savage freedom

[igor]

All these discussions about smoking ban. It is not about smoking at all. It is about Argentina loosing its savage freedom spirit. I don't mean freedom in "ability to participate in elections" sense. Wild west type of freedom. Barbaric and irrational freedom. A feeling that you can do anything you want. Piqueteros are a good example of this, but it is more like an internal feeling and does not have to go to the extremes. People can greet each other in the middle of the road and stay there for a while talking and cars will go around them. Just because they want to. Nobody will question their right to stand there. Nobody will say that it is against a regulation number this and city ordinance number that.
I see garbage on the streets as a manifestation of this spirit. As well as many other things you people complain about here. And I like it better than neatly trimmed lawns of american suburbs with a cult of lawn mower as a key attribute of house ownership.
Now we have these printed paper sheets with black digits 1799 everywhere like portraits of big brother and people seem to have accepted it. As a reminder that if somebody tomorrow decides that in the middle of your dinner you have to run out and jump around a restaurant a little, because it is good for your health, you don't have any choice but to obey.
Some people can consider it as a progressive move for various reasons. Argentines may think it is good because it brings them closer to the US and European standards. Somehow I do feel that something important was taken from me. May be just my illusions

A joke:
A dog is digging out potatoes with a shovel working in a vegetable garden by the house. There is a small crowd of people on the other side of the fence watching this in disbelief. The dog turns to them at says: You know it all started when I learned how to bring my master a newspaper...

 

[maskow]

Well said, Igor.Especially as concerns the smoking ban, there's something specifically about it that seems to take the liberty right out of an otherwise libertarian.Not only that, I'm very, very surprised at the support it garners among otherwise conservative, limited-government types. If we were talking about any other legally consumed substance, an outright ban of this type.

 

[Elpanada]

This is a small step really and I don't think that it was taken on any long road but Argentina is not as free as many other countries in some ways like for example when it comes to getting the DNI, opening up a bank account, registering a cellphone #.
I have the feeling that I have forgotten about other freedoms that you enjoy elsewhere but not in Argentina. Anyone have anything to add to the list?

 

[malbec]

Freedoms that you enjoy elsewhere but not in Argentina? I have a few samples:-In many other countries you are free to stroll in your cell when you are caught without a working permit.-You can pick aisle or window seats for your deportation flight-You can choose your words while your phone calls are being recorded by the govt.-You can write your emails in any language you want to make it more difficult for your government to understand your messages.-You
are free to pick one of the following statuses: employee or unemployed.
If you want to take one year off you either pay social security,
medical insurance, etc as if you were an employee or you register
yourself as an unemployed.-In many countries you are free to
dreaming of preparing asado outdoors. You are then free to apply for
your turn at one of the long queues for those public places where it is
permitted to make fire.-In many other countries you are free to
pay some 40 dollars for your application to get a tourist visa. If for
some obscure reason you don't get the visa, you are then free to walk
out of the embassy and apply once more in the future.-In many other countries you are free to pay a fine (and maybe end up in jail for a night) if you drink a bier on a park bench.-In many other countries you are free to leave and wait at least 6 months before you get an extension for your tourist visa.

 

[nikad]

This is a small step really and I don't think that it was taken on any long road but Argentina is not as free as many other countries in some ways like for example when it comes to getting the DNI, opening up a bank account, registering a cellphone #.

I have the feeling that I have forgotten about other freedoms that you enjoy elsewhere but not in Argentina. Anyone have anything to add to the list?

Maybe these freedoms are such, just so you become the perfect slave?

 

[Elpanada]

Argentina the only place left on earth that's good? If we discount madness, paranoia, those few things which are specific to the USA and things associated with tourism and immigration then there has been no real reply to my question. Maybe you really do enjoy more freedoms in Argentina than elsewhere.

 

[nikad]

I am sure there are several places all over the world where you can have peace, freedom and a good standard of living and still be relatively safe.

 

[igor]

Elpanada,
When you speak about "freedom of getting the DNI", it looks like you are missing a concept of a foreign country. The rest of the things in your list are just inconveniences. And you experience them mostly because of you are trying to do something that is not really appropriate for a tourist.

 

[bigbadwolf]

Argentina the only place left on earth that's good?
If we discount madness, paranoia, those few things which are specific to the USA and things associated with tourism and immigration then there has been no real reply to my question. Maybe you really do enjoy more freedoms in Argentina than elsewhere.

You raise good points and more's the pity no-one has properly addressed them. The kind of freedom people seem to be discussing here is that of Robinson Crusoe or a mythic "Wild West," which exists only in Sergio Leone's films. We should be talking about freedom in society, where there are competing claims by individuals and by collective bodies (including the state) for various freedoms and prerogatives. Along with these come certain duties and responsibilities. Thus, lighting up a Marlboro might constitute freedom of sorts but it impinges on the health, desires, and freedom of others.
Freedoms in society are fragile and exist in a state of competing and adversarial social and political forces. We see an absence of many of these counter-forces in the USA, and hence we have an increasingly Orwellian national security state (but hey, that's what happens when the likes of Liebermann and Clinton are elected to high office).
As for more freedoms in Argentina, this is not because the state is benign: it's simply because it's incompetent. Thus there are are statutes on the books that are often flouted with impunity. In other areas, the state doesn't have the wherewithal ot tech expertise to do what, say, the USA is doing: eavesdropping on phone conversations or email messages. Likewise, probably, for monitoring illegal aliens (at which the US is not very good either).
If people want to live in society, and enjoy the privileges (as well as suffer the burdens) of such an existence, there has to be some compromise, some consideration, for others. If this is lacking, and they light up (for instance) whenever and wherever they feel like, the fabric of society suffers as a consequence. The mythic freedom such people desire can be found outside the confines of a social existence: some unpopulated area in Patagonia or Tierra del Fuego, for example.
(Edited because of typographical mistake)

 

[igor]

can be found outside the confines of a social existence: some unpopulated area in Patagonia or Tierra del Fuego, for example.

It looks like the ultimate freedom people enjoy here is a freedom to tell everybody else where to go.