1781-1789 BITCH.

Securing power within individuals as opposed to a centralized power is what makes you free by libertarian ideals.

true

power happens at all levels of the society, and conglomerations of power are conglomerations of power regardless of whether they're called the Crips, Coca Cola or the Government. assemblages of power are assemblages of power regardless of whether they're called The United States of America, Blackwater, Shell Oil Company or something else. it's just about who'd you rather want to have control over freedom that is actual.

that is why i said "an abstract, ghost-like freedom divorced from the material is libertarianism."

This post was edited by Gastly on Aug 16 2015 09:09pm

The Federal Dream realized.

I can't believe you would even say something like this after snowden.

I bet marketing scum would make a better profile of you from your expenditures, Internet searches, readings etc in a few years than you would be able to. Idk if you can really call that freedom brah

The only thing divorced, abstract, and ghost-like here is your train of thought and your lack of understanding of balances of power.

I didn't say that privacy was particularly strong, but that just isn't important to people anymore either, just look at social networking and the Facebook phenomenon. We are an un-private society, and our government apparatuses reflect that necessarily. That doesn't mean we aren't free. The act of being watched doesn't necessarily mean we're being controlled in any way, not that I like it...I don't even have a Facebook and my internet based email addresses are all registered to fake names. Was ahead of the curve on this

The point I was getting at is that Libertarians pine for an era that was only good for white males who had some cash. They will say Americans were freer during times when segregation was in effect, when women weren't permitted to vote or do anything other than be agents for their husbands, when blacks were being lynched at a rate of a few a week, when unions were brutally suppressed and the state collaborated with the Robber Barons to keep workers weak.

It is fun using a trail of breadcrumbs to reveal that psychological truth of libertarianism to individual libertarians. Notice Santara immediately disengage when it got there

power fantasies and the wank-material that they make for are not a factor in how reality is constituted.

This post was edited by Gastly on Aug 16 2015 09:52pm

I disagree. The act in itself doesn't mean that we are being controlled in any way but for what purpose that information is collected has certainly been used as a tool of control, at a subliminal level at the very least. The goal is to get us to consume and spend our resources and i think you would agree that we are experiencing levels of consumerism that have never been experienced previously in history. For example look at how sex has been used to promote marketing campaigns. Make a beer commercial with half naked blondes coaxing the gullible bloke into thinking hey i can really go for a bud light right now. It might not fit in the traditional understanding of what it means to "control" someone but i think it's actually worse.

Anyways i know this wasn't the point you were trying to make so my bad for derailing