From: "Gregg Strom/BRYX Int'l" 

Well written. And I hope someone writes as well about "national
security" and exceptions from the constitution....

Actually, incredibly written.  [Add several superlatives -- well deserved.]

gs

"Mark Hessey"  wrote in message
news:39173580$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>
blucy{at}mediaone.net> wrote: I'm not really sure that as
> individuals we are capable of determining whether we are free. Do you
think
> you have the tools to do it?
>
> The first thing involved in that determination is ditching the
"tools" and
> realizing that all the props are illusionary in the equation as well.
>
> Many people measure their freedom in dollars - or rather the ability to do
> what they want because of dollars in hand, but is the man sitting on the
> veranda sipping Johnnie Walker Black delivered by a houseboy any more free
> than that houseboy? Perhaps, in his mind he is, but that would only be
> coincidental to his circumstance. He is no more likely to truly experience
> freedom than the houseboy, indeed he may have built so much filtered
viewing
> into his existence that he will never reach the freedom the houseboy may
> have already achieved.
>
> I'd wager that many who have been imprisoned over the centuries in
attempts
> to stop their ideas from spreading, are/were freer in their jail cells
than
> many who took no such stance but kept silent to remain free or avoid
> ridicule and remain on the hypothetical veranda they built around
> themselves. Still others with or without "means" remain free within or
> without totalitarian governments, because they are free in their thoughts
> and not burdened by temporary external laws and regulations that many
> consider to be evidence of a lack of freedom.
>
> Mark
>
>
>

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