I really like what you have to say here. I have often wrestled with the real meaning of liberty that explains what the rhetoric really means. I think liberty is the absence of rules, laws, and regulations. Freedom from these things but not really freedom as most people have come to believe its meaning. This is a toxic form of freedom that informs us we are only free as we have money.
We even have sayings that support this worldview like “Fuck you” money. The type of money that would allow you to walk away from any situation. It is the ultimate in freedom in US society. This says a lot about our culture.
It not just US culture. Liberalism was born in Europe. Locke put it into high minded abstract philosophy but before Locke there were so many people, all wealthy merchants who could afford printing press time, who would put out arguments that basically said “I have money but the king won’t let me buy land because he says it’s only for nobility with titles. Well fuck that! What about the nobility I earned through human trafficking?! I should have just as much power, or more even, then some inbred aristocrat!”
That was all over Europe. Hell, the wealthiest merchants even bought charters from kings to create their own cities and run them like liberal experiments, which is where a lot of liberal ideas and practices were incubated. The idea of fuck you money was a dream in the heads of European merchants and bankers for centuries.
The US is just an extension of Europe anyway, so it shouldn’t really be a surprise.
I really like what you have to say here. I have often wrestled with the real meaning of liberty that explains what the rhetoric really means. I think liberty is the absence of rules, laws, and regulations. Freedom from these things but not really freedom as most people have come to believe its meaning. This is a toxic form of freedom that informs us we are only free as we have money.
We even have sayings that support this worldview like “Fuck you” money. The type of money that would allow you to walk away from any situation. It is the ultimate in freedom in US society. This says a lot about our culture.
It not just US culture. Liberalism was born in Europe. Locke put it into high minded abstract philosophy but before Locke there were so many people, all wealthy merchants who could afford printing press time, who would put out arguments that basically said “I have money but the king won’t let me buy land because he says it’s only for nobility with titles. Well fuck that! What about the nobility I earned through human trafficking?! I should have just as much power, or more even, then some inbred aristocrat!”
That was all over Europe. Hell, the wealthiest merchants even bought charters from kings to create their own cities and run them like liberal experiments, which is where a lot of liberal ideas and practices were incubated. The idea of fuck you money was a dream in the heads of European merchants and bankers for centuries.
The US is just an extension of Europe anyway, so it shouldn’t really be a surprise.