Want to know how you're a slave? Listen to one.

[NoStateofMind]

Frederick Douglas wrote some enlightening words;

. "The same traits of character might be seen in Colonel Lloyd's slaves, as are seen in the slaves of the political parties..... Indeed, it is not uncommon for slaves even to fall out and quarrel among themselves about the relative goodness of their masters, each contending for the superior goodness of his own over that of the others. At the very same time, they mutually execrate their masters when viewed separately. It was so on our plantation. When Colonel Lloyd's slaves met the slaves of Jacob Jepson, they seldom parted without a quarrel about their masters; Colonel Lloyd's slaves contending that he was the richest, and Mr. Jepson's slaves that he was the smartest, and most of a man. Colonel Lloyd's slaves would boast his ability to buy and sell Jacob Jepson. Mr. Jepson's slaves would boast his ability to whip Colonel Lloyd. These quarrels would almost always end in a fight between the parties, and those that whipped were supposed to have gained the point at issue. They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves. It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave; but to be a poor man's slave was deemed a disgrace indeed!"

Sounds like our political system now. Arguing over which side does what for whom.

Doesn't seem like he was a fan of income tax either;

."I was now getting, as I have said, one dollar and fifty cents per day. I contracted for it; I earned it; it was paid to me; it was rightfully my own; yet, upon each returning Saturday night, I was compelled to deliver every cent of that money to Master Hugh. And why? Not because he earned it, – not because he had any hand in earning it,-not because I owed it to him,-nor because he possessed the slightest shadow of a right to it; but solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up. The right of the grim-visaged pirate upon the high seas is exactly the same."

This is no different than today's income tax. Doesn't matter if its 1% or 100%. To think you owe it to someone else without consent due only to fear of harm is morally as wrong as if I took it from those around me.

."This will be seen by the fact, that the slaveholders like to have their slaves spend those [holi]days just in such a manner as to make them as glad of their ending as of their beginning. Their object seems to be, to disgust their slaves with freedom, by plunging them into the lowest depths of dissipation. For instance, the slaveholders not only like to see the slave drink of his own accord, but will adopt various plans to make him drunk. One plan is, to make bets on their slaves, as to who can drink the most whisky without getting drunk; and in this way they succeed in getting whole multitudes to drink to excess. Thus, when the slave asks for virtuous freedom, the cunning slaveholder, knowing his ignorance, cheats him with a dose of vicious dissipation, artfully labelled with the name of liberty. The most of us used to drink it down, and the result was just what might be supposed; many of us were led to think that there was little to choose between liberty and slavery. We felt, and very properly too, that we had almost as well be slaves to man as to rum. So, when the holidays ended, we staggered up from the filth of our wallowing, took a long breath, and marched to the field,-feeling, upon the whole, rather glad to go, from what our master had deceived us into a belief was freedom, back to the arms of slavery."

But the world would fall apart without "government".... That's essentially what Mr. Douglas was saying here. link

 

[Greenman]

All government is evil, some government is necessary.

 

[NoStateofMind]

All government is evil, some government is necessary.

Which part?

 

[OverVolt]

Because not everyone gets along. If your neighbors got along you could easily pool together money for the roads.

If your neighbors didn't get along getting a road paved would be a nightmare and even more of a nightmare if it ever needed maintenance.

And thats just roads!

 

[NoStateofMind]

Because not everyone gets along. If your neighbors got along you could easily pool together money for the roads.

If your neighbors didn't get along getting a road paved would be a nightmare and even more of a nightmare if it ever needed maintenance.

And thats just roads!

This is akin to saying people don't build the roads now. That somehow the leech called "government" is essential to public works. Wait are you arguing against your own freedom?

 

[Jaskalas]

Which part?

The part that stops bad men from doing bad things to you.

 

[NoStateofMind]

The part that stops bad men from doing bad things to you.

How has government stopped this? Has crime ceased to exist? I'm not making the claim it wouldn't otherwise but to attribute government with credit of stopping violence against people has no basis in reality. It still exists and will continue. Government doesn't magically take away crime by its mere presence and the lack of it doesn't mean there would be more. Not to mention the bad guys are the ones stealing from my paycheck every week without my consent and thats somehow okay because its called "taxation" and not robbery. You wouldn't think it be moral for a group of thugs to impose extortion on you in your neighborhood but you do let government do it without question. Why? The group of thugs is only different in name only and they committed the same act. Where does government derive its "moral authority" from those who have not consented to such racketeering?

 

[UberNeuman]

 

[NoStateofMind]

 

[UberNeuman]

 

[BudAshes]

How has government stopped this? Has crime ceased to exist? I'm not making the claim it wouldn't otherwise but to attribute government with credit of stopping violence against people has no basis in reality. It still exists and will continue. Government doesn't magically take away crime by its mere presence and the lack of it doesn't mean there would be more. Not to mention the bad guys are the ones stealing from my paycheck every week without my consent and thats somehow okay because its called "taxation" and not robbery. You wouldn't think it be moral for a group of thugs to impose extortion on you in your neighborhood but you do let government do it without question. Why? The group of thugs is only different in name only and they committed the same act. Where does government derive its "moral authority" from those who have not consented to such racketeering?

Either you lost your mind or you never had one. The fact that you even have a job is probably because the government offered a tax break for businesses hiring someone mentally disabled.

 

[NoStateofMind]

Either you lost your mind or you never had one. The fact that you even have a job is probably because the government offered a tax break for businesses hiring someone mentally disabled.

Jobs exist without government and will continue to exist after it.

 

[OverVolt]

Hmm whats the saying? Everything starts out for a good cause, it eventually becomes a business and then degrades into a racket.

Government serves a purpose, such as regulating power monopolies. There is no competition in the power market because they aren't going to run 2 or more power lines to your home so you can pick the best one, like they do with the internet. Cause the infrastructure is more expensive. Not tiny little phone and coax cables, but transformers and heavy gauge copper.

There is a reason that they exist its just they already served that function (roads, police, fire, rule of law, prevent unscrupulous monopolies, etc.) and continue to regulate the crap out of things that never needed regulations.

The total opposite is happening now. Instead of coming down on the power monopoly for the greater good like they did in the past they are rigging the hell out of the banking system because they are terrified of a banking crisis.

 

[BudAshes]

Jobs exist without government and will continue to exist after it.

So you are an anarchist? If you are over the age of 13 you may have had some head trauma.

 

[NoStateofMind]

So you are an anarchist? If you are over the age of 13 you may have had some head trauma.

You don't think too much do you? Always happy to do as you're told. Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. Go back to sleep, wonderland is still there.

 

[blankslate]

Corporations would be as happy to have you as a "slave" as "big government" would.

Too bad people in general allowed themselves to become so uninformed...

 

[BudAshes]

You don't think too much do you? Always happy to do as you're told. Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. Go back to sleep, wonderland is still there.

huh? You are the one living in fantasy land. I'm as jaded about our government as anyone. It naturally attracts do nothing morons and I trust politicians about as much as I would trust a pedophile as a cub scout master.

 

[Linux23]

You think that's air you're breathing?

-Morpheus - "The Matrix"

 

[NoStateofMind]

huh? You are the one living in fantasy land

How so?

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Corporations would be as happy to have you as a "slave" as "big government" would.

Too bad people in general allowed themselves to become so uninformed...

It's not a choice, it is our media that is failing, not the people. Besides that, what would it matter when the only two choices you have represent, SOLELY, the interests you just mentioned? The right = corporate slavery, left = government slavery.

 

[werepossum]

Corporations would be as happy to have you as a "slave" as "big government" would.

Too bad people in general allowed themselves to become so uninformed...

This is true, but with corporations I get a choice; they must persuade me to give them my money. Not true with government.

There's some truth in the OP's analogy, but it's limited. Loss of all or virtually all freedom is slavery; loss of some freedom is not. Civilization is government, and government is loss of freedom, and loss of freedom is evil, but I don't think one can extrapolate that to the point of saying that government is evil any more than one can say digitalis is a poison. It's a poison in sufficient quantity - virtually anything is bad in sufficient quantity - but it can be quite beneficial in lower doses. The analogy to modern party politics is I think much stronger.

Hard to even debate this since we're losing a common definition of freedom. The right clings to absence of outside restraint (along with our guns and our religion), but the left is moving toward an absence of consequences for sub-optimal choices. Therefore a government which takes most of one's earnings and constrains virtually all one's choices (for one's own good, of course) would to a conservative be a lack of freedom, but to many on the left now this would be freedom because with government-provided housing, food, health care, etc. one could choose any profession (or essentially no profession) without fearing that no one wants your goods or services. The right describes freedom to be an artist who paints lemons are government not prohibiting being an artist who paints lemons; the left describes freedom as government making it at least minimally practical to be an artist who paints lemons. Yet government has no innate resources; anything it provides must first be taken from someone else, constraining their freedom. How then can we even debate the proper balance of freedom when our definitions are 180 degrees out of phase?

 

[techie81]

Either you lost your mind or you never had one. The fact that you even have a job is probably because the government offered a tax break for businesses hiring someone mentally disabled.

I really feel bad for people who actually think the government has their best interest in mind. Oh wait, I don't.

 

[werepossum]

I feel really feel bad for people who actually think the government has their best interest in mind. Oh wait, I don't.

+1

 

[Triumph]

People on the right hate big government, and with good cause, but they fail to understand that the opposite end of the spectrum is no solution indeed.

And the same is true on the left. Both are slightly delusional. All-or-nothing propositions usually mean that you really do get all of it, or none of it. Problem is, most people don't understand what really encompasses the all, or the nothing.

 

[JTsyo]

Mr. Jepson's slaves that he was the smartest, and most of a man.

Doesn't seem as much of a boast.

The point he makes though is not about slave mentality. It's tribe mentality that we're still trying to overcome. What he talks about can been seen in fans of sports teams too. Whenever you have people that identify themselves with something, there will be some aggression to competitors.