Nobody Wants Freedom

There is a very simple explanation for why the world becomes ever more oppressive and governments ever more powerful and individuals ever less free, by the day, even by the hour, and no one does anything at all to change it. The simple explanation is, in spite of all the rhetoric about seeking freedom, of “limiting government,” and working for “liberty,” no one really wants to be free.

I’m not the only one who has noticed this. In his article, “Liberty, If You Can Grasp It,” Richard Rieben expresses his own experience with the reluctance of people to seek freedom, which he calls, “liberty.”

“During my world travels, I discovered an elixir of life called ‘liberty.’ I slaved on the formula for several years, and then I published my research—I basically ‘gave away’ the formula to anyone who was interested. And no one was interested …

“It’s not that they didn’t want the ‘program,’ but that they didn’t grasp the concept: That ‘liberty’ is radically different from anything they have ever heard in their lives, more potent than any elixir—and that it’s practical, easy and free.

Truth is, no one really wants to learn how to be free, or even to learn what real freedom is.

I know that saying “no one,” is a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one, and most of those who truly seek freedom have already found it, and for all the rest, “freedom,” is only an ideal, an academic subject of study, not a reality they actually seek, much less expect in their own lifetime, or their own life.

Busy About Freedom Is Not Seeking It

The opening words of the introduction to the Free Individual are:

“Welcome to FREEDOM! Your freedom, if you want it, not sometime in the future, not when some program has been put over or some political agenda has succeeded, but freedom NOW, beginning today!””

But no one is interested. Look at the response to the Harry Browne book offer. See my article, “Does No One Want To Be Free?“

In that article I emphasize that none of the freedom oriented sites are really interested in individual freedom, but I think it is even more than that, and in many cases, perhaps all cases, they are anti-individualism.

If you are living freely, or in the process of establishing your own freedom, you may be surprised to find those you would expect to applaud your achievement, will actually shun you, or even despise you.

Most of the principles of most of the anarchist, anti-state, free-market, capitalist, voluntaryist, libertarian, and pro-freedom conservative sites have visited the Free Individual. They have seen that the means to individual freedom is offered here, and they want nothing to do with it, because it does not support their program, their agenda, or their campaign to “promote”freedom, thought it is not actuallity freedom they are promoting, but in most cases a program or agenda designed to in some way change society at some unidentified future time. In truth they would sacrifice real individual freedom in a flash if it interfered with their “project,” “movement,”“program,” “societal objectives,” “mission,” or “agenda,” and they will despise anyone who actually seeks freedom in this world and achieves it.

Why would they despise anyone who has actually made themselves free in this world? Because the free independent individual proves all their programs, campaigns, and movements are uneeded by the individualist, and that they are not individualists, but collectivists, who cannot imagine accomplishing anything as individuals, without some kind of group or organization or program. Most of all they despise the true individualist because he does not need them and has nothing in common with them.