new thread
How many of you would like to live in a place like this? Any thoughts?
Grow Your Hair, Here
It would be nice to live life any way I want to; to be allowed to make my own decisions, to be trusted enough as an adult human to experiment with substances less destructive than alcohol.
Children and the elderly are told what they can and cannot do. Wouldn't it be nice if we could experience freedom somewhere in the middle? L.L.
Christiania's Mission Statement: "The objective of Christiania is to create a self-governing
society whereby each and every individual holds themselves responsible over the wellbeing of
the entire community. Our society is to be economically self-sustaining and, as such, our
aspiration is to be steadfast in our conviction that psychological and physical destitution can be averted."
Today, it´s illegal but drugs are openly sold and used in Chritiania.
The Danish Parliament (Folketing) legalized the city in 1989 and exempted the Christianians
from laws on heritage and environment conservation. In 1991, a local law made of Christiania
a "free zone", open to all, car-free and placed under the responsibility of its inhabitants.Christiania has officially 878 inhabitants, including 150 children. Each inhabitant
of Christiania has to pay a monthly rent of 1,600 Danish crowns (215 euros) for electricity,
heating, road maintenance, land tax, child-care center, kindergarten, leisure and other public
costs. The Danish government has decided to "normalize" the situation of the enclave. A
commission made of ten members worked ten months and wrote a report of several thousands
pages, without drawing radical conclusions.
I'm a weird person that likes to live in a normal soceity to stand out.
I have to say, as a second generation Dane in the USA, what a lovely alternative.
The Danes have given the world a lovely sense of freedom and autonomy, which I am grateful for. They are a pain in the rear for the pope, and I am grateful for that as well. They have some very fine architects and theologians. They tend to be on the side of the good, in my humble opinion. It is great that their society is open to experiments, at this late date!!! I am grateful for the hair traits I have inherited from the great Danes, and love their respect for everyone's sexuality.
The cross is still their flag, but what a flare they have for design. As one of the many Danish designers in the world, I can only say, The Freer the Better! The more experiments, the better.
If I could some how manage their language, I might consider it, but the Danish language is just too much for me. Garrison Kellor knows what I mean, as he married a danish woman a few years ago, and just could not keep up!
Still, it is great to see such fine people open their arms to us long hairs!
love to you all, bros,
-Daniel
First, I don't like drugs, or alcohol in fact, so living in a community where most people openly use drugs goes completely counter to what I feel.
Secondly, this is an attempt at Utopian socialism of some sort, as has been tried over the past 200 years in small towns all over the world. I don't mean big experiments like China and the USSR, I mean small cities, many of which were in America. These never lasted more than about 50 years. I actually read a book about them. In fact, I'm goimg to go ahead and list a few so that you realise this isn't new, and that this ends up not working.
Also worth noting that those societies usually went for clean living without alcohol and definitely without drugs. What you're descriving is a hippie society, and those are far worse.
These things can only last so long. Soon enough the laid back attitude and drug taking will take such a firm hold of the new generation of children born, that productivity would fall low enough for standards of living to really fall behind.
So, I promised a list: New Harmony, New Lanark, La Reunion (dallas), Brook farm, North American phalanx, Corning (Iowa, and others. This is just the list my book gives for utopian socialist communities. If we were to take all the hippie communities which failed in the United States...
That's true that most of these expermental communities do fall apart. The Brook Farm that you mention -- the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, was a part of that community and actually had bought shares in it. It was a failure, and he left after about six months. He had to sue to get his money back. He later wrote The Blithedale Romance as a fictional account that paralleled some of the people there, although he wrote a disclaimer at the beginning of the book that it was not about Brook Farm. He thought that by being a Brook farmer he could also be a book farmer; do a little work and have the solitude of the countryside to write. But, it just didn't work. They ended up having to work much harder trying to farm than they thought and weren't used to or ready for the amount of work that goes into a successful farm.
Their downfall is a problem insurmountable - maintaining a standard of living beyond "prehistoric" requires TRADE. These folk think they can go off into the woods and live their own nirvanic life with no contact with the evil and contaminated outside world. This has never worked. The earliest settlements on North America's eastern seaboard had great difficulty surviving, and the problem was a lack of trade to get essentials for what was "modern life" in even that day. In the 1700s, many of the controversies concerning the establishment of the constitution concerned tariffs and their effect on trade. The Boston Tea Party was about taxes on trade. The Iraqi War is being fought about trade - in oil. Trade is essential to having a modern standard of living. A major reason the U.S. soared to its prominence on the world stage is the elimination of tariffs and other trade restrictions between its states. American business could sell to a continent while most other nations' businesses could only sell unimpeded locally.
Most communes isolate themselves enough either physically or through well-meaning policies that they restrict their own access to the economic marketplace, and therein they fail.
When I was a kid, we used to drive by New Harmony on the way to Evansville. There was almost nothing there. I must say, I've never heard of the others. I've only heard of New Harmony because it was a wide spot on the road on the way to somewhere else. [grin]
Bill
Hey Bill. I agree with you on all the points except that the war in Iraq is fought for oil. Oil is one of the reasons, but not the main one (I don't want to go into the others here). Nor is it fought for oil the way you're probably thinking: The oil companies that sponsored Bush's political campaign (they, together with Tobacco companies and the Military Industrial complex accounted for over 80% of his funding), were never hoping to extract oil from Iraq. I'm pretty sure they had enough forsight to realise that this wouldn't be doable (pipes keep getting blown up, it's happened before). The reason is different. By DISRUPTING the supply of oil, they would raise the prices.
The price of oil has long since not been in any way established by Supply and Demand, but rather the speculation of future Supply and Demand (just like people don't trade in oil, but first order, second order, and even third order derivatives from it). And since a change in supply of 5% will likely trigger a change in speculated supply by a factor of 10, then by disrupting the Iraqi oil supply, also creating unpredictability over Iran's supply of oil, and generally destabilizing all of the middle east even more than it already was, the oil companies achieved the highest price of oil in the last century, and it'll keep up for the forseeable future.
Then again, if oil was traded in say, pounds, and not US dollars, then I don't think the price would be anywhere near what it is now. When you see the soaring price of oil in terms of dollars, remember that it's as much the value of oil rising, as the value of the dollar falling. In fact, I remember seeing a graph showing the price of oil in terms of dollars on average sharply rising over the last 30 years, while in terms of gold, staying almost exactly the same (+/- 10% fulctuations). I bet you wish Roosevelt hadn't confiscated all the nations gold in 1933 and taken you off the gold standard. Mind you, that bill of his was unconstitutional. Roosevelt was one of the biggest contributers to Americas problems since WWII, but history books were written describing him as a saint. Even the ones I first studied him from in the UK.
At this point in time I should probably point to Ron Paul, who's the only one who has any clear thoughts on this issue, and many others :)
Concerning Ron Paul, I got this message just now (I'm subscribed). They managed to beat the all time record for any political campaign, raising 6.04 million in ONE DAY! They even beat their own record they set on the 5th of November which was around 4.2m. Shame I couldn't donate because I'm not American. And yes this money-bomb was completely unorganized, and spontaneous over the internet, just like most of his grassroots fundraising.
"December 17, 2007
What a day! I am humbled and inspired, grateful and thrilled for this vast outpouring of support.
On just one day, in honor of the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, the new American revolutionaries brought in $6.04 million, another one-day record. The average donation was $102; we had 58,407 individual contributors, of whom an astounding 24,915 were first-time donors. And it was an entirely voluntary, self-organized, decentralized, independent effort on the internet. Must be the "spammers" I keep hearing about!
The establishment is baffled and worried, and well they should be. They keep asking me who runs our internet fundraising and controls our volunteers. To these top-down central planners, a spontaneous order like our movement is science-fiction. But you and I know it's real: as real as the American people's yearning for freedom, peace, and prosperity, as real as all the men and women who have sacrificed for our ideals, in the past and today.
And how neat to see celebrations all across the world, with Tea Parties from France to New Zealand. This is how we can spread the ideals of our country, through voluntary emulation, not bombs and bribes. Of course, there were hundreds in America.
As I dropped in on a cheering, laughing crowd of about 600 near my home in Freeport, Texas, I noted that they call us "angry." Well, we are the happiest, most optimistic "angry" movement ever, and the most diverse. What unites us is a love of liberty, and a determination to fix what is wrong with our country, from the Fed to the IRS, from warfare to welfare. But otherwise we are a big tent.
Said the local newspaper (http://www.thefacts.com/story.lasso?ewcd=36475b4d132fc0a1): "The elderly sat with teens barely old enough to vote. The faces were black, Hispanic, Asian and white. There was no fear in their voices as they spoke boldly with each other about the way the country should be. Held close like a deeply held secret, Paul has brought them out of the disconnect they feel between what they know to be true and where the country has been led."
Thanks also to the 500 or so who braved the blizzard in Boston to go to Faneuil Hall. My son Rand told me what a great time he had with you.
A few mornings ago on LewRockwell.com, I saw a YouTube of a 14-year-old boy that summed up our whole movement for me. This well-spoken young man, who could have passed in knowledge for a college graduate, told how he heard our ideas being denounced. So he decided to Google. He read some of my speeches, and thought, these make sense. Then he studied US foreign policy of recent years, and came to the conclusion that we are right. So he persuaded his father to drop Rudy Giuliani and join our movement.
All over America, all over the world, we are inspiring real change. With the wars and the spying, the spending and the taxing, the inflation and the credit crisis, our ideas have never been more needed. Please help me spread them https://www.ronpaul2008.com/donate in all 50 states. Victory for liberty! That is our goal, and nothing less.
Sincerely,
Ron"
Not to turn this into anything highly politically charged (don't we have enough of that already?), but I would be interested to learn how many denizens of this board support Ron Paul or agree with his positions.
Anyone?
High!
And Twin Oaks? IIRC they do pretty well since about 1970... and here in Germany, there's Kommune Niederkaufungen, which also flourishes since 25 years!
See you in Khyberspace!
Yadgar
I located it on google earth. It is 2000 meters from the
Copenhagen city hall. 100 degrees (ESE)
Most idealistic societies don't work out, unfortunately.
Scott
Sometimes we joke here in sweden if someone is going to denmark, about them going to christiania. It´s an opportunity for those who want to try out drugs and not get arrested I guess. I have no idea how many people that does it though, probably not many.
Thanks for posting this, Luckskind, and for everyone's responses. See, this's what STILL irks me, the equation of the use of mind-altering contraband with a Bohemian lifestyle and being a longhair'd freak. I'm longhair'd, a STR8-EDGER, sometimes beard'd, sometimes NOT, and an experimental artist in music and what's classically refer'd to in literature and the fine arts as Magical Realism.
A friend, a playwright whose scripts I represent, lives off of the mainland of Denmark, on an island call'd Charlottenlund. Most of the country is Socialist anyway, w/o all the anarchic trappings of Christiania, which I'm afraid is currently being survey'd by developers.
Besides, imbibers oughta think three times abt seeking it out as a D.M.Z. free of legal strictures. On a recently film'd episode o/t excellent "Globe Trekker" travelogue series, there were markedly more pronounced police sweeps taking place nowadays IN Christiania.
Yours for drug-free, sane, and sober longhair'd camaraderie,
Quenyan
An interesting bit from Luckskind thank you.
Although thses communities fail at least they keep trying.
Who knows someday one might succees, hopefully this one.
High!
But how is "succeeding" defined? Survival for one year (many 70s country communes disintegrated after the first winter)? Survival for a generation? Survival for the lifetime of its founders? Survival for centuries? Survival until the Sun becomes a Red Giant and burns up Earth?
Has the Roman Empire succeeded or failed? Manichaeism? The Catholic Church?
See you in Khyberspace!
Yadgar
Nice place to visit, maybe, but I wouldn't want to live there.
It's nice to think that everyone there looks out for everyone else but
that can be found in almost any community or church, etc.
Hard drugs were banned from the community years ago because the users
of those hard drugs did not contribute to the community.
The oldest rresident is a Hippie artist who is now in his 80s and still creating art!
He was asked this question: "Is the royal family banned from this place?"
"No, they are most welcome. I think they come here for a smoke." he..he...
It's wonderful to see you guys talking about Christiania and Denmark, when considering many of you are Americans. I'm from Denmark, and one (amongst many) jokes about Americans is that they think Denmark is the capital of Sweden because of the lack of geographical knowledge. However, it is wonderful to see the interest shown in this very small country I live in.
I live maybe three hours from Copenhagen and Christiania, so when I'm actually there, it's mostly for family purposes (in Copenhagen, not Christiania though). Nevertheless, I've been there, and it's fun to see it. But unfortunately, there is a lot of trouble surrounding it. As I am 100 % against drugs, I think it's quite a pathetic sight when you walk around in the morning, and you can smell the marijuana and see those old, wasted hippies who've already been drinking for a while at that time of the day.
Also our government, which is liberal and a total wannabe-Bush & the Republicans, is not very comfortable with Christiania, but it seems to stay. And that is good, I think, even though I don't support neither the lifestyle nor the political views of the average man living in Christiania.
I do, however, support the prefered long hairstyle of some of the Christianits (as they would be called when directly translated). :-)
Hejhej! Hvordan har du det?
HAHA! I guess a lot of Americans don't know their geography, and I think it's funny that you guys tell "American" jokes. We deserve every one of them, I bet ;-)
I think you do live in a very nice country; I'd like to visit there some day.
Which part of Denmark do you live in? Jylland or one of the islands (Fyn, Lolland, Sjaelland, etc.)? Haha! I didn't even have to look at the map! I'm being proactive now to show some of us Americans do know a little about the outside world. :-) I can even locate Bornholm on a map of the Baltic. Also, my cousins's great-grandfather was from Denmark. Heck, I even read Out of Africa by Karen Blixen, but not in Danish!
See you later, Matt B.
Hej! Jeg har det godt, tak. Hvad med dig?
Well, I don't really expect an answer to that, but I'll be pretty amazed if you can follow up on that sentence. :)
I'm also glad to be proven wrong when thinking only a few Americans know their geography - or at least their European geography. I'm impressed that you do know so much about Denmark and are even able to locate Bornholm. That island should've been part of Sweden; at least because they speak so funny over there, no other people from Denmark understand them. ;)
I live in Aarhus, the second largest city of Denmark. It's pronounced "Orr-hus" (the "us" is not like "yous", but like the "us" in "corpus"..hmmm..). It's nicknamed "Smilets By" - City of the Smile. Well, it works better in Danish at least.
And yes, it's part of Jylland/Jutland. Thanks for asking, man. :)
Haha!
Det er bra med mig ocksa.
Unskylde, det der er svenka, jeg tycker?
Hahaha!
Ja, det er svenska! Men meget godt og imponerende!
Jag lär sig svenska...
and I'm scared that I actually understand all of this.
I think drugs should be legal especially marijuana. Why let the government interfere with one's personal business. I think it should stay the fuck out of people's lives.
That is what I am doing.
believe me, he's got my vote!
I could only donate $5 to his campaign yesterday, but it felt good. SO far I have only donated $10 to his campaign. But that is more than any other candidate I voted for in the last 2 election seasons. I wouldn't even consider donating to Hilary's Or Obama's, or any other Republican's(besides Ron Paul) campaign, they are too bought up by special interests for me.
i'm living in the UK but ron paul does look like a really good candidate for the US.
So do I. We are being governed under a system where prohibtion against other substances has been done just as it was for alcohol, except they didn't bother to pass a constitutional ammendment. IANAL, so I'm not sure how it is that they were able to do so without an ammendment.
The government hasn't learned from the first Prohibition... or have they?
In essence, what we now have is a disorderly form of taxation for drugs, wherein confiscation of property and profits is done in the name of justice.
There's too much money and power at stake in the enforcement and imprisonment industry. The last thing these guys would actually want is for drugs to go away--they'd lose their jobs and prestige.
If, by some miracle, the power is given to the states in this matter, CA would almost certainly put it on the ballot. I think it'd probably end up legalized. I'd vote YES, and then go right on NOT using drugs, pretty much like now. It's just that instead of gang violence and the possibility that you might have your property confiscated on suspicion, we'd have regular businesses paying sales tax. I'd be OK with a "sin tax" as in alcohol; anything would be better than the foolish "war" we have now.
Oh, and we could quit poisoning Columbian fields, and plowing under hemp farms on the Pine Ridge Reservation--the poorest place in the US, and we've nothing better to do than plow under their fields because industrial hemp, which is totally unsmokeable, is also illegal!
end rant.
I agree as well Steve, the US Constitution says "of the people
for the people and by the people". What gives them the right
to play "God". Our federal government will not even honour
a majority vote in favour of marajuana. In reality it is a
government of for and by those who are rich and powerful with
little concern for the common man. A great number of murders
in this country are connected to drug dealing. Many lives
could be saved by making it legal. Unfortunately most of those
lives that could be saved are deemed second class citizens by
our own wealthy and powerful favouring government.
As for industrial hemp, it is our salvation from dependence
on foreign oil. A thousand gallons of fuel can be produced
per acre of hemp. We have sufficient low grade farm land for
this. Let's save our corn for food. Corn only produces at
best 400 gallons per acre.
Rant over.
Scott
Well, America hasn't declared a single war since WWII. This makes the war in Vietnam, South Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the dozens in between, all unconstitutional. Remember, constitution says Congress has to declare war to make it legit. This is actually one of Ron's main points.
Then we can look at the Patriot Act, and the second version of it that will (you can be certain) come into effect without them asking, and I'm sure they'll find a perfect reason to pass it too. They're just waiting on the next 9/11 to take away more of your freedom.
But the worst thing is that it wasn't always like that. People like Jefferson really made the US a free country. Unfortunately, the people of the USA simply didn't care enough over the last couple of centuries to preserve that freedom, and so slowly it was taken away from you. Who knows, maybe it's still possible to turn back the tide? If only people studied history, economics, and politics a bit more, they would know better for who to vote. Especially now that we have the internet. Use it while you can, before governments find a reason to censor it. They've been trying for a decade now.
Been affected by the man much?
I'm not pro-drugs or anti-drugs I'm pro-freedom. Who the hell is the man to tell us what to do? I'm very surprised about some of the remarks and who said them on this thread.
I'll fight till my dying breath against government tyranny. I've been the recipient of some of its vitriol.
Please!! The man will take your hair and everything else. GIVE NO GROUND!!!!!! AT ALL!!!
You don't like drugs? That's cool but who says the government decides this? Are we infants? WE, WE decide what is right for us, the people, NOT the government. FIGHT the man, don't give in!
Amen, my friend. Well said.
--Val
These were the attitudes of the United States's founders. The reason I said the United States because I know not everyone here is from the US.
Yes, unfortunately we can't lay claim to such noble and free-thinking founders, though I must say that as much as I love Jefferson, I despise John Adams. So lumping them all together wouldn't be fair either.
Although on the plus side, since we never had such freedom-fighting founders, we don't have to blame ourselves as much for this deterioration in the status of freedom in the west as the US people now do.
John Adams was a thug who killed a lot of Indians(Not a Correct term Native Americans) and he was the 1st Father to also have a son as President. I am a fan of Washington and Jefferson myself.
I'm against government tyrrany just as much as you are; but, then again, neither would I ever want to live in an isolated commune-type town where drugs and alcohol are so pervasive that everyone is either stoned or plastered half of the time... Being a sober guy surrounded by zombies tends to make me feel like I'm at a party that I wasn't invited to attend, --- even if the party is at my own house!!
Although I have never had to go through any "AA" 12-step or other similar alcohol or drug recovery program, I happen to have a lot of close friends as well as a few relatives that HAVE. They've been through hell, in fact. Out of support for them, as well as the fact that I don't happen to drink alcohol or use drugs, either, I'd have to describe myself as, "anti-drugs"... But, this by no means should insinuate that I want the government to step in and "outlaw" it for everyone, --- in fact, I myself would vote YES to legalize Marijuana (even though I hate even the smell of the stuff)!
Clear as mud?? OK then. let's smoke a joint and talk over it (lol)!!
- Ken
I'm pro-freedom too, but this all gets very complicated at certain times, depending on how one looks at it. I'm not pro-drugs or anti-drugs either, although I don't touch them. To me, the crux of the argument lies in logic, or let's say moderation. You might be able to occasionally indulge in some ganja with no ill effects -- still a functioning and rational man. Others cannot do this. Others destroy themselves and others around them through their drug use and abuse. Some govern their own passions and animal drives and realize the bounds of acceptable behavior. This applies to any area, not just drug use. You and I realize that we cannot steal our neighbor's property just because we like it or think we need it more than he. We also realize that we cannot engage in a business enterprise that depends upon a large number of workers in life-threatening situations. But, others do not and have not throughout history. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, US corporations, especially food producers, did whatever they could to make a profit (see Upton Sinclair's Jungle). Corporations also beleived that it was acceptable to employ chilren as laborers. However, Jane Addams did not and worked against that. They also beleived that it was acceptable to employ coal miners in horrendous conditions, also to bind these said workers into a form of servitude through company housing and company stores. So, what's the point of this? It gets more complicated.
And ironic. The lack of laws to prevent certain things resticted the freedom and damaged well-being of those who supposedly should have been free to begin with. Now, the argument against drug laws is, of course, different, in a way. Does having laws and action taken to prevent drug use prevent those who might have a tendency to abuse drugs save them from themselves? Or, does the law make the situation worse by pushing the trade underground resulting in drugs sold that are more unsafe than they would have been? For instance, if you buy some mary-jane, you don't know where it was grown, what kind of dangerous chemicals it may have been sprayed with, or what the content of the product is. (I mention the spraying because not all fungicides, pesticides, herbicides are approved for food use. Also, certain chemicals also become more carcinogenic when temperature-raised, such as being burned, as would be the case with smoking.) If someone like the FDA regulated drug production, might this provide safer materials for comsumption for the populace? Maybe yes, maybe no.
The "man" is out to make a profit and guard his own interests without regard to the interests and well-being of others. The "man" is also not governed in many cases by rational actions. "Rational" gets complicated too. Is rational termed to be self-preservation only, or is it something more benificent and benevolent? Who knows? Is the reptile brain at work or the higher "divinity" that some may or may not think resides within. For instance, anarchy isn't rampant chaos and lawlessness at all. Proper anarchy is the absence of government, total freedom, yet that situation finds (in theory) as society perfectly ordered and at peace. Yet, this depends on each working and living, governed by rational behavior. The reason, perhaps, that it cannot work is that man just isn't to be rational. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester wrote "A Satire against Reason and Mankind." In it, he explored what's termed the theriophilic paradox. This states that an animal who has no ration is more rational than a man who supposedly has the said trait. An animal kills for food. A man kills for pride. I'm not sure if his argument holds true, but it sure seems so in many cases.
Freedom is a wonderful thing, but what does one want to be free from and what's he to do once he is free? Also, how free is someone who subjugates and takes advantage of others? Some laws do protect freedom for some, and restrict others, and vice-versa. Of course, I want to be free to grow my hair, but if others are free to assault me and cut if off, then I need a law to prevent this. My freedom to grow hair is then protected by a law that restricts the freedom of another! One might argue that many people are not capable of protecting themselves from themselves. Perhaps this is true. Perhaps not? Some would say that the more laws, the worse the government. Perhaps this is true. The laws provide the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. Do they? Could things be improved? Of course they can. But how? What if greater freedom caused greater hardships? Is the freedom to destroy one's self freedom at all? It's too complicated!
Nice post, but you missed one vital part, which complicates everything even further. Do people WANT to be free? Apparently, in very many cases, NO! The germans elected Hitler, and my parents tell me that most of the people (those who weren't sent off to Gulags or killed) were happy being subjugated. People don't like responsibility. When one is free, one has to choose what to do, and these choices have consequences, for which one has only oneself to blame. Hence government. Sometimes I wonder if the role of government is more to correct problems in society, or to provide an excuse to blame an entity for the people's own failings and irrationalities.
There's an interesting book about this, linking this in with psychology, and how some people enjoy to be subjugated, while others yearn for dominion overs their peers, hence totalitarian regimes. The book is called "Escape from Freedom" by Erich Fromm.
I missed a couple of words there. "Most of the people were happy being subjugated" should read "most of the people in the Soviet Union were happy being subjugated".
I left this point out because I'm just not so sure about the assertion that folks want to be subjugated or not be free. Maybe the historical mindset of a people has something to do with it or maybe it is a pan-human phenomenon. While I'm not an expert on Russian history, the transition from absolutists czars to Communism wan't such a big stretch. The czars sent dissenters to Siberia just as did the Communists. Serfdom existed until the 1860's and peasants continued as a distinct class on up until the Revolution. Collective farms and such weren't such a big transition from manors. It was just feudalism with a new name. When a society is in a certain mindset, it not hard to continue on in the same way.
The Germans were used to Prussian Junkers and Kaisers and absolute rule. The Nazis seemed to be a good alternative at first probably.
There probably is a good argument in Fromm's book, but I have to disagree on a personal level. I don't want anydamnbody telling me what to do. I truly believe that one should take responsibiliy for themselves and not rely on a government to protect them. Personal responsibiity is what we lack, the very thing that seems to truly constitute freedom. One of your fellow Russians, Ayn Rand, is all about this philosophy.
I don't know if you were in part directing those comments at me, since I said a lot of anti-drug and anti-utopia things. I'm all for limited government, small taxes, little regulation, etc. Nor do I think governments should decide what laws to take. My ideal system has a direct vote on every bill by the people, and not by a congress or senate with vested interests. Nor am I against drugs for medicinal purposes, as long as these are properly regulated and any loopholes in the system plugged.
The problem is, however, that I am still not sure if an ignorant people, or a malicious government is worse. Yes, there are improvements. People are becoming more politically active and actually talking more about current issues, but they derive most of their information from the mainstream media which is owned by corporations and the government. Moreover, society is becoming ever-more hedonistic and unconcerned (I'll throw in a Roman Empire reference as I usually do :P). How much airtime do celebrities get on the media compared to important issues? I bet Britney Spears, or some other polished turd got far more air time than the massacre in Darfur.