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“Poverty is its own cruel trap but still raises questions about whether we own our possessions or are owned by them. Somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania we saw a man who had tied the handle of a snow shovel to his belt and then piled all his belongings onto the blade, which sledded along behind him. Depending on your perspective he was either the freest man in the country or just the poorest.”
― Sebastian Junger, Freedom

“In modern democracies, however, an ethos of public sacrifice is rarely needed because freedom and survival are more or less guaranteed. That is a great blessing but allows people to believe that any sacrifice at all—rationing water during a drought, for example—are forms of government tyranny. They are no more forms of tyranny than rationing water on a lifeboat. The idea that we can enjoy the benefits of society while owing nothing in return is literally infantile. Only children owe nothing.”
― Sebastian Junger, Freedom

“Everyone—including people who vehemently oppose any form of federal government—depend on a sprawling supply chain that can only function with federal oversight, and most of them pay roughly one-third of their income in taxes for the right to participate in this system.”
― Sebastian Junger, Freedom

“Wealth is supposed to liberate us from the dangers of dependency but quickly becomes a dependency in its own right. The wealthier we are, the higher our standard of living and the more - not less - we depend on society for our safety and comfort. [,,] Poverty is its own cruel trap but still raises questions about whether we own our possessions or are owned by them.”
― Sebastian Junger, Freedom