# Some questions about the western world **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 2, 2013, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958 "2013-06-02T17:36:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/21 "2013-06-02T21:51:12Z")
> [@General\_Bean](#): > > Exactly, I worry about this all the time. > > Spoons: > I’m just wondering how it is that modern society is so full of bullshit. I know there’s a few places where you can live in communes, where the only authority is your sanity, but those are usually filled with (wannabe) anarchists and the like. Considering you are an anarchist yourself (at least going by your views) I don’t see the problem. > [@](#): > > Also, on the topics you linked people seemed very ignorant. I suppose when you discuss things like this people think you are a threat to their way of living. I don’t care how everyone wants to live, if you want to have two children and a white picket fence, that’s great. But it should be possible to be a nomad if you wish, too. You can. Nobody’s stopping you from hitchhiking around the country or buying an RV to roam around. > [@](#): > > There are quite some nomads in Asia still, but the westernization is threatening their lifestyle. What makes the consumerist society we live in so much better than their world? At least they can take care of themselves if the government makes a mistake (not a rare thing). They don’t claim ground, or leave trash wherever they please. Have you not considered that most people (including nomads) actually prefer our way of “consumerist” life? And the superiority of this lifestyle is borne out by statistics on life-span, infant mortality, and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/22 "2013-06-02T21:59:52Z")
> [@General\_Bean](#): > > I’m just wondering how it is that modern society is so full of bullshit. I know there’s a few places where you can live in communes, where the only authority is your sanity, but those are usually filled with (wannabe) anarchists and the like. The problem with living outside of society has always been that one meets the most _awful_ people. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/23 "2013-06-02T22:21:52Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Considering you are an anarchist yourself (at least going by your views) I don’t see the problem. It’s not uncommon for people to want to be free of constraints themselves while not wanting to deal with the unconstrained actions of other people. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/24 "2013-06-02T23:21:22Z")
What do you want to do that society says you can’t? Be a nomad who answers only to himself? Sorry, thousands of years of cultural experiments have shown lawlessness will bite you in the ass. AFAIK, movement unless you disrespect the rights of others (land ownership and whatnot). ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/25 "2013-06-02T23:29:17Z")
It is a curios thing that none of this seems to happen in the UK. That may be because the State here is represented by the Sovereign. For example, if you are prosecuted, the case will be You vs Her Majesty The Queen, not You vs some amorphous State body. Taxes are collected by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, so failure to pay would result in prosecution by Her Maj. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/26 "2013-06-02T23:34:11Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > It is a curios thing that none of this seems to happen in the UK. [They exist there too](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/British_Constitution_Group). ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/27 "2013-06-02T23:50:04Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > It is a curios thing that none of this seems to happen in the UK. That may be because the State here is represented by the Sovereign. For example, if you are prosecuted, the case will be You vs Her Majesty The Queen, not You vs some amorphous State body. > > Taxes are collected by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, so failure to pay would result in prosecution by Her Maj. Hate to break it to you, but the U.K. is not immune to this form of legal denialism: [ [QUOTE= RationalWiki] It then crossed over to the UK with organisations such as the British Constitution Group and people such as John Harris, Brian Gerrish, the Anti-terrorist, Raymond St Clair and Dominic Lohan. Freeman arguments came to UK public attention when they tried recruiting amongst the more anarchist-leaning protesters at the Occupy London protests in late 2011, and even got two articles in the Guardian.[8][9] These were promptly slapped down by actual lawyers who detailed how this was dangerous idiocy that would send you directly to jail.[10][11][12][13] Freeman ideas are now an object of amusement for the British legal profession.[14] [/QUOTE] ](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Freeman#History) On preview: Ninja’d by Der Trihs ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/28 "2013-06-03T00:09:51Z")
> [@General\_Bean](#): > > _How can the government decide they have authority over me?_ > [@General\_Bean](#): > > _Why can’t I go wherever I want?_ > The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: If the government isn’t supposed to claim authority over a single person, how is it ever going to get authority over universal human rights? > [@General\_Bean](#): > > _Why can countries claim land, but humans not?_ You can. Fundamentally all questions of authority boil down to might. If you claim land and can successfully defend it against attackers, well, it’s yours. Every institution was created by people. > [@General\_Bean](#): > > There’s barely any unclaimed land in the world where I can just go and live freely, it’s all claimed by an ‘authority’ or deemed unclaimable. You know how you didn’t get to choose where you were born? You also didn’t get to choose _when_ you were born, so you just got dumped into a world full of other people. Sorry. There are 7 billion people in the world. They’re probably not going away, and most of them want to live in a world with other people around them, so there’s just going to be society nearly everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/29 "2013-06-03T00:20:15Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > It is a curios thing that none of this seems to happen in the UK. That may be because the State here is represented by the Sovereign. For example, if you are prosecuted, the case will be You vs Her Majesty The Queen, not You vs some amorphous State body. That’s true in Canada as well, but they have sovereign citizen types there. I even came across a website once that claimed that Victoria was the last legitimate sovereign of Canada. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/30 "2013-06-03T00:34:44Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > \*No man is an island entire of itself; every man > is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; > if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe > is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as > well as any manner of thy friends or of thine > own were; any man’s death diminishes me, > because I am involved in mankind. > And therefore never send to know for whom > the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. \* Are you Donne yet? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/31 "2013-06-03T00:49:03Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > And even when you die, your loved ones . . . can’t have a barbecue of your body parts . . . A law I could vote to repeal. What harm? If everyone (alive) consents, and I’ve given my prior consent in my will…why not? It’s icky, but so what? Lots of legal things are icky. Say the body is cremated, and I put a pinch of the ashes on top of my sandwich, every day for some years. Objectively speaking, is there really a difference? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/32 "2013-06-03T00:59:19Z")
And BTW, there’s nothing exclusively “Western World” about having to submit to society’s rules as to what can you do where and when, and about what you and the society owe one another. Humans are social creatures, and every civilization has mores and laws that constrain your untramelled action; even nomadic cultures do. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/33 "2013-06-03T01:16:06Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > That’s true in Canada as well, but they have sovereign citizen types there. According to [RationalWiki](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Freeman_on_the_land#History) it may well have actually _started_ in Canada. > [@](#): > > The freeman movement itself appears to have originated in Canada with “Mary Elizabeth: Croft” (sic) and her 2005 book _How I clobbered every bureaucratic cash-confiscatory agency known to man … a Spiritual Economics Book on $$$ and Remembering Who You Are._ This evolved into a Canadian movement, with advocates such as Robert Menard — who appears to have actually coined the phrase “Freeman on the land,” with the phrase achieving currency some time around mid-2008. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/34 "2013-06-03T01:31:22Z")
> [@General\_Bean](#): > > Where I live you can’t even dig in your own garden, you only own the top bit of land. Even the top bit isn’t actually yours, the state can take it from you at any point in time (and they don’t even have to pay you for it). Not that I believe this assertion of yours for even a minute, but, what the hey, here’s my question: You wouldn’t happen to have a reputable cite for that assertion, would you? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/35 "2013-06-03T04:21:25Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > And BTW, there’s nothing exclusively “Western World” about having to submit to society’s rules as to what can you do where and when, and about what you and the society owe one another. Humans are social creatures, and every civilization has mores and laws that constrain your untramelled action; even nomadic cultures do. Seems to me the “Eastern World” is a heck of a lot stricter about social conformity. ---
**Author:** ![Leipzig\_Jesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/0ea827/32.png) [@Leipzig\_Jesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leipzig_Jesus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/36 "2013-06-03T06:01:18Z")
I wonder where most of you guys live (probably Merrica), since here you can’t do a lot of the stuff he wants. Here I wouldn’t be able to even drive around the country in a RV and live in it, at night I’d have to sleep in a house or park it on a designated parking lot (which I’ve seen only once) and pay big money for a night. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/37 "2013-06-03T06:15:00Z")
That is rather a shame. Cross-country vacations in an RV, parking overnight on lonely dirt roads, is…well, kinda fun. It does require honesty and integrity, not to empty the waste tanks into drainage ditches, etc. Some people spoil it for everyone else by acting irresponsibly. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/38 "2013-06-03T06:28:05Z")
Germany (which I’ll assume from the “Leipzig”) doesn’t have campgrounds or rest stops where one could park an RV overnight? I’d guess that might be the result of a far smaller territory with less of a concept of “wide open spaces” and such. Just for laughs… Germany: 357,114 square kilometers United States: 9,629,091 square kilometers Canada: 9,984,670 square kilometers Well, there you go. We North American types would find Germany to be awfully claustrophobic. Heck, I live in a _province_ that’s about the size of Western Europe combined. I could get in an RV (if I had one) and drive on one freeway for ten hours and still be in my province. What’s a ten-hour drive in Europe involve? Crossing four national borders? And, yes, I could find lots of places to park, because there’s just so much _place_ here. ---
**Author:** ![Leipzig\_Jesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/0ea827/32.png) [@Leipzig\_Jesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leipzig_Jesus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/39 "2013-06-03T07:18:55Z")
I suppose people who live in countries as big as America have an entirely different perception of concepts such as freedom of movement, due to the size of their country. Also, in most European countries it’s illegal to camp on a rest stop or on the side of the road, and campgrounds are often expensive. I don’t know about North America, but here, if you decide to drive around and live on campgrounds, you still need a house (that’s not on wheels) and live there a certain amount of months per year. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2013, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958/40 "2013-06-03T07:46:41Z")
My sister and brother-in-law spent over a year just traveling around the country in their RV. They had sold their house just before this and put some things into a storage unit. They dropped their son off at college on the first part of the trip. I asked them what they did when he came home for Christmas. Did they tell him, “Hitchhike out into the desert. We’ll meet you at the third cactus past the ghost town”? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-the-western-world/659958.md?page=3)