[extropy-chat] health #1; freedom #2

[Al Brooks]

Mike, perhaps it's not so much that freedom is
overrated, but that it has become a catchall, even a
platitude.  Like love. I've been hearing about Love
everyday, forever. As far as I really know it was
about ID bracelets in the 7th grade. After one says
the word 'love' over & over it loses all meaning. 
Repeat 'happiness'; 'family'; 'responsibility';
'honor'; 'dignity'; 'duty'; and 'freedom'  too many
times they become nothing. Also we cannot define where
liberty leaves off and where license begins.
However you are correct that we want freedom as much
as anything-- whatever freedom might be. A caged
animal wants freedom even when freedom would mean it
is out into the wild that it has forgotten how to
thrive in. Barry Goldwater's truism is: "Americans
would rather be poor and free than rich and enslaved",
which is valid; a man in a cell (which is a polite
word for cage) would rather eat beans and rice on the
outside than live in a cell where he is feed eight
course meals including lobster. Yet by my lights
better to be healthy and poor (as distinct from
destitute) than poor and free. If I were impoverished
in America I would concern myself with merely
surviving and staying reasonably healthy, freedom
would be a lower priority in the condition of poverty.
I personally would rather be healthy and poor than be
free and rich.  So freedom by my definition is
certainly not the be all & end all. Freedom might be
#2, after health. What good is being rich & free if
you are sickly or don't feel well?


		
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