How 'free' do you think you are?

A lot of us live in a free country. We can say what we want, go where we want, do some of the things we want. But, how 'free' are we?

We have some rights, yet those are checked and can be taken away if we break laws that a representation of some people in society came up with. Some keep things civilized, others prevent people from living the way they want. Money also helps in becoming free. But very few people actually choose to escape

Some people voluntarily give up freedom in order to conform to a set of rules in order to belong to a religion, company, or government agency. Most people are happy paying a company each month to not have to do everything themselves. There are long legal contracts to sign to do anything anymore.

Yet they have no idea how to keep themselves alive if society fails. But, I'm not saying that they all will resort to violence if the reject any of the things put in place to control people and make them live according to 'the rules'.

Is it sad that such a basic thing as not being controlled by others is considered to be extremist, unreasonable, impractical, and weird? You either have to live 'off the grid' in the woods or buy a sailboat and live in international waters or some uninhabited island and hope the country that claimed it doesn't show up. How else could you truly be free from governments, corporations and societies rules and make your own?

Can freedom be bought with lots of money and good lawyers? Or do you need to buy something like Sealand and start your own country to do what you want?

Depends how we define freedom I guess. I personally think we are in a society that is free that is hanging by a thread, even if human beings are "free" beings.

Many of us in the United States like to think we are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” but I think the sad fact is that despite that it was also written that “Governments … deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” isn’t the reality we live in. I think any government will try and take away any freedom they can if “the governed” let them. Look at The Patriot Act. Franklin was right. “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.”

Oh, and to answer the question, “Can freedom be bought with lots of money and good lawyers?” Ask O.J. Simpson. You think if he had a public defender he wouldn’t be sitting on death row?