My Manifesto: The Incoherent Ramblings of a Madman

Freedom


"Let us imagine a raven flying through the air in such a manner that its motion, as observed from the embankment, is uniform and in a straight line. If we were to observe the flying raven from the moving railway carriage, we should find that the motion of the raven would be one of different velocity and direction, but that it would still be uniform and in a straight line" --Albert Einstein on relativity.

Freedom is relative: everything is relative. Freedom is subjective: everything is subjective. Is anyone truly free?

America, at best, has a loosely representative democracy. Is there any direct vote to the president? --> no way in hell would they let the people have that much freedom and choice. More often than not, which has become most visible lately, particularly with all of the infighting in the pentagon about the debacle, America is a plutocracy. There is no disputing the fact that there is financial gain in every endeavour America embarks on. So who is it that rules America? Big business. Big business funds politicians. Big business makes American internal policy. Big Business makes American foreign policy. You either fold to big business, or you don't get your election campaign funded --> simple as that.

"Unopposed Senate candidates -- 17 of 18 of whom were incumbents -- raised on average $88,229, whereas Senate candidates in competitive races raised on average only $83,682. Of all money contributed to candidates for the General Assembly, fully 74% went to
incumbents in uncompetitive or uncontested races. " [http://www.progressivemaryland.org/research/election/Reports/2001/Introduction.pdf.]

Australia, my home country, also has a loosely representative democracy at best. Do we have any direct vote to the Prime Minister? --> again no way in hell would they let the people have that much freedom and choice. Due to the upper and lower house system of parliment (similar to that of England and America) we end up with a minority rule system of government the majority of the time. The upperhouse gets the final say on everything, and it is always a minor party that has slipped through the cracks to get a seat in the upperhouse that has the balance of power. Does the majorty rule system count for anything? Not at all.

So now we have America with a plutocracy, Australia with a minority rule. All of this is undemocratic. Democracy is something that the media and polititians would have you believe is fundamental to our way of life. However, democracy is something that we have never, and will never truly experience. Democracy is ruling by the people, for the people. What is true democracy? True democracy is a majority rule system. A proper majority rule system is something that would be achieved by going to referendums on every matter --> this would: cost billions to maintain; be impractical; and give to many people, many of whom don't know enough about the issues, a say in the running of their country and we can't have that can we?. Therefore, democracy as a form of government has never been tried, and as such, does not offer freedom.

Communism is the best alternative to democracy, and in a utopian idealistic world the concept of everyone being equal is fantastic. In practice, there lies a problem in that the hard worker subsidises the slacker. In addition to this, the fundamental flaw is a lack of freedom to benefit from your own labours. Communism offers no freedom.

Anarchy, while not a form of government as such, more of total chaos, offers much more freedom than the previous two governments mentioned. When in anarchy you can do whatever the hell you want to do without any repercussions. Is this freedom? No. The problem with anarchy is that it leads to mob rule. The stronger mobs take control of the weaker unorganised persons. The organised chaos theory comes into play. Even the chaos of anarchy has organisation, and organisation is restrictive. Restriction is counter-freedom. So not even anarchy offers freedom.

Can true utopic freedom ever be achieved? No. Freedom is all relative. Freedom to one person is not freedom to another. To the human, the raven is free, he can fly to seemingly where ever he wants to. To the raven, the tern is free, the raven is restricted to the present country it is residing due to being unable to fly over long distances without food, the tern can fly over great vast oceans.

In the end it is what you choose to do with the freedom you do(or don't have as the case may be) that is the most important.