Freedom

Hopefully this won't become a super long entry, but forgive me if it does.

I was reading some article yesterday about how some company (I think it was Warner Bros.) was planning to compete with the DVD bootleggers in China by selling their DVD's for really cheap (about the equivalent of $2-3 US). Even though this was still a little more than the price of bootleg copies, they figured people would be willing to pay a little more for having an "official" copy and to get it earlier. Which is probably true.

Well great, but what about us in America, where there really is no bootleg industry? If they can charge only $2-3 per DVD in China, why do we still have to pay $15-20 for the same thing (pretty much) here? Should we really be punished for not making as many pirated copies of DVDs as they do overseas?

If you go around and ask 100 people, I would expect that at least 99 of them would say no. And of course they would. The only reason I don't say 100 is because I figure maybe 1% of the population is A) Retarded, B) Works for a media giant like WB, or C) Both.

Anyways, I'm sure everyone who is smart enough to be reading my blog right now would agree that if a company is willing to sell their product for 3 bucks in China, they shouldn't be charging us 20 for the same thing over here. It just doesn't make sense. Ok, so maybe there's differences in taxes and standard of living is a factor, but a 600% difference? That's just not right. They're DVDs for crying out loud. Anybody with a computer and a DVD burner could produce DVD's, let alone a huge multi-billion dollar corporation like Warner Brothers.

I guess it's not really groundbreaking news to anyone that these large companies are all greedy bastards whose only goal is maximizing their profit. And hey, it seems that most Americans are fine with paying $20 for DVDs, so what's the big deal?

The larger issue that bothers me is that supposedly, we live in a society built on the grand concept of "freedom". We have laws that are specifically written to protect our freedom of speech, of religion, etc. Our economic system, as we were all taught in high school, is based on a "free" market philosophy. All of these things have made us the most prosperous nation on the planet.

And on the whole, it's hard to argue with any of the above things. Compared to pretty much any other country in the world today (or in the history of mankind, for that matter), we enjoy a quality of life that is far above that of anybody else.

However, I still think that in a lot of ways, we are a lot less "free" than we realize. It may not be that we are facing oppression by the government, or being physically enslaved by foreign conquerors. But the more I observe about life in this society, the more I notice that my freedoms are not as universal or sacred as I once believed.

In the past few years, I have come to the conclusion that often times, "freedom" is an illusion. More often than we might be led to think, "choice" is an illusion.

The DVD price thing is only one small example. But if you think about it, what are our choices when it comes to getting DVDs? We can either buy at Sam Goody for $25, Best Buy for $22, or Amazon for $19.99. Sure, we can choose not to buy it at all, but what I'm saying is, in reality we are being shortchanged as far as choices go. There is a fourth choice out there, buy it in China for $3, which happens to be unavailable to us. And that just doesn't seem right to me.

Even as we were discussing the title of that European song from my last entry, I wonder about how much freedom we have when it comes to choosing music in this country. How much of the stuff we listen to is because it's the best actual music, as opposed to the best marketed product? (I know what you're all thinking, this is coming from a guy whose favorite artist is Britney Spears, but try to hear me out nonetheless).

I mean, there's a lot of artists out there, and I don't deny that a lot of them are making great music. But there are times when I turn on the radio or I'm watching MTV and I can't help but wonder, how the hell did this crap make it onto the national countdown? There's gotta be something better out there than Jennifer Lopez or Lindsay Lohan's new songs, yet that is what we have to listen to. No it might not be Ozone's Dragostea Din Tei (by the way thanks for the info Vic and happy bday), but somewhere, someone must have decided what America is going to listen to (and like it) and what we are not going to listen to. That ain't right.

I could say the same thing about gas prices. We can believe all we want about a free market, supply and demand determining price, but in the end, does that really hold true when you head to the pump to fill up your car? When it costs you $1.80 per gallon one day and then $2.30 for that same gallon a week later, what can you really do about it? Get mad all you want at the government, but unless you want to walk or ride your bike to get places, or stay home entirely, you suck it up and pay that man his mahh-ney.

Probably the most egregious example I can think of was in this last election. We believe in our system of democracy and the inalienable right to vote for our country's leaders, at least many of us do. Which is great, but let's stop and think for a second about who we had to choose from. You've gotta be kidding if you want me to believe that out of over 200 million people in this country, the two best candidates we could come up with to be our President were George W. Bush and John Kerry.

My point is, what good is having a choice if you don't really have much to choose from to begin with? Can we really call it "freedom" if someone else is deciding what our options are? Like I said before, if this is the case, then our so-called "freedom" is little more than an illusion.

Of course, having a choice is probably better than not having a choice. And it's not like we aren't at all culpable for collectively acquiescing so many of our freedoms. Maybe if I made more of an effort to hear original music instead of just listening to the radio and watching MTV, I wouldn't have to complain about terrible songs being shoved down my throat. Maybe if I stayed more informed about politics and put more time into supporting good candidates for office, I wouldn't be stuck with two blue-blooded, special interest owned guys to choose from every 4 years in the Presidential election. Maybe we would've elected a guy who would have put more into developing renewable energy sources and then we wouldn't be as dependent on oil either.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.