When all freedoms are completely gone, will we still act like we're as free as they were in 1776?

Question

When all freedoms are completely gone, will we still act like we're as free as they were in 1776?

Answer 1

First you have to have the attitude that our freedoms are gone. So your question doesn't relate to most of us

Answer 2

The following article appeared in The Post as an anonymous letter to the editor on July 4, 1976.

---

What am I?

I am a free man -- a good and decent man -- a man of compassion, generosity, and understanding -- a true friend, a steadfast ally, and a bitter foe.

I owe my allegiance to a government founded in the belief that among the rights of man are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Indeed, I would acknowledge no other. I can redress my government for injury; not satisfied with redress, I can elect a new one. I have watched my government function smoothly during periods of transfer of power caused by re-election, assassination, and resignation.

While other nations have a distinct race, religion, and/or geographic denominator, I live among people of my home without fear of intrusion by anyone -- citizen or government designee -- unless they have my personal invitation or a duly authorized search warrant.

I have a press to keep me informed -- a press free to write, without inhibition, the truth as they see it. A press that needs fear no repression, no retaliation, no censorship so long as it prints the truth.

I live under a system of justice, merciful and fairly administered, where I am assumed innocent until proven guilty -- a system which provides me appellate privilege while denying it to the power of the state.

I am free to go anywhere I want, earn my living in any way that suits me and, based on that freedom, I have created a standard of living unequalled in the history of man and envied the world over.

I have suffered in humility at the consequences of my mistakes -- economic deprivation, social injustice, unequal opportunity and racial prejudice to name a few -- but, once aware of these mistakes, I have set out to right the wrongs they created.

I have faced challenges to my way of life. I have fought and died countless times from Lexington and Concord to Vietnam. I was humbled at Valley Forge, Pearl Harbor, Corregidor and Malmady. But these experiences gave me the character I needed to go to Yorktown, Gettysburg, Midway and Normandy. I cherish my freedom above all else -- I bow to no tyrant.

I am two hundred years old today. I have never been so proud of my ancient heritage, so grateful for my present situation, and so confident of the future. Today, I reaffirm my allegiance to, faith in, and love of my country. To the proposition that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth, I do humbly pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor.

I am an American.

Answer 3

Of course we will.

It's a gradual change, sort of like the frog in the pan of water.

We have a lot of freedoms and won't notice the ones that are taken away from us, so long as we are made to focus on the ones that we still have.

If they are all completely taken away, we will be made to focus on the benefits of our situation so that we like it.

Answer 4

No, we are still free.  Get a grip.

Kudos, fdm.

Answer 5

People having been giving us this Chicken Little routine for ages...  its just a bunch of baseless fear mongering.  If you're so sure things are going down hill, why not get out now?

Answer 6

WE will become accustomed to not having them just like the wild pigs of Coasty's post!  We had better wake up and see that is exactly what is happening in America!

Answer 7

Yes, we will be like captured wild pigs.

CATCHING WILD PIGS

> There was a Chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange

> students in the class.

>

> One day while the class was in the lab the Professor  noticed one young

> man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his

> back hurt.  The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The

> student

> told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while

> fighting communists who were trying to overthrow the government in his

> native

> country and install a communist government.  In the midst of his story he

> looked

> at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, 'Do you know how

> to

> catch wild pigs?'

>

> The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line.

>

> The young man said this was no joke.'You catch wild pigs by finding a

> suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground.  The pigs find

> it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to

> coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they

> are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the

> corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that

> and

> start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the

> fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs that are used to the free

> corn

> start to come through the gate to eat, and then you slam the gate on them

> and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom.

> They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon

> they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they

> have

> forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their

> captivity.

>

> The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees

> happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and

> keeps

> spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental

> income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy

> subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare,  medicine, drugs,

> etc, etc,

> etc., while we continue to lose our freedoms - just a little at a time.

>

> One should always remember that there is no such thing as a free lunch!

>

> Also, a politician will never provide a service for you cheaper than you

> can do it yourself.  In this 'very important' election year, listen

> closely

> to

> what the candidates are promising you -- just maybe, you will be able to

> tell who is about to slam the gate on America.

>

> 'A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to

> take away everything you have.'

> Thomas Jefferson

Answer 8

Millions have given their lives for the freedoms you take for granted now. If you think youre freedoms are being taken away then you should move to different parts fo the world where there truly is very limited to no freedoms. People who want a new revolution want to change thinks because they cant make it the way things are now. If you cant make it here and now, you'll never make it in any other regime or any other place.

Answer 9

We will act as they did in 1776 .

Answer 10

If people would like they can  create their own community currency rather than have The Government do it  this makes people more free. Also there is this to think about to spread money on the ground instead of corn works for people.

The Automobile works the same way it is a Human fence.

All Authority places fences and guards though. To be truly free means no Government at all. Perhaps a system based on hunting other Human Predators on an equal basis an elite Hunting Force. If people are truly wild they will tear apart the structure and kill the guards. Or at least storm the equivalent of The Bastille. Abolish prisons we have no need of the. Another point this site may have corn in the form of points laid out for those wild pigs on it. It worked now advertising can get people as they agree to be sold corn in the pen to use this site.