This is how freedom dies.

I am keeping it in context. I've been to some of those places and I didn't think they were virtually lawless compared to the US, or any other such western nation.

Edit: To give an example; in Colombia, one hostel I stayed at was raided by the police to check for cocaine. And during a bus trip everyone had to get out to get searched by the military. They were looking for weapons I was told.

 

Morality police? Id go out of my way to fuck with them.

 

It seems to be predominantly to keep the women in their place, so you would probably be OK.

I hear there are a lot of cranes in Iran, and not just on building sites.

 

Right right and I understand why you think so given your experiences. But consider this, in those countries notorious criminals operate uninterrupted; this happens for many reasons: they're heavily armed, have too many followers, and they pay off local governments thus making the officials corrupt. If the official government is corrupt then who is going to enforce the law?

 

That's true, if you have money you can more easily buy your way out of trouble, since corruption is wide-spread and seemingly generally accepted.
I had a few instances myself where I bribed law enforcers to stay out of trouble. In some cases it was obviously all they wanted was some money.

 

I think there is a definite lack of freedom in countries where the law of the land falls in the hands of a group of people who operate outside of the law.

The official death toll in the Mexican cartel wars is 60,000, for example. I don't see how anyone could feel free under those conditions.

 

Ya, throw them a nice watch and you're golden.

 

As for a woman getting arrested for wearing 'the wrong color' is fucked up. If she wants to wear a bikini bottom and nipple tassels she should have that right. Anyone, Anywhere should be allowed to dress, Say, Eat whatever the fuck they want.

Who makes them wear that shit anyway?

 

Freedoms are an illusion in that they are only granted as long as it is convenient for them to be so.

 

They seem to have toned it down http://iranian.com/posts/view/post/24073

 

The United States...for example.

 

You're free to work hard and buy that land, then you are that person who owns it you talk about.

 

Some people like to bitch but do nothing about it. Other people bitch and then change it. And some people don't give a shit either way

 

well technically you rent it from the government if you pay property tax

 

As always. And even they don't own it. The land will be around long after the gov't is gone.

 

You also use the roads and shit they maintain.

There is always a way to hustle and make money to do what you want.

That's a lot more effective than the hypotheticals if we all claimed land with stakes. Then you'd have to kill people to keep your land. There is no perfect setup. But a person can always control their own destiny, be that bankrolling so it doesn't matter or going somewhere else. There are many places in the US that are way more free feeling and literally more free than anywhere in NY.

Exactly. And as a result you gain freedom but are in more danger. My mom lives in Colombia a lot of the time, I always worry about her when she's there but don't have that worry when she's in the US.

 

I don't have a problem with taxes and the community benefits we receive from them, i just find property taxes a really unfair form of taxation.

 

Yeah, I agree with that. I'd like to get away from gov't as much as possible, but some reasonable form of tax needs to be assessed unless we want to completely regress. For things like roads and national defense.

In general I disagree with property taxes and income taxes, but honestly I'd rather just bank, pay them and then do what I want in spite of those because they're not going away.

 

Crazy. Wth is she doing in Colombia? My gf is Colombian, she has described some pretty gruesome stuff from that area.

 

She's a historian, she studies early colonial history of south america mainly. So she hangs out in old ass mountain towns that have libraries and archives in old spanish. Translates them then writes about it basically.

Those town are also controlled by cartels and it's in the coca region. So I always worry.