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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Homesteading and controls on freedoms
  • Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 14:32:00 EDT




> Homesteading is but a partial answer to the quest for maximal personal
> freedom.

It is that. But to my thinking it's a matter of the odds. To illustrate, a
couple of weeks ago I was sitting down on the "gathering benches" around the
firepit close to the county road. None of our farm buildings, house, or
gardens are close to the road. Anyway, I found myself down there when a
local
fellow I did not know stopped on the road to chat. Not unusual here nor
considered
impolite. The conversation turned and twisted until it came to the theme of
politics and economics, more the latter. To the notion that we'd largely
dropped out of the socio-economi juggernaut he remonstrated that no one could
and
proceeded to the 'argumentum ad absurdum' that I had to pay, for example,
property tax so I was just as much a part of society as anyone else. (By
'society' here I mean the pejorative idea of a decaying one).

I pointed to his car and asked him if he needed gas in it tomorrow to which
he affirmed that he did, he had to go to work. I told him I didn't ... go to
work or need the gas, take you pick as one is the illustration of the
other...
tomorrow, anyway. Or the next day. Or the day after that, or the nest week,
or the next month. In the next six months, I'd have to go off the place to
earn some money for my wants (electricity, internet, salt, bottle caps for
the
beer), I could choose when I went, under what circumstances, and I had a
wide
latitude in that I could make use of the trip tomorrow or I could delay it
for
many weeks. He, my conversant across the fence, was by no means an utter
thrall to the system and I was not absolutely free of it. But the difference
between our levels of freedom was vast.

Some freedom, even for such lunatic fringe as I, just isn't worth it. I
could do completely without electricity. We'd not be cold, be able to cook
our
food, and have enough lighting. But we'd not have the freezers, pump in the
cistern, nor the computer. The price of freedom from electricity compared to
my
paultry electric bill just isn't worth it. I could also forge some of my own
tools. I've got the anvils and tools from my great-grandfather's smithy.
But
so long as I can buy tools made of good tool steel (which I could never
duplicate), that's a dependency I can live with.

As far as food, water, beer, clothing, fuel, tools, and all such base
essentials, I'm flush. That means I've got time to think and plan and make
use of
opportunities as they arise. I don't have to rush off tomorrow to heart of
Babylon to work so I can pay the mortgage, buy this week's food, get this
week's
gasoline, keep the heat pump turned on.

So I'd say that's quite right. Homesteading is a partial answer to the goal
of personal freedom. And it's also only "an" answer. There are others. And
the maximum freedom is realized when we embrace what freedom we can when we
can rather than waiting for that fantastic moment when we have every detail
worked out to be utterly free. It never happens. And who'd want it if it
did
happen.

James




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