking brain can´t get anymore but i instantly forgot their new speak creation again because it´s their new speak and not our mother tongue we are used to.

The last, at least a bit free summer we had was in 2019. Who has not understood until now what happened and changed regarding freedom since 2020 must be a very good sleeper, wish i still could sleep that well too. It´s five before 1933 again and it get´s worse day by day. Everything that isn´t on line with the current thing get´s cancelled, books get banned again (Karl May - Winnetou), we have newly created reporting offices in North-Rhine Westphalia so traitors can snitch on their own fellow citizens again, only to be a better citizen in the eyes of the overlords.

No, the free west isn´t free anymore since 2020, it just sells it´s eco-fascistic and WEF controlled dictatorship still as democracy. As long as this is still possible for them and as long as the agenda pushers need to be ready for a hot war against the own population that might rebel in the near future.

Then they will show their unmasked faces again, those fascistic faces of evil and death.

Always remember:

"The new fascism will not say: I am fascism. It will say: I am the anti-fascism."
Ignazio Silone

a reply to: Tarantula777

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

I like to say what's on my mind against my own government without the risk of getting arrested five hours later. But maybe my own government is keeping tabs on me for speaking against it, but I'm still not getting arrested days later, so, let's keep it free...

a reply to: Substracto

Nah, not arrested yet ... just fired if the wrong people hear you in the wrong place at the wrong time and make a stink about you to the right people where you work.

a reply to: ketsuko

That's what happens when people forget the old "snitches get stitches"