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Everyone wants freedom. What feeble brained loser wouldn't? The hidden catch is, however, that everyone's take on what freedom is, is different. Freedom for some might mean slavery for others. Freedom is relative, ever changing, and can be a very useful tool for some people to get what they want. However, calling freedom "freedom" might be misleading. I call it "power", that's all it is. If I have the power to kick your ass, I have more freedom than you (at least physically). I'm free to beat you until you die. Those that are powerless are certainly not free. Look at common perspectives on freedom within my country. Democrats propose that freedom is having fair elections, access to easy health care, and freedom from exploitation by corporate corruption. And it's true; this is a "type" of freedom. If health care is easy for you to acquire, you have more power (AKA freedom) to get your health related needs met. Freedom from being fraudulently misled by corporate influence isn't necessarily power in itself, but it takes power away from potential enemies. Since power is relative, the weaker your enemies, the more powerful, and thus free, you are. And in many cases corporations are your enemies. Republicans, on the other hand, want free market freedom for corporations to do whatever the fuck they want, and want freedom from taxes. This sounds like valid freedom to me, too. If the government can't tax you as much, the enemy (i.e. the government) has less power over you. Especially if you have an investment in or are running a corporate firm, more power over your customer's rights will be very advantageous to you. Customers are a businessman's enemy; the less freedom your customers have, the more of their money you can take. Hooray for freedom! So who has the most freedom? Those that control the rules, control freedom, and they undoubtedly do it in their own favor. Freedom and power are all about rules, and rules are everywhere. Even the most lawless reprobate follows some rules. Some people interpret the rules as "karma", believing that some universal force applies rules and rewards those that follow those moral maxims. These people are very confused, and need to stop pretending that the universe favors their pitiful little human ideals. The universe doesn't give a shit about you; the universe doesn't have opinions. However, this fanciful little idea of karma has some uses, because there are rules, if not moral rules, that reward and punish the weak and those that do not follow these rules. The only problem is, is that the rules are ever changing. The rules change chronologically, spatially, interpersonally, and intrapersonally. The rules are a chaotic mess. The key to power, and thus freedom, is figuring out what the rules are, and using them to your advantage. If a police officer is harassing you, as police officers do, one rule suggests that if you splatter that policeman's nose against his face with your fist, you risk imprisonment. Because police are cowards, hiding behind their badges, guns, and superiority of numbers, the police officer can later report you, call for backup, and probably finally arrest you. One policeman might be easy to take care of, but there's plenty more where he came from, so I wouldn't depend on the luck of escaping as a fugitive. Thus, the rules state that you risk imprisonment for defending yourself from a cop. However, if you ignore this rule, and the law of averages determines you need to go to prison, the rules have suddenly changed. On the streets, the rules are different, but now you're in prison. Now, if someone pisses you off, and you collapse his larynx with a swift kick to the neck, you've just followed the rules. The rules will reward this sort of behavior. Beating people gets you more status in prison, not the other way around. So feel free to beat all the people you possibly can. Only 5% of prison inmates get raped by another inmate, but this 5% minority happens to be the weakest, most submissive inmates in the prison. This form of weakness is punished, because being a pussy in prison is against the rules. Don't break the rules. And the rules are everywhere, not just in prison or in dealing with police authorities. Every social circle and culture has different rules, businesses have different rules, jobs, careers, colleges, courts, tools (e.g. computers, cars) and even specific people, have different rules that determine what happens when you interact with them in certain ways. Thus, there is karma, except karma just flip flops all over the fuckin' place like a shiftless transient bum. The trick is finding out what this "karma" is like in each different encounter. There is some consistency with human rules, however. Humans, being mammals, are very social. And social animals often have hierarchies. Ants have workers, then warriors, then the queen. Wolves have the alpha, beta, and omega males, all with different status within the group. Humans however being as complex as they are, have the most hierarchical, diverse, and complicated social structures on Earth. Some people have higher status sexually, physically, socially, financially, intellectually, technologically, academically, occupationally, and legally. There's a million ways to climb some social ladder somewhere. And this ever changing, roiling mess of competition for status that is the human global economy has rules. The rules tell us in which ways we can achieve status. The average person's modus operandi for acquiring status goes something like this: hate and exploit those weaker than you, be jealous of those stronger than you, and compete to rival anyone that is your equal. It seems to work for them. But the rules of the social structure and human hierarchy are what determine freedom. Freedom is having the rules work for you, and slavery is you working for the rules. Whatever the rules, pay close attention to them, and exploit them, bleed them dry, drain, fight, and cooperate with the rules in any way necessary to get what you want. Back to the common American political views on freedom, I see merit in both interpretations of the rules. Some parts of the corporate world I don't want to have regulated (to an extent). For instance, the fast food, tobacco, alcohol, and credit card companies. More people die from tobacco and alcohol than all the illegal drugs combined. About 120,000 people die annually from smoking. Obesity related deaths are higher in America than anywhere in the world (at 300,000 annually). Predatory credit card companies sentence many of their customers to a lifetime of debt. And I wouldn't have it any other way. If you're a fat slob, who can't keep that burger and fries away from your fat ugly face for more than a minute, please do get diabetes and die. You're a moron. If you're too much of a conformist sheep as a teenager to say no to your "cool" friends to smoking, please stay addicted your entire life and die of lung cancer. They should bring Joe Camel back. All drugs should be legalized. If you're too stupid to read the fine print of a credit card's terms and conditions (the rules), and they fuck you over financially, you don't deserve money (nor do you deserve happiness). What does this have to do with freedom, or, more importantly, my freedom? Well, for starters, these corporations are killing stupid people. That doesn't give me more freedom, but it sure as fuck sounds good to me anyways. But more importantly, it gives me more status. It gives me more money, makes me healthier, and makes me more attractive. All these forms of status are relative, you see. You are only rich compared to someone who is poorer than you. That's why the rich are often just as financially unsatisfied and greedy as the poor. The rich hang out with other rich individuals like themselves. Thus, compared to their friends, they're not rich, they're average. That's one of the reasons why money is not correlated with happiness. Anyway, I may not actually be becoming more healthy and more attractive, but compared with people smoking and eating everything in sight, I am. Smoker face withers your face into an ugly mess, and no one wants to fuck fat slobs. Plus addictions to alcohol and nicotine, plus victimization from predatory lenders and credit card companies, costs people lots of money. So thank you McDonald's, for lowering the bar and making me much more healthy. However, I also see the merit in national health care. Tax the rich, and pay for my doctor bill, bitch! We would only have to tax the rich to accomplish this, since the top 10% wealthiest Americans own 90% of this nation's wealth. Tax those fuckers! The rules say, tax the rich, and pay for my health care. That is undoubtedly to my advantage. But like I told you before, the rules change. Say I become the richest 10%? Now it probably costs me more in taxes than I would spend on my own damn doctor bill for myself. Now the rules say we need private health care. Thus, fuck the lower and middle class, those parasites. Let 'em fend for themselves. The rich aren't irrational when they don't want to pay taxes, they're just doing what the poor would do in their position. Therefore, as the rules change, perhaps so should you. The best rule you can follow is to studiously read the rules of your environment, and use them to your advantage. The rules are like a puzzle. The puzzle is to see how you can arrange the rules to maximize your profit. Determine the rules you can ignore, the rules that give you power, and the rules you want to circumvent. Arrange the puzzle of rules to fit your needs. We are not all equal, and therefore not all free. Some people have rules that govern them that are too unfair for them to find true freedom, and some people are just too damn stupid to understand the rules available to them. But use whatever laws your environment forces upon you, and use them to gain power. And once you have power, you have true freedom. |