Ah, it was great to sleep late. For me; 5am is late.

Everyone is writing about freedom - now there's an abused word. I have always defined it as the condition of not being coerced. Threats and abuse seem to be the big tools for coercion.

Some people look at freedom and responsibility as some sort of yin and yang; I think they are more like a Chang and Eng.

Say I was on a deserted island, I'd be perfectly free. No one there to point a gun to my head to take what I worked for or tell me to pick coconuts for him. I would be 100% responsible for whatever happened to me, too. I'd be responsible for food, clothing, shelter, and my own safety. Oh, sure, a hurricane could come along and wash me out to sea, but that would be my problem and only mine.

Now take this society: I am forced to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes - by the same token my responsibility to prepare for old age is lessened (only if I'm an idiot, really). But many people don't pay attention to retirement because they don't think they have to. Since my taxes pay for police, firemen, army, etc. I am less responsible for my own safety (HAHAHAHAHA oh, sorry).

So if I was perfectly coerced, I'd be a slave and pretty much responsible for nothing. If I were raped, most of the right to life people would agree that I could get an abortion even if the laws were set to their standards. Note I said "most"; some would want to force me to carry the child to term.

People are always going to disagree about freedom and responsibility. Everyone pretty much agrees you don't have the freedom to kill. Some people will add: "unless you have been directed to do so by your government" but not all. Many people think it's okay to kill someone who is trying to hurt or kill you, but not everyone. Some people think it's not okay to kill animals and want the government to prevent people from killing animals. Some people think it's okay to go interfere in other country's business; some people think it's okay for some meat-packing dictator to abuse his people as long as he doesn't pose a threat to us.

Some people think homosexuality is okay, some people don't. Is incest okay? What if it's between two consenting adults? Is bestiality okay? If animals don't have rights and can be owned, what's the difference between owning a chicken and owning a blow-up sex toy?

Coercion has been monopolized almost completely by governments and criminals. And sometimes family members. Is coercion 'for your own good' a good thing? What if it's done in the name of the good of society? What about the children?

Sometimes I get the idea that people don't want freedom at all. They don't want to be treated bad, but that responsibility twin scares them. I get the idea sometimes that the vast majority of people would want what happened in the movie the Abyss to happen. Come to think of it, this was The Day the Earth Stood Still too. Every time I see The Abyss I think of that old Porno for Pyros song:

Will there be another race
To come along and take over for us?
Maybe martians could do
Better than we've done
We'll make great pets!

My friend says we're like the dinosaurs
Only we are doing ourselves in
Much faster than they ever did
We'll make great pets!

Me, I hope I can talk them into giving me a deserted island. Preferably one in the Caribbean with a nice beach.