And in the US, we currently are dictated to as to what kind of health care plan we are allowed to have, what kind of light bulbs we can buy, and the flushing capacity of our toilets. How free do you feel?
Being "free", to me, means being able to make my own decisions as to how I light my home, plan for my health care, operate my business, and educate my children. Give me that, and I'll consider myself free even if a Franco is in charge politically. Take that away, and I will not consider myself free, even though I can vote.
The founders were well aware of the "tyranny of the majority".
You’re preaching to the choir my good man. There is also the ‘’tyranny of the minority’’ too. And that seems to be the situation we have now. Everyone from Limbaugh to Hannity and Palin are out there telling us the majority of the American people don’t believe in liberalism and the nanny state but G-damnit, it seems to be the way we’re going, isn’t it? How do I feel about being told about what light bulbs I’m to buy, the toilet, and health care? What I told an IRS auditor almost twenty years ago when I was told that I owed them because they didn’t take enough taxes out of the unemployment I was getting(talk about being kicked when you’re down) and what I’ll tell any government stooge: ‘’Go fuck yourself’’. They got their money of course but I let them know how I felt. I’m in the process of trying to get a firearms permit( I live in New Jersey and it’s tough) and if I can own a gun I’ll be more than willing to send some government goon to the Here After. I’m a student of history, particularly the fascist regimes of the last century. Always at the end of reading another tome on communism or a particular aspect of Nazism I would say to myself, “Thank God I live in the freedom of The United States’’. When I’m told I have to buy health insurance under penalty of the law then I no longer live in a free country and the history of the Third Reich and the tyranny of the former Soviet Union has been rendered mute and un-academic. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me ‘’PapaBear’’, feel free to keep in touch. Respectfully however my friend, don’t inquire of me again how I feel about what we’ve discussed here because I’m afraid I may say something that would get me in trouble and perhaps by extension yourself and I wouldn’t want that. I’m that angry.