• queermunist@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    So-called “negative liberty” is only innate if you accept superstition. Without souls or other such magical concepts, we are slaves to our mortality. Freedom is something we must fight for every day of our lives, and the moment we stop living our freedom is gone too. How free are the sick? The starving? The children gunned down in schools?

    We will only be free when we defeat death, and we can only do that by working together. Until then, we need a government to ensure our right to life isn’t taken from us by a cold or famine or jungle cats.

    The dead are not free. This is where I reject the Founder’s ideology.

    • Dissasterix @lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I agree with a lot of your sentiment :] I also agree that we must strive to hold our precious (negative) liberties. That they erode quickly. However, the government does not ensure our rights-- they’re the entities our rights protect us against! Like literally, lol.

      You can say they’ve made us safe from disease and harm, but theres been an awful lot of disease and harm lately. There is no amount of tax revenue that will make that happen. ‘Full luxury gay space communism’ is as bad a larp as AnCaps. Probably even worse, tbh.

      If the dead are not free then who is their oppressor? Sounds spookier than the Founder’s take.

      • queermunist@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The government is a tool, not an entity. Rights protect us against people that would use the government against us. Like Elon Musk here!

        As for disease and harm, think about healthcare - countries where the government provides healthcare have healthier citizens than America does. Objectively, it’s better to let the government handle disease. Even China has surpassed US life expectancy! How could you look at that and then conclude “There is no amount of tax revenue that will make that happen.”?

        As for the dead, they are robbed of freedom by nature itself. Time, chemistry, physics, simple material forces are humanity’s greatest enemy. To defeat them, we have to work together.

        • Dissasterix @lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’ve never been extorted by an inanimate object before :p Not knowingly at least. I guess printer DRM is close, but you know what I mean. Hell, even corporations are considered entities by our (foolish) legal standards.

          Covid is a great example of why this doesn’t work. It was clearly made in a bio-lab. It leaked. Covid would not have happened without government funded research. We can say more could have been done, yet its too late. They made a mistake and it shocked the Earth. Our intellectuals later went on to sell vaccines with questionable efficacy rates and forced a voluntary product to maximize profits. This is not a success story.

          Forgive me for not really beliving China’s own internally collected data. However, even if true, a long life is not necessarily a good life. You can have the social credit system and live to 101. Ill keep my liberty and die at 70, lol, thanks.

          I think we are diametrically opposed in this death-freedom thing. Funny enough your position sounds awfully theological… This is fine if you believe in lawful evil entities like Satan or Hades, but I suspect you do not. The dead are beyond the control of mortals. However I suppose you are correct in they are (seemingly) barred from their speech on the mortal plane. And I do feel the struggle gainst time and physics quite often. I dont see them as antagonistic forces. Like they are not preventing me from living my life. Not in the way taxes and ordinance does, at any rate. Im not a fan of transhumanism, for instance.

          • queermunist@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Covid is a great example of why this doesn’t work. It was clearly made in a bio-lab. It leaked.

            lol im done

            • Dissasterix @lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              No, it just randomly selected to mutate into a super-spreader with unique features in a wet lab a few miles away from a Level 4 lab that was creating Coronaviruses. Is this Occam’s Razor? Anywho, hope you come back :] We can avoid the topic, if you’d like.

              Edit: You had the most interesting take of the commenters :3 Easily the most candor.