What are our freedoms these days?

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

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

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!

...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:

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

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.

Is that in the Constitution?

:shrug:

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?

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?

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

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

though.

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!

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?

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.