What freedom?
..taxes, bureaucrats, and war aren't freedom.

I am still laughing, my insides are hurting.

What have I been taught about freedom, that should be the first question. I've been taught that the freedoms listed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights are good, and I pretty much agree with that. I don't know what others have been taught about freedom.

I accept what I have learned by myself, through study, about freedom in the US. I was not taught much about freedom in school.

I have learned that the US was the first nation in the history of the world that was founded on non-religious ideas: freedom and individual rights. I think the Declaration of Independence was one of the most profound documents ever written. I think, as a nation, freedom in the US has gone downhill since its founding -- putting aside the major issue of slavery, which was left intact, out of ignorance and lack of fortitude.

Today, freedom in the US has grown since its founding in some respects, but has shrunk in other respects.

I accept nothing about anything uncritically.

I think the intent behind the "American experiment" was good, but the results have been, and continue to be, mixed.

In one sense, American is and always has been a fascist state for example. It's been relatively free for the privileged class, of which I'm a member, but not for certain Hated Others.

Fascism is sorting people by human-ness including "not human at all". We in America have definitely sorted certain groups as "less than", most notably native americans and blacks, but also many other groups, such as the poor, the uneducated, Japanese-Americans during WW2, open atheists during most any time, and more.

But of course when the Nazis studied slavery and Jim Crow in the US and modeled their system in part after how we were conducting ourselves in that regard, but then started goose-stepping all over the world and sorting too many WHITE people as inferior, including light-skinned Jews, then it became a moral imperative to "save the world for democracy" and to be "the greatest generation". This supposedly proves that we aren't really fascist. When in fact we are. We're just far more subtle and deniable about it. Or we were until Trump came along anyway.

Our refusal to own up to our "shadow" and make these things right guarantees that some Americans at least are not "free" in the sense this term is generally meant as in "America is a beacon of freedom". I'd argue, most Americans are not free, because they're "less equal". The truly free ones, the ones with relatively unfettered agency, are the plutocrats, the storied "top 1 percent". Behind them is the shrinking upper middle class, perhaps the top 3 or 4% when lumped with the plutocrats, and the other 96% or so are regarded by the privileged as wannabees and losers who have to live in fear of losing their jobs or a significant medical crisis, and worse.

Only that which experience has confirmed.

We are one the least free of the civilized world. We have more people incarcerated then any other country and too often the strong (or those with guns) are able to take over the freedoms of the weak and minority.

Rancho Cordova - I lived there during the 60's. My dad worked for Aerojet General. Small world.

It depends on the context. Do I think Americans are free? yes. Do I think all the military campaigns are to protect our freedoms? No, I think they are more to protect profits of the rich and coporations.

I don't think anyone I have heard preach about freedom has not simultaneously advocated for stripping some American minority of their rights as citizens.
So, no.

do you know offhand what i have been taught about freedom in the us?

so if i say whether or not i accept it, will that be meaningful to you?

as it happens, i have learned a lot of things i was not necessarily taught. learning is not about accepting. learning is about understanding and that sometimes requires finding things out that seem to conflict, and figuring out what is true and what is not.

g

In this country freedom (and justice) is a function of how much money you have.

You must be kidding? We are free to be slaughter. Free to pay taxes to subsidize the war machine and religion. No just no.

No.