For example, take this freedom movement rocking through countries that have previously been held as examples of good living in the world. Somehow it seems that the privileged people of the world are whining about how hard our lives are. From one perspective, that is exactly what is going on. If you change your perspective slightly though, the whole picture changes.
Let us suspend our disbelief for a moment - this is that thing you do when you go to a movie and you just accept that all the inconsistencies are logical to accept the story. We are now poised to receive a new perspective because we have decided to accept the following information as true. Once we have this new perspective and we have gone through the process we can then decide if the new perspective is one we can adopt as a personal truth or whether we wish to return to our previous perspective and opinion.
If we are going to examine a rationale we need to do so in a step-by-step manner. First, lets examine the title since this is the only information we have at the moment. FREEMAN MOVEMENT. I have seen all sorts of names, but this seems to be the most widely accepted and well-known. We all know what a movement is, so we'll put that aside and examine what a freeman is. Google had this to say:
free·man
ˈfrēmən,-ˌman/
noun
- 1.a person who is entitled to full political and civil rights.
- 2.historicala person who is not a slave or serf.
Well, that seems pretty simple. I would even have to say that those two terms could apply to me. What makes this term seem so malevolent to society? Maybe someone has taken this term and caused it to mean something else? Let us examine this possibility...
A Google search reveals a lot of references to Morgan Freeman, lists dictionary references to the definition above (or similar to) and a few news stories about people claiming the government has no authority...wait, what?!?
This seems to be the source of the issue. I know that I, as a law abiding citizen, hate to see people blatantly ignoring the rules and getting away with it, so why would I ever want to listen to someone when they say that the cops are not allowed to pull me over? When they say that we can go around breaking all their rules and never have to answer for it? Who wants to live in that world? Not me, that's for sure! So now I am done, I took a look and I don't like what I am seeing so we're done.
I feel self-righteous and content in my own ideals now. I feel empowered. If someone asked me tomorrow what a freeman was I could honestly say that I looked into it and they all seem like lazy criminals to me. Okay, so seem like isn't a very definitive term, how about this...I don't think I can get behind this movement. Wait, I don't think? Why don't I know for certain? Maybe I didn't look at things as closely as I could. Maybe the first thing that shocked me or upset me dissolved my ability to be unbiased and examine this fully. Maybe I should go back and try again. Being open-minded is good, being fair is right, nobody ever said being good and fair was going to be easy. Grow up Joelle and let's really try to understand someone very different from me.
Okay...Freeman Movement. I always find it is easier to ask questions than it is to look for answers, so let's figure out what questions to ask. In order to eliminate my already established ideals so that I can be unbiased, I have to understand where the other person's perspective comes into play. Let's start there.
Quetion #1:
"Why do "freemen" say that laws do not apply to them?"
Obviously they have something to back up their claim, not all of them seem to be able to make it stick in court, but enough do to make you stop and wonder how they did it. When you eliminate your anger at what they got away with you can focus on asking why did they? If a judge rules in their favour, even once, they must have a point, right?
Question #2:
"What do the freemen believe in?"
Bad grammar, but please do forgive me for a moment. A lot of sites list a lot of different beliefs, much like religion. Also like religion, they seem to have one central principle to which they hold: No government has the right to tell a living person to do or not do something. This sounds like anarchy to me, am I right? Anarchy is a bad thing, right? Um...oh wait:
an•ar•chy (ˈæn ər ki)
n.
1. a state of society without government or law.
2. political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control.
3. a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.
4. confusion; chaos; disorder.
Okay, well 1 I can't imagine, 2 sounds like it is the same as 1 but made to sound worse and 4 is downright scary, but 3 doesn't sound too bad and seems to be the one that applies in this situation. I don't know how we could become a "cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society" but I like the sound of it.
So if anarchy isn't necessarily a bad thing, and judges are occasionally ruling in their favour, what is next?
Question #3:
"If they don't live the way I do, how do they live?"
The government and media make it sound like these people are all freeloaders and on welfare or something. Lazy people do not start movements, freeloaders are lazy above all else. Welfare "bums" (not counting those few who are genuinely struggling) don't tend to care about changing the world and certainly aren't trying to bite the hand that feeds them. Some of the biggest names I can find online are regular people with regular jobs. Contractors, Teachers, Truck-drivers, Labourers and tradesmen, seems like a lot of people who are used to hard work, not lazy "bums".
Now we have a bit more of an idea who these people are and their values, we can start to piece together the truth from all the sources. In my next installment, I'll go even deeper to try and deconstruct what the freedom movement is and whether it applies to the rest of us. For now, I have to say that it doesn't seem all that bad yet.
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