I’ve held my environmental beliefs since I got into the mountains in Colorado over a decade ago, I guess they are PC now.

Regardless, we believe what we believe. John Muir was a liberal. Teddy Roosevelt was a conservative. Teddy loved the environment and he was a Republican. He and John slept under the stars together and Teddy instituted the National Park System.

Oh, and google “generation to do worse than their parents” and take a look at the first five results for me. Yes, there are some that say they are not, but I’m not an economics guy, so I’ll stick with my story.

I’ll have to look into your hate speech, slavery reparations, etc… As far as the redistribution of wealth, I think that people that make over 250k a year should be in a higher tax bracket anyway. Someones got to pay for filling the potholes!

With respect, slavery is not freedom. Despite slavery’s nearly universal popularity throughout most of human history, I would argue that slavery is anti-freedom. It deprives the enslaved of rights that others posses. Although being a slave owner hardy proves that said owner is free. Slaves can be made free. Owners can be made free. But in both cases the rest of life is up to them. That’s freedom. That’s it.

You make a good point with your comment about coal companies, but I am not arguing that Americans can’t come together corporately to make laws to restrict coal companies. I cannot remember any meaningful debate on coal company freedom vs. individual freedom during the presidential campaigns. Nor do I have any sense that either McCain or Obama was more anti-coal company freedom, but I am certain which candidate was more anti-individual freedoms.

Of the two dismal presidential candidates, neither was a great champion of Individual Freedom but only one of the candidates wanted hiring quotas that would give preference to distinct groups for no reason beside their race or gender. Only one candidate favored race and gender preference in public and private life. Only one candidate favored laws that outlawed certain kinds of speech. Only one candidate was sympathetic to “slavery reparations” payoffs. Only one candidate wanted more public money to pay for free housing and freebies. Only one candidate favored a policy he openly described as “the redistribution of wealth.” Only one candidate opposed the second amendment to the constitution. This “one” candidate is Barak Obama.

All of things listed above represent gross restrictions of personal freedom – of freedom. If you voted for Barak you either can’t comprehend individual freedom or you think restricting freedom to handicap some and advantage others is a good thing. When you say things like… Adam says: “I think that in the world you live in, everyone can not be free.” I am confused because you have voted to make people less free, and I have not. After meditating on things for awhile I realize that you are confused.

Equality is not freedom, Adam. Freedom is the antitheses of equality.

When you say… Adam says: “I think that in the world you live in, everyone can not be free.” You are inadvertently saying that: A just worldview must provide the same outcomes for all people. This is a decidedly anti-freedom viewpoint. This is a Marxist viewpoint. If I were to declare the scope of my proposed free-world, it would be no bigger than my own country. It would be a place where people were free to fail and succeed within the natural machinations of social and economic life. It would be a place of diametric relationships – triumph and tragedy, love and hate, meaning and despair. Such a world makes better people and greater nations, and it fits more naturally with the many aspects of human character.

Adam says: “Your freedom is not being taken away from you, unless your freedom is dependent on someone suppression.” Again, this is a statement that confuses equality with freedom. An individual’s freedom is taken away when they cannot get a job because the law says their skin is the wrong color, but their freedom isn’t infringed if someone doesn’t like them because of their skin color.

A noteworthy quote from your post is… Adam says “I believe that there will never be a day when the world is is completely free, because there will always be people who are trying to control. Trying to create the world in their own image or trying to keep it from changing.” Aren’t you one of these anonymous controllers? Aren’t you trying to change the world into the world you think it ought to be? From such a vantage you must see yourself as the enemy, as your candidate seeks more government and more control over individual freedom in order to change the world.

People who seek reduced government, individual freedom and healthy nationhood, do not need evermore legislation to force others into politically correct molds, but equality mongers do. And they need these molds because what they’re about is unnatural and unhealthy, and those that follow the PC path choose decline and finally, death.

Thank you for your comment.

We can both find supporting documentation for our arguments ref. the first generation to do worse than their parents. So I’ll spare us the hassle on that one.

Your comment “One side defined America as a country whose citizens were free to associate and build in an environment as unfettered as possible. The other side saw inequality as the supreme sociopolitical issue, and they sought to reduce freedom with the goal of making a more egalitarian society.” is an interesting one.

You split the country right in half with a good and evil paintbrush right from the beginning. The second sentence, correct me if I am wrong, but you are saying that the second side saw inequality and sought to reduce freedom? Freedom from whom? The first side that was espousing their inequality?

I’ve been sitting here, staring at this blinking cursor for five minutes. I don’t even know how to address the rest of your comment without asking you a lot of questions. Let me just say this.

You speak a lot about freedom. Freedom is what made this country great. Freedom is what we just voted against. The rebel states thought that Lincoln was taking their freedom away from them. The slaves thought that their freedom was being given to them. Which was the truth? Who is the gainer of freedom and who is the loser when one person or group gets what it wants at the expense of another? Does a victim gain freedom when it is separated from victimization or does the abuser lose freedom then it is no longer allowed to abuse? Does the coal industry lose it’s freedom when it is charged for polluting the atmosphere, or is the environment and peoples health, free from the pollution? And who gets to decide? The people do. Living in a republic, the one thing our founding fathers fought for by the way, guarantee that the people decide. Not the person.

I think that in the world you live in, everyone can not be free. Only one side or the other side can ever be free. I believe that there will never be a day when the world is is completely free, because there will always be people who are trying to control. Trying to create the world in their own image or trying to keep it from changing. It will only be when those people who want to control, are able to control, that they will call themselves free. But those people who are being controlled (or excluded) will not then, be free.

Do I think that all people are created equal? Yes. Do I think that some people create situations where they are less equal than others? Yes. Do peoples ambivalence, social ways, anger or demands for rights not earned, make them less equal? Yes. What I am saying is that the color of a persons skin, in my opinion, does not guarantee them anything. Whether it’s a college tuition, job opportunity, political seat or anything else. There is no equality in that. But though Barack Obama had a huge African American following, he earned his way to where he is today. When it comes to the seat of power that he will be filling, he is more qualified than I, or you. You and I didn’t start out and spend our lives trying to achieve that goal, he did. Your freedom is not being taken away from you, unless your freedom is dependent on someone suppression.

The financial supremacy America briefly had came from circumstances. When World War Two ended and the infrastructures of Europe and Japan were destroyed, America was, buy fortune of geography, intact and booming with it war-making economy running at full-bore. We took advantage of circumstances and rebuilt the world in our image and left it literally in our debt. While this process went on we had tremendous economic advantage. Our political and economic might was preeminent.

But the world rebuilt, and surprise, there are intelligent and industrious people in other countries, and soon they were out-competing us in many areas. Without the nigh monopoly we had on the world economy after WWII, we saw our markets reduced and our relative wealth declining. Instead of working to become more productive, we fought each other in a bitter culture war. One side defined America as a country whose citizens were free to associate and build in an environment as unfettered as possible. The other side saw inequality as the supreme sociopolitical issue, and they sought to reduce freedom with the goal of making a more egalitarian society.

A country both in turmoil and exhibiting luke-warm productivity is not a good investment. And so our money-men and women, our culture of elites, took their huge fortunes and invested them elsewhere. America makes much of its money today by moving around the fortunes amassed when we were lucky enough to find ourselves on the top-of-the-heap. It lives largely in denial of its failings and doggedly assured of it greatness. But it has forgotten the reason it was great, and that is the real tragedy of this election.

You see, long before America was the world’s biggest economy, or had the most warships, or saw itself as the nexus of a uni-polar world power structure, it actually was the greatest nation in the world, and what made it great was freedom. It was a freedom largely born of America’s independence from foreign influences in government and economics. We made nearly everything we used. We protected our economy from foreign kings and merchants, and the influence they would use to make us beholden to their will. Our population boomed. America thrived.

Freedom is not without cost. Freedom lets people fail. It leaves them to find solutions, take risks, and live. It makes the decisions of individuals important and it punishes them for their mistakes and even their weakness. When life has consequences there can be clarity, there can be right from wrong. In such a world people can speak plain truth and euphemisms are reserved for negotiations. The well-lauded modern phrase “I tried my best,” is not an accomplishment in a free society. It is just another way of saying “I didn’t do it.”

Throughout the Western World the European populations are dying out. There are several reasons for this but the first reason is that they are no longer free. With the election of a Cultural Marxist to America’s highest office, this country has made it most historic rejection of freedom. Its first overt step toward death. Today is not a great day, it is the harbinger or turmoil ahead, an assurance of future conflict.