“Agreat deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the needfor illusion is deep.”
― SaulBellow, ToJerusalem and Back

Most people like watching magicians. A good magician can pull off tricks that appear to be as real as the day is long through a series of methods involving subterfuge, sleigh of hand, and outright psychological manipulation that targets the propensity people have to not really pay attention when they think they are. I’d suspect that everyone has seen the classic trick of cutting someone in half. But I suspect fewer people know how it works and even fewer watch the crowds viewing such a thing with more curiosity than the act being carried out. If the crowd is watched, you’ll see three general reactions to such a sight: laughter and clapping from those that enjoy the trick, confusion from those that wonder how in the world the magician did it, and horror from those that actually think it’s real. The illusion of ‘freedom’ is one to which most people laugh and clap. But to ‘freedom’ they clap because they think it’s real. On the other hand, those that shake their head in horror at a show of ‘freedom’ are those that can see how the tricks are being manipulated. It’s the exact opposite of how people react to a magician’s tricks.

Icould explain how the US has more people incarcerated than any othercountry, which means we aren’t ‘free’. I could explain how the USpolitics are corrupted by a bully attitude that makes them thinkthey’re really in control, which would mean we aren’t free. I couldexplain how the existence of courts indicates we’re not free. I couldexplain how the political domination of only two major parties showswe’re not free. I could read the Pledge of Allegiance and point outthat ‘Republic’ is mentioned, but not ‘Democracy’. But the actualreasons that we aren’t, and by extension no one else, is even morefundamental. It’s so fundamental that people don’t even think aboutit, because they accept it at face value like those that recoil inhorror at a magician’s trick are accepting it at face value. And whenyou accept something at face value, you tend not to think about it,as the majority of people don’t think about the illusion of the word‘freedom’.

Alliances-The United States has a long history of entering into alliances. Thelongest running alliance is NATO, or The North American TreatyOrganization, which the US has been a part of for 70 years. Thistreaty specifically states that an attack on one is an attack on all,as most military alliances state in one way or another. The problemis that there are a total of 29 countries part of that alliance. Thatmeans that there are 28 other countries that have direct influence onthe United States through that single treaty. A prime example of thisinfluence is the conflict surrounding the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Wetell Germany, don’t do that, they responded with what amounts to‘bugger off, we’re done causing trouble’. Then the EU and othercountries get involved, why? Because Germany is in the EU, analliance itself, along with NATO, and those countries are worriedabout ‘Russian influence’. The alliance system means Germany isn’tfree of other countries influence. People like to forget that analliance is a rule structure that ties two or more countries togetherand therefore pushes influence both ways. There is nothing ‘free’about any alliance nor can any nation who’s in an alliance claim tobe ‘free’. It would be like a state in the US claiming to be ‘free’or like a county in a state making the same claim. They’re subject toa rule structure that precludes any notion of ‘freedom’.

Tradedeals- The US has free trade agreements with a total of 20 countries,not counting other trade deals with many others. Having a ‘free tradeagreement’ subjects the agreeing nations to rules that are laid outby the World Trade Organization. All countries in the agreement haveto follow those rules if they want to remain in the agreement. Thisputs their economies at the influence of each other. This puts theirtrade at the influence of each other. This puts their money systemsat the influence of each other. This means that their economies arefundamentally ‘unfree’ and subject to other nation’s interest.Calling a nation free that is part of a free trade agreement is likesaying a US nickle is free without taking into account all the rulesand regulations that surrounds that nickle in the larger currencysystem.

GenevaConventions- Not only is the US and other nations subject to the rulestructures of multiple military alliances and trade agreements, butthey’re also subject to the Geneva Conventions that has been ratifiedby every nation on the planet. This means in short that no country iseven ‘free’ when it comes to how they make war upon another nation.Everyone is tied to everyone else in having influence over them tokeep their war making in check.

Theidea of ‘freedom’ is an illusion like that created by a goodmagician. The purpose of the illusion of ‘freedom’ is to keep peopledocile and controlled, because the easiest way to keep people undercontrol is to present to them an illusion of freedom. I’m not sayingthis is fundamentally wrong. Few people can handle truths on thislevel, they get unruly when they realize their domesticated worldisn’t real, which is why the illusion of freedom exists in the firstplace. I’m just saying that before you start tearing your nation upfor ‘freedom’, you really want to examine what that actually means.Chances are it doesn’t mean what you think it means, but rather whatyou want to think it means. This also why the ‘woke’ culture is soannoying to others without the ‘woke’ understanding it: what they sayis based on illusions that most people don’t buy. You have to be ableto sell your illusion for people to buy it and some are more easilysold than others while some people are more easily sold to thanothers. However, that doesn’t mean everyone will always buy them,because some people think about things rather than regurgitatingwords and phrases some magician sold to them and they evaluate theirlives based on the rule structures around them rather than theillusions being sold to the masses.

Additional info:

Historyof United States and Its Alliances:https://www.realclearhistory.com/articles/2019/04/01/history_of_united_states_and_its_alliances_428.html

NordStream 2: Go-ahead for Russian gas pipeline angers Ukraine:https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50247793

FreeTrade Agreements:https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements

Whatare Rules of Origin and how do they apply to Free Trade Agreementsand tariffs?:https://www.austrade.gov.au/contact/faqs/what-are-rules-of-origin-and-how-do-they-apply-to-free-trade-agreements-and-tariffs

GenevaConventions and their Additional Protocols:https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/geneva_conventions