Alex Xie

The taste of freedom

People always saying the United States of America is a free country, but what does it mean “Free”, as I grew up in China and have lived here for 3+ years, I have some feelings of the freedom.

Freedom of press

There are just tons of rumors and disinformation pumping out every second in the country. I think that’s just a side effect of free of expression. Spreading disinformation as individuals is free of punishment, because you can’t tell before it has been verify (lots of times), people tend to believe what they already believed, it’s kind of self self-reinforce cycle.

The world is complicate, there isn’t black-and-white truth most of time, everybody sees the side of the truth, the press tend to give side of truth because people like to watch what they’ve believed, if media takes no stands, no conclusion, very objective and unbiased, that would be very boring and not informative.

Free of fear

I’ve watched numerous times of this video free video, people can only be free when the government is constrained. Theoretically we can do anything we can as long as it doesn’t violate the law, we need to learn the rules (laws), the law should not change frequently, the law should make sense. We can sue the government anytime if we don’t agree. Protect the vulnerable is part of humanitarian but also for ourselves, because any of us can get into the dark side. We protect them is also protect ourselves (Is that part of empathy?).

Free of meaningless traditions

interesting video here as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVAhr4hZDJE

I only started know the “Procedural justice” til I arrived in the US. there are so many example of it, if the police doesn’t have decent evident of I did things wrong, they can’t interrogate me or ask anything from me, I have the right not to fear about that as long as I do things decently. There is no such thing in China I would say.

Lots of people live in US they don’t trust the government, neither the press. They trust their own judgement, they protect their own rights to bear guns.

The Amish life

I was astonished there are more than 200K+ Amish people living in the US, they don’t believe any modern techniques, most of them don’t speak English, they live the medieval lifestyle.

I don’t understand that choice, as I don’t understand the vegetarian lifestyle if not for environment purpose. But people has the right to live whatever kind of lifestyle they want, happy is subjective, they don’t have to harmony with the modern society.

Freedom of religion