Do you think you are free?

a reply to: PaulTheDuke
Aw, there's no need to be all cross and kill the conversation.
Do you really not wish to accept any thoughts that perhaps someone is always alpha in any given social human situation?
I understood it quickly as a homeless 16 year old. The understanding of such things helped shape my own alpha position in my own society of multiple groups.
If your society is different to mine then please do feel free to explain as I love learning new information about human life, even if it is anecdotal.

*Edit*
iF PaulTheDuke does not wish to be 'The Duke' in this conversation anymore then to anyone else reading this, please feel free to disagree with anything I've said.
I personally think most folks are just crying about not beig alpha male...but that status is not earned by just bitchin about stuff on ATS, ever...whatever the society.

a reply to: grainofsand

Well,it is a little tragic beeing homeless at 16.I feel bad for what happened to you
See,every human learns his own life lessons.We have different tests in life which shapes our philosophy about life.
Mine,I said before,is based in individual skills and I also had life experience involved in this.

a reply to: PaulTheDuke
Thanks, but I don't feel bad about my homeless experiences myself, they are a bonus which reminds me that utopian talk is nothing but that...talk.

a reply to: grainofsand

A real "nowadays Duke" for me ignores the off-topic posts and if it is hardly provoked the Duke can also bring solid arguments.The nickname "Duke" for me doesn't reffer as beeing a leader or an alpha male,I reffer to their wealth and cool attitude.

Now I say again, someone or group is always in charge...do you disagree?

a reply to: grainofsand

I agree,but it is a wrong society.

a reply to: PaulTheDuke
...it is just society, s'all. Some are more free than others.

a reply to: grainofsand

True that

a reply to: PaulTheDuke
I just got back from an afternoon/evening, drinking store-bought beer and smoking substances other than tobacco sat by a fire with my mates on the beach next to the funfair. Excellent evening, went on the bumper-cars/dodgems, played football on the sand, had the ball kicked back by one of two cops who were passing on patrol, laughed out loud with my friends when the other cop said in a joking tone "I smell something different to the fresh sea air, I hope you are all complying with the law" then carried on walking with a smile.

Yes I feel free, and as someone who has been called a subject of the crown by US members many times I feel relieved to have my own perception of freedom compared to some of the stuff posted by you guys on ATS.
One memory I have of thinking how free I am was at Stonehenge during the summer solstice some years ago. The stones are open to be touched and partied around for only two 12 hour night/dawn periods each year, the solstices. Tyranny you may claim, but 'normal' tourists probably wouldn't spend their time and money visiting the area if it was a free party all the time, and the stones could be damaged, and I would not want that myself.

Anyway, entering the site while clearing the police/security cordon I jokingly said to a cop that the only drugs I had were already in my bloodstream so waste of time searching me, to which he replied "Drugs are legal tonight, I only care about public safety and the stones" - we both laughed, and I was glad that someone else was sober and keeping an eye out for me and other people around me. That same copper would come and save my arse if I was being kicked to # on the floor by a load of blokes, so call me a sheep who has devolved responsibility for my protection if you like but it is incorrect. I consider police as I do bouncers/doorstaff in a nightclub. Annoying sometimes, but very useful to take care of problem people who may arise in an enjoyable social situation...so I don't have to.

a reply to: Wildbob77

If a police officer is fearful of you they can kill you, if you fear a police officer you must submit and obey lest be killed. They can kill you even if your not committing a crime. Think about that the next time your standing in front of a judge in court, the officer standing there has the right to kill you if he fears for his/her life, but what rights do you have??

a reply to: LDragonFire
Wow, sounds like a horrible world you must live in.
Our police here on the SW coast of England mostly only carry batons, and in the summer there is less than 20 arresting officers available per 100,000 people at any given time. Batons are only ever drawn when they know the crowd watching is likely to support them, or if the whole crowd is attacking, and that's unlikely in our sleepy beachlife world.

I've actually helped a cop restrain a crazy bloke before now when I could see what he was trying to do was the right path in the situation, and he was losing the battle. Sounds horrible where you live.

a reply to: grainofsand

Hmmm.... Interesting story.
The most important thing is that if you are happy with your way of beeing free then it is OK.

a reply to: PaulTheDuke
Who is free?
Someone will always be alpha even if our current perception of government disappeared.

a reply to: grainofsand

Ok,whatever,I give up.
Thumbs up for your opinion

a reply to: grainofsand

Presidents Reagan, GHBush, and Clinton started militarizing our civilian police force to combat the war on drugs, George W Bush finished militarizing the police plus departments of government with his war on terror. The department of education, agriculture have there own police forces.

You here about SWAT raids on small family farms, yet when a huge corporation is responsible for food poisoning you never here about there manufacturing plants being raided or corporate farms being raided.

public safety:

(CNN) -- Police warned the 8-year-old they were going to tase her.

"Within seconds," an officer fired darts from the electroshock weapon into the chest of the 70-pound girl, according to a lawsuit filed by the girl's mother. "The force of the electricity shot through her body, lifted her, and threw her against a wall. After the officers had stunned (the girl) into high voltage submission, they pulled the fish-hook like Taser darts from her chest, gave her emergency medical attention, bandaged the holes left by the razor-sharp hooks, and called the ambulance."

CNN

Freedom here? Look up Japanese Americans 1942

a reply to: LDragonFire
I agree, your 'freedom' seems a lot more crap than mine.
Cops here are chilled as, mostly friendly, and leave you alone about stupid and pointless laws if nobody else is complaining about it. Even illegal dance parties are left to continue rather than face the outnumbered fight if force was attempted to shut the tunes down.
I don't know the official figures but anecdotaly I see maybe 1 in 50 cops carrying tazers where I live, they rely far more on us, the public, fixing stuff ourselves so they don't have to get involved.

a reply to: grainofsand

Rights cannot be taken away, here we have privilege, as they can be suspended. Free speech zones is a good example. 30 to 40 thousand SWAT raids per year.

We have private owned prisons, so we need a steady stream of people entering the prison industry to insure growth and profit. This is why we have the largest prison population on the planet.

Freedom of choice? Like what paper or plastic? Cash or credit? Fox or CNN? Red/Blue, the lesser of two evils. Something like 200 countries have freedom, but what does that mean?

This thread was a attempt to show how the world is run/like

They live we sleep deeply

My attempt at the freedom question:

Can you define what freedom is?

a reply to: LDragonFire
Yep, sounds # where you live.
Funny how a constitutional monarchy can sometimes seem more day-to-day free than the US is...and I'm a passionately republican leaning UK national.

a reply to: johnb
Ah, come on OP, get involved in the topic and explain how tyrannical your world is on the South coast of England?
I'm on the SW coast so not far away, although my world seems much more free than the one you apparently proclaim.

I take the SW to mean as far East as Portland/Weymouth, so if you are 'South coast' then you must be somewhere in between there and London, is it really Mad Max or Nazi land to the East of Dorset or are you just whining about first world problems as I suspect?

*Edit*
Last time I rode the A303 to London from the South West your world seemed pretty much the same as mine.