Find out how much your birth certificate is worth!!

[GreatSpirit]

This is some scary shi- man. So I was trolling youtube and just wanted to see for SnGs.

Well, I can confirm this is true because I checked it myself at https://www.treasurydirect.gov/BC/SBCPrice

Is it really a coincidence that when I enter my "BOND" aka Slave # (mine was 7 digits in black ink) found on my birth certificate......and when it was issued........a record would actually come up??

I'm only worth $115.32. Oh boo hoo hoo!

Damn dude..........hell, at least w/Fidelity I'm worth $3,441.49

[APeacefulWarrior]

Slave number? There's no better way to become a slave than to already see yourself as enslaved. Just like how there's no better way to attract victimizers than to go around acting like a victim.

So what if some a-hole thousands of miles away from you wants to pretend there's a dollar amount attached to your name and DOB? Why should you allow that to have the slightest impact on your behavior or your outlook? If he even exists, let him have his little delusion, while you go about your life as though he doesn't exist - just like you always have.

Besides, frankly, this sounds more like it's just a coincidence of bonds and birth certificates using similar serial number structures.

[ScottK]

This is some scary shi- man. So I was trolling youtube and just wanted to see for SnGs.

Well, I can confirm this is true because I checked it myself at https://www.treasurydirect.gov/BC/SBCPrice

Is it really a coincidence that when I enter my "BOND" aka Slave # (mine was 7 digits in black ink) found on my birth certificate......and when it was issued........a record would actually come up??

I'm only worth $115.32. Oh boo hoo hoo!

Damn dude..........hell, at least w/Fidelity I'm worth $3,441.49

I don't believe the treasury direct link is accessing your true account - I could be wrong on that, but just looking at it, it seems like it's just pulling data on what the bond would be worth if it was still outstanding today.

Fidelity had that functionality to look up your cusip number, but I believe they took it out after they realized people were looking at it for the purpose you intended. At least, that's what I recall from someone who had successfully checked before.

Your account is undoubtedly in the millions of dollars. These accounts would be how they securitize the national debt. They needed Obamacare so they could securitize even more of you.

In law, in the US, you are a security instrument, and you are treated as such by the legal profession. You gained this status through contracts which were unknowingly entered into by you or your parents. There was not full disclosure. In order to regain our sovereignty in law, we need to nullify those contracts. As always, the trick is enforcement of that when you have it completed. When we have full enforcement, you will have an opportunity to be free.

[APeacefulWarrior]

When we have full enforcement, you will have an opportunity to be free.

Like I was saying . . .

[Minyatur]

When we have full enforcement, you will have an opportunity to be free.

Like I was saying . . .

Freedom contains the ability to perceive yourself as enslaved.

All is well.

[APeacefulWarrior]

True enough. I guess I just have a hard time wrapping my head around why someone would want to think they were enslaved.

[Minyatur]

True enough.  I guess I just have a hard time wrapping my head around why someone would want to think they were enslaved.

It offers a form of comfort zone where you do not feel as responsible of yourself as if you firmly believed you have total freedom and had to acknowledge as desired multiple aspects of your reality.

Example:
For one who is utterly disgusted by the actual state of the Earth, it is far easier to blame external entities for ruining what you think could have been a better experience than realize you might be here because this place is the way you personally need it to be, which would make you a significator of why the Earth is as it is and that a "better" environment simply isn't what you truly desire or need for yourself.

Acknowledging your freedom in being here would allow you to face the aspects of yourself that made you resonant with this particular place, while seeing yourself as enslaved in a most disgusting system allows you to avoid distilling these aspects for a time until you do.

[ScottK]

True enough.  I guess I just have a hard time wrapping my head around why someone would want to think they were enslaved.

If your house burned down, would you *want* to believe your house burned down? Of course not. But when you are living in this illusion, you have to deal with the problem, unless you wish to bury your head in the sand.

[ScottK]

When we have full enforcement, you will have an opportunity to be free.

Like I was saying . . .

If you think you are free within the legal system we have today, you are probably a pretty good, compliant slave.. You must think lawyers are uniformly good, STO folks, right?

The statement you quoted comes with quite a bit of experience which you have absolutely no idea about since you made a flippant comment about it.

[APeacefulWarrior]

And once again, ScottK, you just attack me rather than attempting to explain yourself or offer any actual proof of your claims. Are you really so insecure that you not only think yourself a slave, but you get upset at anyone who says they aren't a slave?

Because even if there were some jerk somewhere who thought my existence was worth millions of dollars, as I asked earlier, why should that affect my behavior in any way whatsoever? Why should I CARE that some a-hole thinks I'm just a dollar amount? There's lots of people like that in the world in all walks of life. (Some of them are even lawyers!) I let them believe as they like, and I do as I like regardless of their beliefs.

In the meantime, if you find yourself unable to prove -or even offer any hard evidence- that I am a slave, then that is your own choice and\or failure in communication. I'm not going to accept whatever you say as gospel just because you call me a "slave." I reject your offer of fear unless it comes in a much more compelling package.

[Coordinate_Apotheosis]

I think he was just trying to point out that if you think you're free, you're more deeply enslaved than you might want to believe.

I think an example of this, you can't do whatever you want to do.  You can't park in certain places, you can't cross a red light in the middle of the night with no one around, you can't grow certain things, if you do some certain things, you get locked away and treated like a subhuman.  Especially minorities.

How do you know you're genty enslaved to a system?

When you sit at a red light in the middle of the night with no one around, and wait for it to turn green.

If you were truly free, you'd have no fear and the knowledge of how to cross an intersection that is empty regardless of a red light.  You could treat it as a stop sign then go, but no, mostly we will sit, and wait, for no reason other than, because I've learned to not go on a red light.

Very free person right there

But that's only one opinion on the topic.  I wouldn't fret too hard or think it's fearbased.  None of that explains it correctly.  Its an exercise towards real freedom, not the illusion or 'great dream' of it.

You two would make for a pretty interesting and fun conversation on this subject.

[APeacefulWarrior]

I think an example of this, you can't do whatever you want to do.  You can't park in certain places, you can't cross a red light in the middle of the night with no one around, you can't grow certain things, if you do some certain things, you get locked away and treated like a subhuman.

It's easy to mention things like red lights or plant-growing, but what about the big ones?  Rape?  Murder?  Torture?  Locked-in-a-basement-in-chains sex slavery?  The "true freedom" you allude to would necessarily allow those things as well, particularly on a veiled planet with a mixed STO\STS population.  If you're going to say (even for the sake of argument) that we're all slaves because people can't do whatever they want to do, then you can't go halfway on it.

For that matter, what about the freedom to jump from a high building? Do you shake your fist at that cruel tyrant called Gravity?

Either way, though, as I see it that's beside the point.  Fundamentally, laws with consequences behind them are not slavery.  You're still free to run the red light.  You just might have to pay a fine. You're still free to jump off the highest building you like. You just might turn into a red splat. You're still free to rape and murder.  You just might end up locked up in a building with other rapists and murderers.  (Which is even kind of fitting, in a way.)  Nothing is truly restricting you from doing these things, aside from your fear of potential consequences.

Even if there were no rules whatsoever on Earth, there would still be consequences and social enforcement of them.  In a society with no laws, would it not be reasonable that one who kills would in turn become a prime target to be killed by others?  It really just seems common sense, for self-preservation if nothing else.  As such, the same basic fear of consequences would still be in place inhibiting people's behaviors.  

And of course, Lord Gravity the great and terrible would still overcome all who challenged his rule.

Slavery and consequences are not the same thing.   There is no such thing as existence without consequences.   Every action, be it big or small, positive or negative, will ALWAYS have consequences which create a larger impact on both yourself and others.  That's true from the smallest viral form up to the Creator itself.  Sometimes those consequences are subjectively seen as beneficial, and other times harmful.  Such is life.  There's no such thing as existence without consequences of some sort, be they good or bad.  (And ultimately, all consequences simply become learning opportunities anyway.)

So, is it "slavery" to say "I will do X rather than Y because I see the consequences of X as being preferable"...?  

That's why I say that slavery is a self-inflicted state.  In regular day-to-day life, your own free will is still the only thing truly dictating what you do or don't do.  If that free will is voluntarily self-restricted by awareness of potential consequences and a desire to craft the best overall outcomes, that's really just one aspect of growing wisdom. The existence of laws -or not- would not change this basic state of being.

[ScottK]

But that's only one opinion on the topic.  I wouldn't fret too hard or think it's fearbased.  None of that explains it correctly.  Its an exercise towards real freedom, not the illusion or 'great dream' of it.

I would call it more the propaganda of freedom which creates an illusion. People believe they are free because they are told over and over that they are free. When they believe the propaganda, it becomes their belief which they will defend. The elite have the game down on how to do this.

Freedom in our world is: Paying over 50% of your productive effort to the government and banks. Doing what you're told by government and "authorities" (those people who know better how you should live your life than you do). So you are paying big money to have others tell you what to do. And working at least 40 hour weeks for 50 years taking orders from "The Man".

Most people truly do believe that's freedom. I, however, would side with those who call it slavery. There's a difference between spiritual freedom and the physical experience of freedom or lack thereof.

GreatSpirit brought up a great, advanced topic. Too bad we couldn't have discussed it.

[sjel]

Yeah, 'slavery' to the consequences of natural law is just existence. No consequences to defying natural law means no 'work,' no polarity, there would be nothing happening because there's no cause and effect.

[sjel]

Freedom in our world is:  Paying over 50% of your productive effort to the government and banks.  Doing what you're told by government and "authorities" (those people who know better how you should live your life than you do).  So you are paying big money to have others tell you what to do.  And working at least 40 hour weeks for 50 years taking orders from "The Man".

Most people truly do believe that's freedom.  I, however, would side with those who call it slavery.  There's a difference between spiritual freedom and the physical experience of freedom or lack thereof.

And another might think you are enslaved to the belief systems that make you the entity you are right now. Do you believe you are free? If so, then you really can't say whether someone else is free or not. You are choosing to live under a certain set of rules as part of the package that comes with Earth existence. These are natural laws. Since you are choosing to be 'enslaved' by these laws, as one might put it, are you truly free? Even if it was your choice to be governed by them?

Consider the notable saints and positive entities who chose to become enslaved for a time, in this incarnation. Nelson Mandela surely programmed it into his life preincarnatively that he would be locked up in South Africa for decades. Jesus of course chose to give himself up to his captors. Jesus was essentially enslaved for the period of his crucifixion. But he chose to do it, consciously.

I think that the people you are referring to, the people who 'do what they're told,' they WANT to do what they're told, they WANT to live like that. So they ARE free! That is the fullest extent of their desire for freedom! Perhaps you might desire a higher level of conscious freedom, but you are still enslaved from another perspective!

I choose to believe that no one is enslaved, because free will is revocable never.

[APeacefulWarrior]

Freedom in our world is:  Paying over 50% of your productive effort to the government and banks.  Doing what you're told by government and "authorities" (those people who know better how you should live your life than you do).  So you are paying big money to have others tell you what to do.  And working at least 40 hour weeks for 50 years taking orders from "The Man"

So leave the cities behind. There are plenty of places left on this Earth you could go and experience minimal interference from anyone. Hell, move to Alaska. There's so much free space up there you could have miles and miles all to yourself, AND you'd get yearly payments from the state government for your share in the socialized oil resources. Or if Alaska isn't to your liking, there's loads of free space in northern Canada, South America, Africa, China, and more.

Or make enough money to buy your own island. Then you'd be truly sovereign.

But I'm guessing you won't, because you probably enjoy having highways and electricity and sewage treatment and the Internet and fire fighters and 911 EMS services and all the other conveniences of modern life which are also paid for at least in part by taxes.

Never the less, that is your choice. There are a huge range of places on Earth you could potentially live, with a vast array of different governmental types big and small, choices in social arrangement, local services available, and more. The options might not be limitless, but they are definitely numerous. If you don't like the lifestyle where you currently are at, then take steps to move somewhere else where you might be happier.

And you are, after all, talking to someone who did exactly that.

GreatSpirit brought up a great, advanced topic. Too bad we couldn't have discussed it.

Dude, do you ever stop looking for ways to be a victim? No one is preventing you from having a discussion. It's a free board for crissake. Write what you like.

I mean, seriously... you even try to pretend others control what words you choose to type in an open forum. No wonder you feel like a slave!

[ScottK]

So leave the cities behind.  There are plenty of places left on this Earth you could go and experience minimal interference from anyone.   Hell, move to Alaska.  There's so much free space up there you could have miles and miles all to yourself, AND you'd get yearly payments from the state government for your share in the socialized oil resources.   Or if Alaska isn't to your liking, there's loads of free space in northern Canada, South America, Africa, China, and more.  

Or make enough money to buy your own island.  Then you'd be truly sovereign.  

But I'm guessing you won't, because you probably enjoy having highways and electricity and sewage treatment and the Internet and fire fighters and 911 EMS services and all the other conveniences of modern life which are also paid for at least in part by taxes.

None of the above. I choose to fix it.

Dude, do you ever stop looking for ways to be a victim?  No one is preventing you from having a discussion.  It's a free board for crissake.  Write what you like.

I mean, seriously...  you even try to pretend others control what words you choose to type in an open forum.  No wonder you feel like a slave!

It's not for me. I don't care what you think, unless you actually add to a discussion. Many others don't like to feel judged when bringing up a point which you just happen to disagree with. You don't know the first thing about what GreatSpirit posted, yet you felt the need to make a fairly considerable judgment about it and him in a backhanded way. That kind of has a tendency to shut down a discussion.

[ScottK]

And another might think you are enslaved to the belief systems that make you the entity you are right now. Do you believe you are free? If so, then you really can't say whether someone else is free or not. You are choosing to live under a certain set of rules as part of the package that comes with Earth existence. These are natural laws. Since you are choosing to be 'enslaved' by these laws, as one might put it, are you truly free? Even if it was your choice to be governed by them?

Indeed, freedom is a rather interesting subject. As Quo said in a channeling ( http://www.llresearch.org/transcripts/is..._0304.aspx ), the only entity which is truly free is the savage - for example, a wild animal. They can pretty much do as they wish. Humans like to create attachments for themselves (significant others, children, pets, jobs, hobbies, etc), which inherently limits freedom. Perhaps this is what you are referring to as "natural laws"

At the societal level, I would certainly argue against the notion that authority over you is a "natural law". Rather, it strikes me that this is an artificial and unnecessary construct set up by the Orion Group to enslave. I choose not to be governed/controlled by the Orion Group.

I think that the people you are referring to, the people who 'do what they're told,' they WANT to do what they're told, they WANT to live like that. So they ARE free! That is the fullest extent of their desire for freedom! Perhaps you might desire a higher level of conscious freedom, but you are still enslaved from another perspective!

Free will is in control for each individual, I agree

I think it's more that they chose to experience enslavement while believing that they were free. Certainly their Higher Self understands just how enslaved they are during this incarnation, but their job while incarnated is more related to "making the best of it" and helping others to learn their lessons.

I choose to believe that no one is enslaved, because free will is revocable never.

I can agree with that at a certain level. You had free will to choose that you would be enslaved - the enslavement is in the physical world, not the spiritual realms.

But some were put here to recognize the level of enslavement here right now in the physical in order to change it and to move towards creating a 4th density society. It's not an accident when one sees it, and doesn't live in denial of it. It's probably because they are here to help drive the process forward.

[isis]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.ph...e%20number

[Coordinate_Apotheosis]

...

Sigh, okay, let me give you a very direct and concise example of my argument.

I cannot seem to persuade you to see another viewpoint, you are a slave to your own perspective and I am a slave to your perspective as long as I try to expose you to another perspective that conflicts with your own.

Slavery isn't about not being allowed to do whatever you want, it's about not being allowed to freely do as you desire to do where it is safe to do so.  As I said, you can't park in certain places, you can't grow certain things in certain places, you can't be yourself in certain places, all because of the way society is structured.  It's not enslaving feeling to you, but it is to many others, and you will see that one day.  You won't be able to hide behind your comfortable perspective of how life is forever, there is a darker side and it won't stay at bay for your comfort.  People arguing stuff like Scottk are the reasons such things probably won't happen anymore, because if it did, they'd be proven right, it'd show the actual existence of something deeper and darker than we're comfortable with as a collective.

Rape, murder, torture...Enslavement goes deeper than the arguments you've poised but I promise you, I couldn't eloquently explain it to you or do it's depth of plight any justice.  Whatever collective catalyst is incoming, the reality is simply this.  Both perspectives exist.  You don't see one, that doesn't mean it's invalid because another does where you don't.  A financial collapse is honestly probable enough to be a little bit concerning, enough to say something, and it's a valid point regardless of the implications, because those same implications are further why it both possibly more so could or can't happen.  We simply don't know, but it's a card and we know about it, and we're not afraid to say this is the reality, that this is possible, that this isn't a delusion or paranoia or some crackpot nutjob conspiracy theory, it's credible and legitimate, there's evidence that you might not even consider evidence, such as the Super Bowl being hacked the second to last time it was held, or the Stock Market getting hacked and taken down, or the backbone of the internet being DDOSed offline.

How hard is it to make a financial collapse?  A hacker only needs to make a few lines of code and realistically, not fantasy, realistically that is all it takes to collapse the fiat virtual currency system now running the show here in America, which will topple economies worldwide or at least damage them hard.

You call this fearmongering and such.  It's just talking about the Truth dude.  It is real, someone else, many others see it.  Are we all just crazy to you then?  Paranoid fools too lost in our fear and delusion to ever hope to see your version of reality?  I don't understand, just like you don't seem to understand.

It's whatever though, chances are a financial collapse won't happen, but still, those chances are lowered as people keep bringing up that potential move, putting whoever has the power to make that move in a hard place.  If you reveal yourself, you lose your power, and if others call out your next moves accurately, you're forced to not play them to try and shake off their perceptiveness.  To keep the illusion real.

Or maybe I'm just a nut job, who knows.  You can't seem to consider a different view from your own along this subject which seems rather odd for you, you seem pretty open about a lot of things.

I just wanted you to consider another view, not even embrace it, but just consider it's plausibility, but no.  I'm too tired to argue, you're not wrong in your views, neither is Scott in his.  It's all there, you just need to attempt to consider it, maybe you'd even find a way to bridge others to your understanding if you could come to meet theirs.  Either way, slavery is both real and not real for many different kinds of people, as a white male, I can't speak for the minorities who are treated even worse, but I promise you, many of them feel something is wrong with the world.  That problem is partially that they're trapped in a financial system that reduces their financial assets.  Another view is the authoritative apathy from the authorities and brutality from those same authorities who get away with rape and murder and torture, literally, against black people, against women, literally against mentally ill people, against addicts.  Suppressing them, abusing them, helping them only if its in the right circumstances to do so.  If that's not slavery then I can't try to explain it anymore.  You cannot make a blind man see the sight right in front of him...

But maybe, he can hear it.

You seem to be doing rather well for yourself, why don't you go spend some time with poverty stricken people, with minorities, with the mentally ill and homeless, you might see from their views the world, that they're not victims, they just ended up right where they were supposed to be if you paid any attention to society and their opinions of those types of things.  There's an entire side of this culture that is beyond apathy and judgment, they have no problem aiding a system that churns out prisoners and addicts and poverty and homelessness, they call it peaceful and say it is working just fine.

You don't have a clue it would seem.  I hope one day you do.  Peace be with you, and may you see one day the slaves that walk among you, who don't identify as such, but feel it nonetheless, that something is wrong with the society they are living in.

Sigh.  Does it really matter either way though if it is or is not real?  To many it is real...Isn't that enough to make it be called...Real? Or is the absence more noteworthy? Is it enough that others don't see it as real, to call it unreal?

[sjel]

Indeed, freedom is a rather interesting subject.  As Quo said in a channeling ( http://www.llresearch.org/transcripts/is..._0304.aspx ), the only entity which is truly free is the savage - for example, a wild animal.  They can pretty much do as they wish.  Humans like to create attachments for themselves (significant others, children, pets, jobs, hobbies, etc), which inherently limits freedom.  Perhaps this is what you are referring to as "natural laws"

At the societal level, I would certainly argue against the notion that authority over you is a "natural law".  Rather, it strikes me that this is an artificial and unnecessary construct set up by the Orion Group to enslave.  I choose not to be governed/controlled by the Orion Group.

By natural law I mean laws like gravity and the need to eat. But the perception that someone has authority over you is something that is perfectly within your power to control. Do you believe that anyone has authority over you and your free will?

I think it's more that they chose to experience enslavement while believing that they were free.  Certainly their Higher Self understands just how enslaved they are during this incarnation, but their job while incarnated is more related to "making the best of it" and helping others to learn their lessons.

I would argue that in fact they are free. Not just believing they are free, I think they literally are experiencing perfect freedom, because they believe they are. They do not care about attaining higher freedom (the hypothetical 'asleep' person we are talking about).

I choose to believe that no one is enslaved, because free will is revocable never.

I can agree with that at a certain level.  You had free will to choose that you would be enslaved - the enslavement is in the physical world, not the spiritual realms.

But some were put here to recognize the level of enslavement here right now in the physical in order to change it and to move towards creating a 4th density society.  It's not an accident when one sees it, and doesn't live in denial of it.  It's probably because they are here to help drive the process forward.

You seem set on the belief that there are people who are enslaved. I just do not think anyone is a slave, ever. Free will is the most basic foundation of this universe. There is really no other thing that is emphasized more when dealing with extreme positive entities. Reading the Ra channelings, and even Q'uo, there is the distinct sense that infringement upon free will itself is a natural law!

Actually I just realized that free will is a natural law that goes deeper than gravity in this universe. Free will is a natural law that extends well beyond the physical boundaries of third density.

You say that you were put here to "recognize the level of enslavement" here on Earth - have you considered that maybe this, too, is a belief system to be transcended? If this belief system causes you discomfort, or fear of any sort, it means that it does not resonate with your True Self!

One of my favorite quotes by the great John Lilly:

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limits... In the province of connected minds, what the network believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the network's mind there are no limits.

[Coordinate_Apotheosis]

By natural law I mean laws like gravity and the need to eat. But the perception that someone has authority over you is something that is perfectly within your power to control. Do you believe that anyone has authority over you and your free will?

Depends, is the weapon they have pointed at me or a friend?  If me, then yes, I am in control.  If my friend, then no, I do not have control of their life in my hands like I do my own.  I can be obstinate and take a bullet just to prove how free I am, that no one can control me except by killing me.

I can't say the same for someone else now at my mercy by my obedience to the person holding their life in their disposal based solely on my reactions.

So, it depends.  Just because I view myself as free doesn't mean I can just blatantly go around acting like it in every situation.  Sometimes you need to bow to get to a better place.

[sjel]

It's not enslaving feeling to you, but it is to many others, and you will see that one day.  

I feel like this is the the crux of your position. I don't understand it though. Do you think one entity should feel enslaved because another entity feels enslaved?

Free will transcends just about everything I can think of in this universe. I think I remember Bashar saying it was the second law of the Logos.

3.14 Questioner: This is slightly trivial, but I was wondering why, in that case, the pyramid was made of many blocks rather than the whole thing being created at once.
Ra: I am Ra. There is a law which we believe to be one of the more significant primal distortions of the Law of One. That is the Law of Confusion. You have called this the Law of Free Will.

Do you want APeacefulWarrior to feel enslaved? I do not understand your position.

[sjel]

Just because I view myself as free doesn't mean I can just blatantly go around acting like it in every situation.

But you are free. Perfectly free. You have literally chosen to experience every last detail of each and every moment. If you are in a position where a gunman is threatening your friend's life, you chose to experience that.

[APeacefulWarrior]

Sigh, okay, let me give you a very direct and concise example of my argument.

I cannot seem to persuade you to see another viewpoint, you are a slave to your own perspective and I am a slave to your perspective as long as I try to expose you to another perspective that conflicts with your own.

Whhhhhaaaatt?  You are a slave to my perspective?  NO.  No you are not, not in any way.  I outright absolutely refuse the sort of power over you that you're trying to project onto me with that statement.  If you -for some reason I cannot even comprehend- feel enslaved by the mere fact of someone having a different opinion on the subject than you, then that is YOUR problem to work through.

And in the meantime, it certainly does devalue the word "slave" to use it so carelessly.

(Not to mention the implication that the only way for you to feel free is for me to stop exercising my own freedom of speech.)

 It's not enslaving feeling to you, but it is to many others, and you will see that one day.  You won't be able to hide behind your comfortable perspective of how life is forever, there is a darker side and it won't stay at bay for your comfort.

So...  First you accuse me of somehow enslaving you with my thoughts, then you immediately turn around and attempt to tell me what I will be thinking someday.  Falsely perceiving me as having power over you, you in turn attempt to exert power over me.  

Is it really so hard to just accept I have a different opinion on the matter and let this be a philosophical discussion?

A financial collapse is honestly probable enough to be a little bit concerning . . .

But we weren't talking about a financial collapse.  That has nothing to do with free will, aside from being another exercise thereof.

You cannot make a blind man see the sight right in front of him...

Ah yes.  "This person disagrees with me so therefore he must be blind and ignorant."  I was not even remotely this insulting or degrading in my reply to you.

You seem to be doing rather well for yourself, why don't you go spend some time with poverty stricken people, with minorities, with the mentally ill and homeless, you might see from their views the world, that they're not victims, they just ended up right where they were supposed to be if you paid any attention to society and their opinions of those types of things.  There's an entire side of this culture that is beyond apathy and judgment, they have no problem aiding a system that churns out prisoners and addicts and poverty and homelessness, they call it peaceful and say it is working just fine.

You don't have a clue it would seem.  I hope one day you do.

And now you call me clueless, again, because I have a different view on the matter of free will than you do.  Did you really not notice how outright insulting you were being throughout this reply?  You spend all this time accusing me of being unable to accept other points of view, even as you end up throwing schoolyard-level insults at me for having different ideas.

Or does this all go back to your misapprehension that I'm somehow enslaving you by having a different opinion and the ability to express it?

Furthermore, I alluded to this but let me just say it outright:  I am not living in the West.  I'm actually living in SE Asia, where there is quite a lot of poverty and other bad things.  This does not change my view on free will. The everyday people here are not slaves just because a great many of them are poor. In fact, I tend to suspect they would be greatly insulted if you said such a thing to their face. You're disempowering and debasing millions of people just because there is a sad small minority who are in truly terrible circumstances, such as being trapped in sex slavery rings. If there are slaves here, THOSE are the slaves. Not the everyday people.

And on top of that, I never said anything like "Everything is peaches and gravy and there is no poverty and no crime and no bad things happening anywhere."  That is one gigantic strawman you created so you could tear it down rather directly address than anything I actually said on the subject of slavery or free will.   Of course there are very unpleasant things in the world.  That is -as I said- an inevitability in a veiled world with a mixed STO/STS population.

Just because there is a minority who are in truly dire circumstances does not mean that everyone, everywhere, is a slave.  I don't deny those people's existence.  What I DO deny is that someone who's in a position to be spending loads of free time arguing on an Internet forum has any good reason to use the word in regards to themselves.  If anything, the fact that there are still -quite regrettably- some people who are slaves in a much more literal chains-and-torture sense makes it even more absurd.

If you really want to see yourself as a slave, I can't stop you. But I can still point out how unfortunate such a point of view is, and how you're leaving yourself open to manipulation and victimization by taking such a victimized attitude towards your own life.

[APeacefulWarrior]

None of the above.  I choose to fix it.

Out of sheerest curiosity, are you doing anything practical to "fix" the situation? Or does your definition of "fix" simply mean "Cheering for a global collapse while praying something better rises from the ashes of the world"....?

Either way, though, that just illustrates my point: You are choosing to live in circumstances which cause you to feel enslaved, even when there are many other options available for other ways of living. What kind of "slavery" is it which you are effectively free to walk away from at any point? If you voluntarily choose to remain behind to help -in whatever way you feel is helping- then fine, great. That doesn't mean you're a slave. If anything, it means the exact opposite.

By that slavery logic, every Wanderer on Earth is a "slave" for choosing to try to come help rather than staying on the other side.

It's not for me.  I don't care what you think, unless you actually add to a discussion.  Many others don't like to feel judged when bringing up a point which you just happen to disagree with.  You don't know the first thing about what GreatSpirit posted, yet you felt the need to make a fairly considerable judgment about it and him in a backhanded way.  That kind of has a tendency to shut down a discussion.

Tendency?  Once again, this is an open forum and you are free to write whatever you like.  To rephrase my questions above, why should you care what some a-hole American expat living halfway around the world thinks about your ideas?  If you TRULY did not care, you would be posting whatever you wanted without any regard for whether I agree, disagree, or whatever else.

Plus, if you haven't noticed, I will leave a thread if the consensus is firmly against me - like in that "war war war" thread. Except I don't do it while claiming I'm somehow a slave just because other people disagree with me. I make a choice to express my opinion, then I make a choice to cease expressing that opinion while allowing others to continue expressing their opinions. Simple. On the other hand, you have repeatedly pointed at me as an excuse for your decisions in what to write.  You try to hand off power over yourself to someone who resolutely DOES NOT WANT that power.  I reject your scapegoating.  You have free will.  You have the freedom to write whatever you want.  And if you choose not to exercise that freedom, that is 100% entirely a deliberate willful act of self-restraint.

(Just like your willful decision to continue living someplace where you feel oppressed.)

Not to mention, GreatSpirit has said nothing like that.  You are projecting your own self-image onto GreatSpirit, scapegoating me on his behalf.  In the process, you are also dis-empowering GreatSpirit and discrediting his own free will. Are you truly that devoted to your slavery point of view, that you'll simply assume everyone around you lacks agency in their own actions and invent oppressors for them?

[ScottK]

Out of sheerest curiosity, are you doing anything practical to "fix" the situation?  

Yes. It was/is quite important. No details are forthcoming, however.

[APeacefulWarrior]

Out of sheerest curiosity, are you doing anything practical to "fix" the situation?  

Yes.  It was/is quite important.  No details are forthcoming, however.

So you are capable of making decisions for yourself!  And you are capable of simply choosing what you do and do not say, without pointing fingers at other parties. Awesome!

Why not try that approach more often, instead of telling yourself that your actions are someone else's fault, hmm?  

[Minyatur]

I think he was just trying to point out that if you think you're free, you're more deeply enslaved than you might want to believe

This seems a whole lot like a quote I really loved before turning to spirituality and perceiving things through the nature of spirit.

None is more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe to be free.

While I thought this was true, I think in term of spirit it is the exact opposite and now I say : No spirit is more enslaved that one that perceives itself as such.

Think of all the worst restrictions upon one's freedom you can think of, and I tell you that a truly free spirit will still do the great work through them so long it did not let go of perceiving its spirit as free.

If you were truly free, you'd have no fear and the knowledge of how to cross an intersection that is empty regardless of a red light.  You could treat it as a stop sign then go, but no, mostly we will sit, and wait, for no reason other than, because I've learned to not go on a red light.

Most people are just on auto-pilot though so I don't know about that.

If I wait at a red light with no one around. I'm most likely high with good music following an unconscious pattern that will allow me to arrive at the ending of a song. I took wrong turns on highways sometimes just to see it led to a 20 minutes song finishing right upon arrival.

The spiritual path is all about aligning oneself with the natural flow of the Universe. The ego will resist this in its constructs of identity, yet it is in the Universe that the core of itself lies and the flow it resists is but to have a centered and healthy relationship with one's own beingness.

[APeacefulWarrior]

While I thought this was true, I think in term of spirit it is the exact opposite and now I say : No spirit is more enslaved that one that perceives itself as such.

Well said.

I'd also say, accordingly, that there's no better way to turn a person into a slave than to convince them that they can be enslaved.

If I wait at a red light with no one around. I'm most likely high with good music following an unconscious pattern that will allow me to arrive at the ending of a song. I took wrong turns on highways sometimes just to see it led to a 20 minutes song finishing right upon arrival.

The spiritual path is all about aligning oneself with the natural flow of the Universe. The ego will resist this in its constructs of identity, yet it is in the Universe that the core of itself lies.

You ever lose track of where you are and just start taking turns automatically/instinctively, only to discover you ended up exactly where you wanted to go in the first place? It always impresses me when that happens.