A question for older ATS members - are our freedoms being eroded?

A question for the older members on here, do you feel freer now, or was it freer in the past?

I sometimes look at the world and feel that whilst much has improved over the years, I get the nagging small feeling that we are becoming less free.

Any thoughts?

reply to post by Onet Wosix
Hell yes! They are being eroded, and it's happening faster than ever.

I am 48 years of age. I feel less free, A LOT LESS!

I am 35 now, but i found out i had no freedom at 17 in school.

I have had no freedom what so ever in 18 years, after finding out they used electronic mind control at school in 1992.

Imagine living with no privacy what so ever all your adult life, that is my life, and for no reason they did this. But i am glad i found this out, and i was not like everyone else not knowing this, i am glad i found out.

Hi Onet Wosix, no I wouldn't say they're BEING eroded... I'd say they're not that far from being gone completely.
The changes in the World I know have been happening for maybe 30 years that I've been aware, & have been speeding up since the tail end of the 90s.
To be perfectly honest I hate this World now.

not sure how old qualifys as an older member?
im in my mid 30s and ive noticed more so in the past 15 years or so that the uk has changed drasticaly since i was a kid/teenager. i agree many things have improved but to what cost. on the flip side not only our freedom has been slowly eroding.... but so has the genral mood of the populas ( if thatsspelt right) we have all become more paranoid and angry as well i think.

Originally posted by andy1033
I am 35 now, but i found out i had no freedom at 17 in school.

I have had no freedom what so ever in 18 years, after finding out they used electronic mind control at school in 1992.

Imagine living with no privacy what so ever all your adult life, that is my life, and for no reason they did this. But i am glad i found this out, and i was not like everyone else not knowing this, i am glad i found out.

do you feel like expanding on this? or is it too painful to go into?

Daily.

By the hour.

Yes. Systemically, and institutionally.

Freedom, is not even a viable concept any longer. "Property" is now the currency with which our society has been indoctrinated into defining freedom. If you have none, you have no freedom.

Of course, spiritual freedom remains inviolate, you can 'think' or 'feel' you're free and according to the common wisdom "that's good enough."

But the more pragmattic side of me sees that as a falsehood.

Here's a hint: Do you know your credit score?... The fact that this question has any meaning is a clear sign of the lack of freedom we have.

Our hope of acheivable freedom began bleeding to death nearly 100 years ago (some might say more; but why quibble?)

I think with age comes responsibility and with responsibility comes less freedom. It's called growing up and getting older.

It's what you choose to make it depending on the choices you make along the way and how one reacts to the world around you. Sure, we can't all do what we want all the time, but if we did it would maybe involve less freedom for the others around us so it's all relative.

Doesn't matter really because none of this is real anyway.

I'm 43teen btw.

Originally posted by Maxmars
"Property" is now the currency with which our society has been indoctrinated into defining freedom. If you have none, you have no freedom.

Surely some would disagree and say that without property comes freedom? No ties etc.

I am sixty, do I feel less free?

Well there are the thought police, I will have to think about this some more, BRB

reply to post by Onet Wosix
Onet Wosix,

It's just around the corner bent for home that everyone is to take the Mark or die. I will be one who refuses that mark and all must educate self to not. And man that is not freedom.

Truthiron.

I'm 51 from Pennsylvania Dutch country, and have felt less free with every passing year.
My father was a cryptographer with the Pentagon for a few years, and warned me about the Fed when I was a child of 8. I remember going to the bank with my dad. We'd have few hundred dollars, and exchanged it for rolls of quarters to sort out the silver ones. His advice today..... copper pennies (pre-1984)
In my teens, I noticed more and more restriction..... rules and warnings that seemed obvious to me, but were put in place to protect stupid people from themselves.
I witnessed gas 'shortages' and 20% interest rates in what was an obvious money-grab. Run-away inflation, stock market volatility (I was a broker for 15 years) and the savings and loan collapse. All came with more rules, more regulation, and fewer good options to choose from.
Everything changed even faster with the arrival of the internet. In the early years it really was the wild west so to speak. The average ATS-er knows how the net is becoming less free as we speak, so I'd be preaching to the choir.
Our founding fathers would be rolling in their graves if they knew we had handed over the printing and control of our money to anyone! The Fed will simply manipulate it and siphon it wherever they can, until they own everything.
Too many Americans don't realize that freedom is not free, and we don't seem to be willing to pay the price. Until we finally stand up for ourselves, the bullies will continue to make us less free.
Teach your children. Teach your friends. Learn all you can.

As a "older member" I have an opinion. As a kid growing up I took for granted my freedom. As I have gotten older I have come to recognize that my freedom is just an illusion, and dependent upon how much freedom those in power want me to have. I never really thought about it until approximately 5 years ago, when my State began releasing prisoners off of death row because DNA evidence showed that they were innocent. Several of them had been on death row for over 10 years. So many innocent prisoners were being released that our then Governor(who incidentally is in prison right now) placed a moratorium on any further executions. Our legislature is now considering the whole issue of the death penalty. But it isn't just that. Each time I go to the Airport I am touched, x-rayed and otherwise violated. I was pulled over the other night in my town, because I had a tail-light out, and was asked to give permission to search my car, and when I said no I had to wait for a K-9 unit to come and sniff around my car. I was asked if I had been drinking. I do not drink and responded "no". I was forced to blow into a portable breathalyzer and told that if I refused that the prosecuting attorney would be called and I could go to jail. A month ago I heard noises outside my home. Thought someone was breaking into my storage shed, so I called the Police. They came in force. Pushed their way into my home, made me show ID, and looked all around my living room. They left without even checking my storage shed.
Anyway, I know this is more then what you wanted, but the bottom line is that freedom is an illusion.

As known and unknown perspectives merge because of the 'quickening' that was the invention, and deployment of the internet, the quantitative analysis of any nomenclature breaks into shards of glass down the fractal and into infinity until it end were it started from.

The increase of violence, tension, and fear in each individuals consciousness is a result of the 'quickening' directly. It is uncertain is the quickening itself is not a modulated state to achieve the hiddens hands purpose being accomplished metaphysically, or hyper dimensionally projected upon the human population.

Like it or not state of being is moving into singular form. As we get to where we are going which is the beginning again. The amount of time before singular state acquisition is undetermined in the time line, and is not needed because there is an overabundance of it(time) within the continuum.

Then the horizon event will occur. Where all is known, of what 'can' be known'. All has been said, and understood.

The place where silence only stands.

Then, the paradigm will shift.

The time when, or how many will be is unknown.

I'm not old but I think technology has been in some ways not as liberating as we think. Our day to day experience hasn't changed much, but just look at the number of people who get caught up in "predictions" by people over the internet, they're usurping their own freedom. Then the date passes and then what?

Originally posted by Onet Wosix
A question for the older members on here, do you feel freer now, or was it freer in the past?

Freedom is an illusion. We are all part of multiple concentric spheres of social interaction, and are guided and limited in a thousand different ways by everything from peer pressure to federal law. I think things are about the same as they ever were. I'm free to do whatever I like, as long as nobody else cares. I can download lots of pornography from the Internet, but I'm not free to walk around naked in my local supermarket. I'm free to vote for whoever TPTB decide are my choices. I'm free to worship or not worship who I please, without much fear of being burned at the stake.

Otherwise, the only one really controlling my actions is myself. I can do whatever I want, as long as I'm willing to pay the social price for it. In that regard, I'm as free as I'm going to get.

reply to post by Onet Wosix


YES!
Our "property rights", and with them our right to privacy is just about gone.

I am sixty.
When I was growing up:

You could keep a pet hawk or deer or skunk with out a license. There was no Animal Welfare Act with the PETA gestapo sneaking on to your property, photographing your 35 yr old swayback mare and having her pet Judge issue a court order so she can confiscate AND SELL all your livestock. (She exists in my town and makes her living this way)

There was no "War on Drugs" and no drugs in my school, no swearing, no unruly behavior and a teacher could dicipline a student. Parents were not fined for spanking their kids, you did not have to worry the state would take your kid away.

The police did not use Civil Asset Forfeiture "...to view all of America as some giant national K-Mart, where prices are not just lower, but non-existent — a sort of law enforcement 'pick-and-don't-pay.'" (U.S. Representative Henry Hyde) Where "seized property was presumed guilty and could be forfeited based upon mere hearsay..."

You did not need to get a permit and an inspection to put up a 10X10 Sears shed or a tree house in the backyard. You could cut trees, dig a pond or fill in a swamp on your land without getting permission from 90 different government agencies.

You could smoke where you wished, carry a gun, not wear a helmet or a seat belt.

There was no OSHA, no EPA, there were twice is many teachers and half as many Federal employees (per US census)

You could let someone cave or climb or ride your horse without fear of being sued (you just did not do that to a neighbor)

I remember when we bought eggs from the egg lady and the local dairy delivered milk and we bought beef and chicken raised locally at the local butcher...

I remember this time period:

A report published in 1962 entitled "An Adaptive Program for Agriculture" is even more blunt in its objectives, leading Time Magazine to remark that CED had a plan for fixing the identified problem: "The essential fact to be faced, argues CED, is that with present high levels farm productivity, more labor is involved in agriculture production that the market demands"“ in short, there are too may farmers. To solve that problem, CED offers a program with three main prongs....

...Their plan was so effective and so faithfully executed by its operatives in the US government that by 1974 the CED couldn’t help but congratulate itself in another agricultural report called “A New US Farm Policy for Changing World Food Needs” for the efficiency of the tactics they employed to drive farmers from their land.[5]

The human cost of CED’s plans were exacting and enormous.

CED’s plans resulted in widespread social upheaval throughout rural America, ripping apart the fabric of its society destroying its local economies. They also resulted in a massive migration to larger cities. The loss of a farm also means the loss of identity, and many farmers’ lives ended in suicide [6], not unlike farmers in India today who have been tricked into debt and desperation and can see no other way out.[7]

Farmers found themselves encouraged to give up on a farming system that employed minimal outsourced inputs and capital and get "efficient" by adopting instead a system that required they go into debt in order to purchase ever more costly inputs, like fossil-fuel based fertilizers, chemicals, seeds, feed grain, and machinery. The local, decentralized food distribution networks that were previously in place became subject to corporate buyouts, vertical integration and consolidation, leaving farmers with fewer and fewer outlets to sell their goods...

The same agricultural policies that made farmers into commodity crop growers are at the root of the current obesity epidemic. ... US Farm policies driving down the price of these commodities made added sugars and fats some of the cheapest food substances to produce. High fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oils "products that did not even exist a few generations ago but are now hard to avoid“ have proliferated thanks to artificially cheap corn and soybeans.[13] In other words, US farm policies make poor eating habits an economically sensible choice with long-term negative health consequences for consumers and economically devastating consequences for family farmers...
farmwars.info...

I am speaking as an older person - I turned 64 this past Saturday. I am not so sure about feeling less free but I do know that politicans and citizens are taking much more advantage of their freedoms then they use to. People use to appreciate the fact that we had freedom of speech, freedom to live where we wanted, etc. - they were at peace with this and made the best of what they had or didn't have. Over the years I have seen a major change in the attitudes of people - I include politicians in this as well - they are tightening up on citizens and taking away as they line their pockets with our hard earned taxes. That in turn just makes people angry and agressive, creating more confussion and crime. I no longer vote because I don't trust any of them - one party or the other it doesn't matter - they are all the same.

reply to post by Onet Wosix
S&F that small feeling should be a Big feeling, as time goes by less and less are we truly free, yes we have some freedoms but not what our fore fathers had in mind. Each time the voting time comes around less is there to have our voices heard, i am 45.