Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "What They Call "Freedom" is Actually Authoritarianism" video.

  1. As Australians we all studied Orwell in English class at some point because it was considered "a must" if we were to UNDERSTAND what our ideological opponents were. I did Animal Farm during the American equivalent of Freshman/Sophomore and 1984 during the American equivalent of Junior/Senior High School. I went to college in America (late 80s) and could barely believe that almost NONE of my classmates understood anything about these books. When I studied Animal Farm that included a basic history of the Russian Revolution and how certain characters in the book related to real historical figures and what they did. When I studied 1984 we looked at how authoritarian states OPERATED. We had doublespeak explained to us. Its the political concept of making a statement that has 2 equal and opposite meanings. It was how Big Brother was 100% right about everything. Because even when he said something utterly wrong the opposite meaning was still correct. The classic I remember from the book was all the government ministries were abbreviated from "Ministry of Something" to "mini something." Orwell's implication was that these governments were the opposite of what the label claimed. So the Ministry of Peace was called Mini-peace and it was where wars were fought from. The "Ministry of Love" was called Mini-love and it was where they tortured Winston (and others). The other thing I remember (and my English teacher at the time hammered this home to all of us) is the actual purpose of doublespeak was to utterly confuse the population to the point where they could not form coherent thoughts in opposition to the regime. Its actually described at one point in the book.
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  2.  @patriciaguerin3663  Sorry for the long answer but you might find this interesting. About 25 years ago I met an American, Doug, over hear through work and we became good friends. He eventually went back (~2 years) but came back for a visit about a year after that. This was around late 1999 (all pre-9/11). We were at my parents and they were retired school teachers. Out of nowhere he made this extraordinary statement "We don't need our guns anymore." We were WTF and asked what he meant. He said something like "We've lost sight of what our founding fathers wanted us to be" which only made the WTF go deeper. He was trying to point out that a major underlying concept of the US constitution was about enabling every citizen to become what they wanted by providing a FREE, SAFE and FAIR society. I don't know what had made him reach that conclusion, but something had changed his perspective. I think someone had asked how he survived in a country without the freedom to own guns. Which is wrong as we can own almost anything if we can justify it. It prompted him to do some research and he found out an amazing thing. ALL (as in every country) modern police forces are derived from the 2nd Amendment. Prior to that time all governments used the military to enforce security and police the population and importantly keep them under control. And it was like that for 1000s of years and through dozens of empires. Both my parents were teachers and my mother was very keen on history. She thought about it and concluded EXACTLY the same thing, which still freaks me out 20+ years later. In among everything else the Founding Fathers had said "NO the federal/central government will NOT use the military to police the civilian population. We will do that through well organized militias under local civilian control." We all concluded that the US bill of Rights was an extraordinary framework that had allowed America to be FREE, SAFE and FAIR, so its people to could flourish. Yeah its not perfect and the journey has had its some big bumps and bangs, but very few countries have come close to America. Nobody else sent men to the moon just because it was there to be done. What Doug was super concerned about was Americans were losing grasp of what it meant to be American - FREE, SAFE and FAIR. I think what Doug was on about was that you have to balance what's free, safe and fair. If one dominates then the others lose out. 22-23 years later and you know what scares me? Australia is going down the same path. We have people protesting and screaming about their freedoms, but none of them are protesting about SAFE & FAIR. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️
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