Free Things vs. Freedom

And, it's free! is a claim one often hears from advertisers. This is a moral warning equivalent of But, it's legal! Invariably, with the calculus of extended morality, that is, analyzing the impact of the free or legal thing.

Only Free Things in Life

1. The only thing that is free in life is friendship wherein a friend is willing to give you more time than the friend expects of you the recipient of the friendship. This equivalence of friendship and free time is why the origin of the word friend comes from free, that is, Middle English freo. The free time from a friend increases one's freedom from the problems of life. How many infants would survive if their parents did not give time after the infant's birth?
2. The only thing that is greater than the free time from a friend is the free time from someone who truly loves you such as a parent or a spouse. A true lover of you will not only work for you (give up free or play time) but will willingly lay down limb and life for you. Love is not only superior to friendship in the greater time giving to a beloved over a befriended but this superior relationship is captured in the Middle English for love, that is, freon which is the superlative of freo, the word for friend. How many great achievements owe existence to the free time that a lover gave so a beloved could have the freedom and free time to achieve?
3. Freo and Freon are not the only semantic words that justify the relationship of free time and freedom. Consider the Latin word for love, amora. It is not by chance that the Latin, as emphasized and championed by timism, is the almost moral. Moral was ascribed to those who had more time because their lifestyle lead to more needed things which extended the lives of moral persons. One could argue that amora evolved out of the relationship of people with more time giving more time over time, that is, amora means "of more time." To with, she is the recipient of more time from him. He is enamored by and to her.
4. True love gives more time than it takes with the beloved being the recipient of more time from a moral lover. Immoral lovers are the sweet lips that utter the word love without a willingness to give up personal freedom so that the proclaimed belove can have more free time. For many phonies, love is a check written on an empty bank account in which there is no money. Given that time is money and money is time as well as given that the word currency derives from "What is your current time worth?" it is not a stretch to that true love is a willingess to give free time to the beloved.
5. Good parents give more time freely to morally raise their kids so their kids are independent porblem-solvers who create time for self and others, knowing both happiness and joy. Bad parents do not give time to their children. They may say that they love their children but their walk shouts louder than than their talk. Indirectly, parents who give time but do not structure the time to create problem-solvers are worse than the igknowant parent who does not give time.
6. Bad parents are problem-causers causing problem-causers--spoiled brats. Spoiled brats are cancers that metastasize the loss of freedom for other children. Where does peer pressure come from that many parents blame as the main competition for their children going astray? Problem-solvers or problem-causers? Working teenagers or spoiled brats?
7. As noted in the "Most Expensive Things in Life Are First Free" , most purportedly free things have a hidden, long-term cost that obviates any claim to free. Free love is too often eighteen years of child-rearing costs. Free financial advice is too often many years of lost retirement as savings disappear. There are no free lunches.
8. Except for the friendship and love, there are no free things if one does the calculus of extended morality. Situational ethics in which one cares only about the short-term time-savings by ignoring the long-term time-losses can be found in personal relationships and public policies. The person who writes the emotional check of "I love you" on an time-empty account is a person who cares only for the short-term time-losses, e.g, an unintended infant that obligates eighteen years of child-rearing time. The patriotic, flag-waving politician who wraps himself in the flag as he initiates a pre-emptive war with a peace plan is no different than the horny bastard who fathers kids with no plan to support them.

Free things versus freedoms

1. Free things are like so-called freedoms. Of the latter, one does not have freedoms and rights as much as how (from education and legislation) one has the encouragment and laws to seek freedom from problems and to right wrongs.
   1. When a friend or lover gives time to another, the other has more time.
   2. When a person exercises a freedom or right then our world has more time.
2. As it is immoral for one to claim freedom of speech in justifying the yelling of "fire!" in a crowded theater, so is it immoral for one to claim free when a calculus of extended morality shows an inevitable loss of time.
3. If one's actions create more time then one is exercising a freedom. If one's actions give more time to another then one is expressing friendship or love.
4. Freedoms create time while friendship and love transfer time. Hopefully, the friends and lovers have exercised freedoms to create the time that transfered. This, sadly, is not true of politicians who transfer time that they did not create. In a government in which taxes are used only to solve public problems, total taxation is less because there are fewer problems as the efficient, ethical and moral politicians create time by solving problems. Despotic politicians dispossess and de-privilege the many in order to transfer time to their family, friends and donors.

There is not, never has been, and never will be anything free in the marketplace.

1. When a drug dealer offers a free sample to non-users, it is a ploy to enslave the person free from drug addiction to the prison of drug-user who becomes economically chained to the drug dealer, an enslavement wherein the user focuses his time on getting drugs. This model is an apt analogy for the emotional dealers on Capital Hill, on Wall Street, and on Madison Avenue.
2. There are no free markets only competitors trying to change the degree of peoples' freedoms by orchestrating business activities to benefit special interests.
   1. Politicians: Politicians promise feebies if you elect them. As corruption scandal after corruption scandal shows, there are no political freebies unless, as pointed out above, you're a politician's friend or lover. Are you? If you are not, then you are the person who will one day pay for the politician's freebies to buy your vote.
   2. Wall Street: A free market doe not exist if the transactions cause loss of freedom for the many so a few can have more freedom. Beware of free financial advise which has cost more savings and retirement dollars than communism but not as much as political promises which are costing us our future.
   3. Madison Avenue:
      1. Free Advertisement: The job of advertisers is to get people to buy things they don't need and cannot afford--Did the non-drug user need the free drugs?
      2. Spin: The job of public relations is to get people to buy excuses they don't need and can't afford--Didn't the drug dealer tell you that your parents were wrong about drugs, that is, drugs are good for you?

Bait and Switch

1. Internet advertisers have started using the word free to attract visitors when there is nothing free. For instance, "Free Download" used to mean that you could get either free software or a trial versions. Now, "Free Download" is like there is no charge for downloading the software after you pay for it. This misuse of free has several analogies
   1. It is like a store starting to promote itself "Free shopping"--So, shopping was always free. It was the buying that was not free.
   2. It is like falling out of an airplane does not kill you. It is the sudden stop.
   3. Or, as Bill Clinton would say, "It depends on your definition of free."
   4. It is like the whore who advertises free sex as long as you pay a cleanup charge.
2. Another internet free scam is free software with a hidden monthly fee. The easiest way to get a credit card company to stop paying the monthly fee is to change credit cards. I was asked for the original purchase receipt when I never purchased in the first place. Credit card protection is like health insurance and constitutional rights, you have to fight for what is rightfully yours.

Why And, It's Free! is the same as But, It's Legal!

1. Except for friendship and love, there are no free things in life. All other proclamations of free things invariably have hidden costs in time that the proclaimers are not stating in the disclosures of the situational moment whether ethics, sales or lust. Knowingly or unknowningly, proclaimers of And, it's free are liars which is affirmed over time with the calculus of extended morality.
2. But, It's Legal! is often the refrain and jusfitication by people in business, media, public relations and advertising when confronted with the immorality of so-called free things. As a half truth is a whole lie so is a legal law passed by immoral politicians a whole lie. If the legality is not logical and moral then the claims of But, It's Legal are the refuge of the illogical and/or immoral.
3. The rising frequency of And, It's Free and But, It's Legal indexes a decline in the quality of a society, a government,  and a people.

Quantification of free things and freedom (All other things being equal)

1. A person who has two days of freedom before prison or death has twice as much freedom as the person who only has one day of freedom.
2. A parent who gives two hours of time to a child is twice as good as the parent who gives only one hour a day.
3. A friend who gives you two hours of help a week is twice as good as the friend who gives you only one hour per week.
4. A husband who gives two hours a day to his spouse is twice as good as the husband who gives only one hour a day.
5. A free product that cost you ten hours in delayed costs is not twice as free as something that costs you only five hours. Neither are free. A good example are the merchants who say the goods are free with no interest or payments for two years. More often than not, the downpayment covers the product cost with the final payments representing usury. The purported free product that costs you twice as much time in delayed cost is twice as enslaving in taking time from the victim of unfree things. As free things and freedoms are synonymously equivalent--more time--then the opposite of one is the opposite of the other, that is, the opposite of freedom is oppresion and slavery. Likewise, and explaining from a more universal perspective, the free things mass communicated by Madison Avenue are chains of slavery.

Afterthoughts:

1. Sluts versus whores: One is more likely to get a sexually transmitted disease from your average free slut compared to an orgasm with a high priced quality tart. Like the 18-years of child costs from so-called free sex, the lifelong cost of treating an STD is greater than buying a first-class clean piece of ass. The most expensive things in life are first free.
2. Japanese have a saying that the most expensive things in life are first free. A corollary is that the more expensive, the more attractive is the supposed freedom. No free thing has been so expensive as the promise of a free afterlife with eternal bliss or eternal virgins, e.g., Christianity and Islam. Because there is a better world elsewhere and elsetime other than and after this plantet, it is ok to trash this planet. The CO2 sinning encouraged major religions is based on a promised freedom that does not exist except in the false pride of igknowant minds, i.e., I no want truth.