How to Be Free: Harry Browne's Freedom Principles

Great post, S& F to you!

Originally posted by ReelView
Good stuff - Grab it while you can ---

www.scribd.com...

Government Trap #2: The belief that you have a duty to obey laws.

Legal or not I'm so gonna grab this one. Star for you!

It's true, the thought of breaking the law makes me happy already!

On a more serious note though, you don't need to read any book to set yourself free. All you need to do is be honest and accept who you really are regardless of what situation you're currently in. If you can do that, you're already halfway to real happiness.

Pretty interesting stuff OP. I think another way one can free themselves, is to free themselves from the narrow or bad ideas they have regarding their involvement in any society. I think it is far too easy to blame an element or aspect of a society for feeling you are not free. One has to ask themselves, is the sole purpose of any society or your participation in it, to provide you with your exact expectations of freedom.
I think that is a good question to ask.

Government Trap #1: The belief that governments perform socially useful functions that deserve your support.

I don't consider this a trap, it's premise is false to me. We, as individuals, enter into a societal "contract" of sorts. We establish "governments" to perform functions that we consider useful to the concept of the society in general, so we don't have to perform those useful service solely on our own by ourselves. This gives us a "freedom" to per-sue other activities because individually we don't have to cater to things like our own security, food production or medical needs, etc. This also allows us the freedom to specialize skills or activities that we trade or sell. If we do not support these ideas and services then we don't find police useful, or firemen, or hospitals or roads and other services useful. IMHO anyway.

Government Trap #2: The belief that you have a duty to obey laws.

I would think that the duty is to your fellow humans that you share a society with, that is part of the contract you enter, so to speak. This society establishes rules(law) in order to serve the society. Obviously there is no perfection in the law and it is abused or distorted by individuals and groups within any society, but to say that the "law" is an entity that one must serve a duty to is to shift the goal posts away from why there is a law and to transfer ones sense of duty away from what really matters, which is the other humans you share a society with. That is how I see it. We have a duty to others and we establish laws in order to make sure that there is a deterrent to those that think they have no duty to others in a shared society.

Government Trap #3: The belief that the government can be counted upon to carry out a social reform you favor.

. I think this should be called People Trap #3. Can you trust the people you empower to carry out the running of something many rely on, but to your individual best interests or favor. Perhaps the trap is a poor understanding of what a person belongs to when the live in a shared society.
Can we be free from being human?

Government Trap #4: The fear that the government is so powerful that it can prevent you from being free.

This is the scary one. This is why we have NWO CT.

Obviously, the vast majority of people believe that the noises and scribbles of government people constitute "the law." There are also hordes of bureaucrats, police, and judges who regard "the law" as sacrosanct. If they suspect you disrespect their "law," they tend to feel very threatened and may become extremely vindictive. There are times when your freedom depends on your ability to convince them that you respect the noises and scribbles they call "the law."

There are some generalizations and inferences regarding the "hordes" being "vindictive", but we can do that to people who have no respect for the law too, and generalize them as "terrorists or pathological criminals" that have little of no regard for anyone but themselves at the expense of another persons individuals personal freedoms, well being or property. Its easy to support an argument by poisoning the well on one side with a caricature.

Life is sacrosanct ipsofacto some may view a law protecting life as being sacrosanct. Freedom of speech in the USA, I would say there would be those who would see that as being sacrosanct. When you can take a view that the law regarding freedom of speech is not sacrosanct or a law protecting life is not sacrosanct, then you can step over it?

For me, a better way to look at it is that the real issue is about where we start defining the absolute limit of anyone persons freedom to do just what ever they want to do in an environment they share with others. I guess its about tolerance. Laws are a reflection of the limits we set. Like laws showing we don't tolerate murder, or rape etc.
I think these are sacrosanct to humans in general and the laws carry some of that too. If you see what I mean.
I don't think you can differentiate between the law, and the philosophy or human value that inspires the issues I use as examples, and the laws we have for them. How is the law not sacrosanct if it is a value on life or it present a value that does not tolerate rape? How do you become free of that?

I mean you can flip some of these and say that laws are created to ensure and to protect freedom. Like protecting your person to be free from violence and oppression, hate or discrimination and intolerance.

I guess there are a number of ways to look at what it actually means to see the world you live in, the way it is structured and the mechanations of it. Some aspects of the "Traps" seem to be pointing at the house that was built to provide an aspect of shelter, and then complaining it feels like a prison.
If you view them as traps, then sure, you may feel that way.
But you can look at them in other ways too.

Despair Trap: The belief that other people can prevent you from being free. You are always free to move on and start a new life.

This is true. In my country, as in others, refugees travel here to do just that, from regimes and societies that prevent them from being free.
When they come here my government aids them with housing, a small income, community services, translators, health care, education and job seeker training and employment.
I think that is a good example of a useful services provide by humans participating in an aspect of a shared society, that we call a government, that deserves my support.


Interesting stuff.
Thanks OP.

[edit on 7-5-2010 by Derised Emanresu]

How to be free, the M. Brown way.

Say, "no" more often.

Government Trap #2: The belief that you have a duty to obey laws.

I think Dr. King said it quite well on this subject.

"One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."

&

"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law." -Martin Luther King, Jr.


Unfortunately, so many people in our society believe that one should have blind obedience to all laws and they would not even think of questioning authority.

reply to post by idontKNOWanything


Just had to comment on your inciteful post. Star for you sir, bravo.

Being free is inherently a selfish act that requires extremely strong individuality, of course, being free doesn't mean you can't still change the world.

I also disagree with what Harry says that the idea of greed as being evil needs to be questioned, I mean, sure, if you see yourself as the only human worth something then greed is definitely your thing, but greed only ever destroys. My belief is that you can do whatever the hell you want as long as no one's welfare is harmed.

[edit on 5/8/10 by MoothyKnight]

Identity Trap #1: The belief that you should be someone other than yourself. You need to be true to yourself. Find out who you are; be yourself; do things your own way.

Intellectual Trap: The belief that your emotions should conform to an intellectually preconceived standard. Emotions are best regarded as signals that tell you how you're doing.

Morality Trap: The belief that you must obey a moral code created by someone else. In order to become more competent (and free) you need to strengthen your understanding of the cognitive links between your actions and the consequences you produce. Morality is basically a set of very general rules concerning what to do and what not to do, generally involving large consequences. Blindly using someone else's moral code, tends to reduce your competence, because it prevents the forming of proper cognitive links between actions and consequences. To be free you need to create your own moral code.

Government Trap #1: The belief that governments perform socially useful functions that deserve your support.

Government Trap #2: The belief that you have a duty to obey laws.

Government Trap #3: The belief that the government can be counted upon to carry out a social reform you favor.

Government Trap #4: The fear that the government is so powerful that it can prevent you from being free.

Obviously, the vast majority of people believe that the noises and scribbles of government people constitute "the law." There are also hordes of bureaucrats, police, and judges who regard "the law" as sacrosanct. If they suspect you disrespect their "law," they tend to feel very threatened and may become extremely vindictive. There are times when your freedom depends on your ability to convince them that you respect the noises and scribbles they call "the law."

Despair Trap: The belief that other people can prevent you from being free. You are always free to move on and start a new life.

Thanks OP for another book to read and to confirm my own convictions.

As for "the law" and government's supposed issuance of it. That is not law, that is "color of law"-the resemblance of law.

Law is finite, it is just like any other equation. It can be defined as an ultimate expression of cause and effect.

One law and one law only defines me.

To do no harm to another, to infringe on another's rights to Life, Liberty or Property.

This is the penultimate problem with governments. They use the "color of law" to restrict and remove your and my rights for their goals and agenda.

Thanks to those that have given freely of information to the truth, that we are all free, to make up our own minds of the choice of freedom; or slavery.

Originally posted by De La Valletta
One problem ,

Morality Trap: The belief that you must obey a moral code created by someone else. In order to become more competent (and free) you need to strengthen your understanding of the cognitive links between your actions and the consequences you produce. Morality is basically a set of very general rules concerning what to do and what not to do, generally involving large consequences. Blindly using someone else's moral code, tends to reduce your competence, because it prevents the forming of proper cognitive links between actions and consequences. To be free you need to create your own moral code.

Should we enable thieves , murderers , pathological liers , psychopaths , pedophiles and sexual deviants to create their own moral codes and what then should be done when they "express" their morals? Punish them? Wouldn't that be hypocritical? The world is not a perfect world and moral codes may restrict a certain cross section of rebels , and there's nothing wrong with rebels , in the correct context they can be useful sometimes eg.Jesus , Siddhārtha Gautama AKA Buddha , but a world with positive moral codes like"make a habit of two things - to help, or at least, to do no harm-Hippocrates" is better than "Take what you want and do as you please." Total freedom practiced by savages is barbarism or dystopia , total freedom practiced by wise benevolent beings is paradise or utopia. As you can see it's a dualism of two different paradigms. The fact that we are headed for dystopia is not a good sign.

"because it prevents the forming of proper cognitive links between actions and consequences."

If it's just the individual who has to live with their actions and consequences go right ahead , but living in a world where others exist we must be responsible , sane and compassionate as much as we can , as they may end up suffering for our foolishness.

You are completely off topic. This is about personnal freedom. Not about restricting freedom of others.

In theory , even if you are a psychopath, to be free, you must do what you want to do, not what others want you to do.

I am currently reading it, this is quite awesome. The "group trap" chapter is interesting as it explains how teamwork really works.

THE GROUP TRAP

The Group Trap comes packaged in many wrappings. In its broadest form, it is any economic system that separates achievements from rewards. If an individual is required to share what he produces but can also have a share of what others produce, his obvious incentive will be to produce as little as possible and live off the rewards produced by others. Consequently, total production will be reduced and there will be less to split up. The Group Trap also applies to a combined effort to clean up the community, lower taxes, end pollution, stop prejudice, accomplish social reforms, promote an ideology, or stop a war. In each case, the individual's efforts become almost irrelevant to the outcome. It's an example of the Group Trap when someone says, "If we all stick together and follow this plan, we'll succeed." You won't all stick together; you'll each do things in your own individual way. You'll depend for your success upon others sticking to the plan—and you may wind up spending most of your time futilely trying to herd them into line. And you'll probably recognize that you could sit at home and not change the outcome one bit—or you could work very hard and still not change the outcome one bit. Your actions are only your actions, not those of the group.

[...]
Since the pay of each individual in the union is determined by factors other than his own achievement, his incentive to produce deteriorates. Once again, the overall output is bound to be reduced thereby—which means that the overall reward to be shared won't be as high as it could be.
Professional athletes are often represented by agents who negotiate their contracts for them. An agent might represent several athletes to the same employer, but each individual's contract is individually negotiated. No attempt is made to rely on the group for bargaining power. Consequently, individual incentives are maintained fully, value is encouraged, and rewards are greater.
You're bound to be able to accomplish more for yourself in a situation where you can increase your reward through your own individual effort.

[edit on 8-5-2010 by ickylevel]

I voted for him in some presidential election. I think it was in 2000. He was the Libertarian nominee.

Originally posted by seism
I voted for him in some presidential election. I think it was in 2000. He was the Libertarian nominee.

In 1996.

One should be a bit crazy if he want
to get rid of the fetters and to be free.

- Zorba the Greek

delete

[edit on 8-5-2010 by john124]

A must read.

Sooner or later you'll have to make a decision regarding your willingness to obey laws. There's a normal reluctance to break laws. You can easily feel that you're contributing to the decay of your country, or that you're making yourself vulnerable. However, there are thousands of once-rich Cubans who wish today that they'd been willing to commit the crime of sending their funds out of Cuba before the government confiscated them. They either thought they were helping their country by keeping their funds at home, or they counted on laws they thought would prevent confiscation, or they didn't want to take the risks involved in smuggling their funds out. Their views have been shared by people in countries all over the world—people who always thought, "It's different here." They failed to realize that no government obeys laws. It will change, overrule, ignore, or defy them whenever they get in its way. To count on the law to protect you is a grave mistake.