>But your list - a single item - started with money, didn't it? Nothing to do with "freedom" in most people's eyes.
>
>It was one example - I wanted to see how Tore would respond.
>
>OK, "nothing to do with freedom" - doesn't keeping a substantial portion of what you earn count as a 'freedom' for you?

No, not at all.
Now I could agree with you *IF* my earnings were grabbed from me with no real rhyme or reason, in varyig amounts that suited the grabber's whim at the time.
But the fact of the matter is that here (and in the U.S.) our taxes are set by the democratic institutions I help to elect and so have my tacit 'approval'.

I do believe that our electoral system is badly broken (both of ours, and especially the U.S.'s). And I greatly resent the fact that tax shelters/loopholes/schemes are actually available only to the rich.
But as long as we continue to elect our representatives and those representatives set taxation policy then any issue of "how much" has nothing to do with "freedom".

Being forced to wear a seat belt or a helmet does relate to "freedom", by contrast, but since they both have the general public's welfare in mind we put up with that kind of thing.
But it is surprising to me (and most non-Americans I suspect) that listening in on phone calls and watching internet traffic and intercepting bank movements (SWIFT) and looking over library or video store records etc is deemd acceptable by the residents of the "land of the free".

>
>Kevin