I’m inclined to think that if you answer a serious question about your definition of “individual freedoms” like that, you are less interested in our opinions and more interested in propounding your own beliefs.
Propounding? This is a discussion board. All ideas are welcome (good and bad). 
Benjamin Franklin. He was writing about a tax dispute between the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the family of the Penns, the proprietary family of the Pennsylvania colony who ruled it from afar. The legislature was trying to tax the Penn family lands to pay for frontier defence during the French and Indian War. And the Penn family kept instructing the governor to veto. Franklin felt that this was a great affront to the ability of the legislature to govern. And so he actually meant purchase a little temporary safety very literally. The Penn family was trying to give a lump sum of money in exchange for the General Assembly’s acknowledging that it did not have the authority to tax it.
So far from being a pro-privacy quotation, if anything, it’s a pro-taxation and pro-defence spending quotation.
It is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security. It means, in context, not quite the opposite of what it’s almost always quoted as saying but much closer to the opposite than to the thing that people think it means.
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Very interesting, I’ll have to look more into these details! So what you’re saying is that the united states could have been founded by people who thought collectivism wasn’t such a bad idea after all?
All I know today is that the system was designed to give each State the power to decide what was best for their citizens, and not allow Federal interference when compared to what is written in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. To me, that is decentralizing power, not collectivism.
What I’m concerned with now is getting my head around the evils of the Soviet Union (where all were governed by the central communist party) in comparison with the European Union (where that hasn’t happened quite yet, but could be on the agenda in the end). I think I’ll start another topic on this specific concern to see what people think.
K
I believe that unions and strikes are the result of socialism because it is the government who control who gets what aid from the public treasury.
That forces all groups to compete against each other to get a bigger piece of the pie from their competitors and results in these kind of avoidable problems (if it were a true capitalist free market economy for example). We see this creeping into the USA (and worse in Canada) today where all the different gender and race groups are competing for the government hand-outs of tax money.
I admit I’m no expert, but that’s the general feeling I have on the topic and am keen to learn!
K
What are your sources? Known by whom?
You’re an immigrant too.
At least you’ve got one thing right.
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Although not from the USA it seems that @KwakeCanuckInFrance has fallen for the same disinformation about politics elsewhere that many USA residents have.
By this I mean the belief that anything remotely towards centre from their fairly far right views is communist.
This skewed polarisation is not helpful as it stifles proper debate.
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I believe that the further left one goes, the further towards communism. I used to be a liberal, but ever since the marxists started taking over, the spectrum shifted under my feet and I woke up one day finding my self on the conservative side.
I believe in centre left and centre right as being where any sane individual should be living in any free, western country. That has obviously changed, since the laws against communism (which are still on the books) are being completely ignored in the US today.
Leftists are not liberals. They are far-left marxists trying to replace liberalism with communism. If you think about it long enough, you’ll probably end up with conclusions that aren’t being presented to you by the ‘liberal/democratic’ media.
Everyone has a responsibility to come to their own conclusions based on the information they can gather. Anyone who lets mainstream media decide their conclusions for them will always be led astray.
K
Well, yes, that’s a fact, not a belief, but that’s not my point.
I’m merely pointing out the irrational fear that many citizens of north America seem to have of anything remotely socialist (i.e. politics with empathy).
Statements such as…
…would seem to confirm that.
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I sense the same paranoia wrt the state that results in private militias and the ownership of battlefield weapons in the USA.
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You seem to have as much anxiety about socialism as many on here have about the rise of fascism. I wonder if you are able to recognise the centre left or centre right. Are you familiar with the former British government under Tony Blair? How would you place him?
Perhaps you have more sympathy for Poland’s Pis and the governments of Hungary and Turkey.
I’ve seen articles in the American press about research groups that have, once again, put the USA top of the league for individual freedom . It does not always feel that way on the ground. I have travelled quite a lot over the years and was in the former Yugoslavia when there was a civil war and I could hear the gun fire. But that was no way near as frightening as being on a forest campsite in California in 2002 when I had to leave the site when a group of drunken rednecks starting waving loaded guns at us because we were foreigners in our Canadian registered campervan. On the same trip we were checked crossing the border and forced in doors and therefore not present while the guards checked our vehicle. You call that an expression of freedom.
Friends who came to London from California in the 1980s as part of their job had to attend special classes organised by the US Embas;sy before they went home; The message was very simple. The folks back home don’t like it when you talk about all the good things you’ve seen in Europe and the advantages that they enjoy across the pond.
I could go on.
From what i have seen and experienced in my travels one thing is clear. Americans have the freedom to listen to propaganda. What makes them different is that so many more believe what they hear without questioning it. Europeans are, mostly, more likely to query what they are being told by the so called great and the good.
Gus
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I would add however that Brexit happened and a number of European countries have elected populist governments and in some places are struggling to get rid.
You don’t agree that leftists aren’t liberals?
K
I believe that during the 2nd world war, Western allies were faced with making a choice of either supporting the communists (USSR) againsts the Fascists (Axis), and that the choice was to side with the communists. I base this on the further belief that both the communists and the fascists were two extremely authoritarian ideologies who were competing with each other for worldwide control at the time.
I don’t think that the communists then went on to immediately take control of western nations, but I do believe it did give them some leway into some politicial organisations in the West a little more freely than any of the fascists. The fascists were only brought over to help with atomic bomb technology as far as I understand it…
Regardless, my question is which western countries today enjoy the most freedom (the least authoritarianism/collectivism). You can add additional countries to my list of 5 if it will add any context to your answer.
K
Hey Gus, are you a fellow Canuck? I was wondering if I may be the only one here! Pleased to virtually meet you!
Freedom is freedom, it doesn’t have anything to do with safety. Have you heard any stories about how people wave around knives in western countries where guns have been banned? Does it really matter what weapon one chooses to commit a crime in the end? Do you take into account the point is lawful vs unlawful behaviour?
I’m not an anarchist (which is extreme far right by the way). I believe that any free country must rely on and fully enforce the laws that are in place to protect lawful citizens from criminal ones. It has nothing to do with what the weapon of choice is…it could be a heavy rock, machete or a baseball bat - it doesn’t change the idea.
‘Americans have the freedom to listen to propaganda’. Yes, of course they do. Americans at any point in the political spectrum have that freedom. Do you believe that your political representatives don’t use propaganda on their own people, but that only the ones you disagree with use the same tactic? If that is the case, you may need to take some time to think deeply about the truth of that belief.
If anyone considers the fight between the far-left authoritarian supporters and the right-wing freedom supporters a ‘war’, it then follows that during every war in the history of mankind, BOTH sides will use every tool they have to win that ‘war’ - including propaganda aimed at their own citiziens.
I’ve known so many people who refuse to acknowledge that only their opponents’ side use propaganda on their followers but never on their own side. I find that ridiculous, but hey, it’s nothing I can personally do anything about other than to observe over time.
K
You seem rather unwilling to answer questions. No point in continuing to respond.
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Never fear, there is no socialism in the US, none.
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John, what is welfare if not socialism? What is planned parentood if not socialism? What is affirmative action if not socialism?
Any social program that is funded in whole or in part by taxpayer funds is, in fact, socialism, right? Especially when it’s the government who decides who gets benefits and who doesn’t, without the benefit of asking the taxpayers before-hand…
K