Discussion: Divided We Fall

"Those who would give up essential liberty"

There is a reason Benjamin Franklin(as far as I know, according to your post as well) chose carefully those words, especially "essential".

Liberty is an extreme term.
There is the "I'm not at liberty to say" statement which prevents free speech about certain topics due to legal reprisals, even if the speech isn't harmful. There is "liberty" to kill others, either if there is no legal recourse or it is legally sanctioned as in wars.

He chose "essential liberty" to recognize and differentiate the liberties that are essential from those that are not; the liberties of the people that they need from those of the king who had liberties he did not deserve nor did anyone deserve, such as the liberty to tax without representation because of no consequences until the revolution.



It's funny how the meaning of words, which determine the meaning of an entire phrase and point of view, are lost to many people.

Benjamin Franklin knew the essentials. His colleagues knew. They tried to secure them in the Constitution, such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and the right to life and the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence.

It's funny that they wanted to make George Washington the king of the USA even while maintaining the liberties that people need and deserve, which Britain eventually adopted with an elected leadership while still retaining a royal family.





This is why I say "it is not bad so long as they have the essential freedoms" and make ti a point to cite "the freedom to harm" as a freedom nobody should have.

If nobody is free to harm another without consequence then nobody would have reason to fear harm from another human.
They could live life with "freedom from fear of other humans", which I would consider an essential freedom.


If you look at things from the proper perspective of a normal average person....Praetoria looks far from bad.
Given the fears and evils of our real world, that we know about, and the fears and evils of Praetoria....it's easy to see that Praetoria is closer to "heaven" than our real world has ever been. Sure, it's not perfect, but it is a lot closer than the real world.
In fact, Praetoria probably exemplifies our "essential freedoms", that the founding father's of the USA wanted for us, much better than out own country, especially these days.






But anyway, I don't want to get into a political debate, and I shouldn't post here anymore on this topic. It has gone too far.







Edit:

Yes, I consider it a battle between "absolute freedom" and "justice". The Resistance want "absolute freedom" at the cost of safety, security, peace, justice and even happiness. The Loyalists, the good Loyalists, want peace and happiness and justice at the expense of "the freedom to harm" and such.

It's like the "I would rather have freedom and be miserable than not have freedom and be happy" without ever explaining what you mean by "freedom", as in what freedoms you want.
Also, nobody would "rather be miserable" as they would fight to make things better, probably taking essential freedoms away from others in the quest for happiness.


I guess the question of the Praetorian faction choices is:
"Do you value absolute freedom above all else or do you value justice while retaining essential freedoms?"

That can be applied to both factions, as well as each faction as a whole, as the Crusaders and Power groups both value their own absolute freedom over justice while the Wardens and Responsibility group both value justice and essential freedoms, such as the lives of the people.

Amazed at how you perverted Liberty to make attempt to make tyranny look acceptable......The revolutionary war was against tyranny.

Ok, clarifying my statements and the revolutionary war reasons.




It was against specific "acts of tyranny".

Obviously, people were more happy with their king in Britain than in America. There was a reason for that. The reason was different treatment.

If there wasn't all the "taxation without representation" and other issues then the American Colonies would not have rebelled.



People just want to live and live happily. Good people really do.
They don't want to harm others, don't want to steal and don't want to even think about government.
They just want the "essential liberties" such as the freedom to live and the freedom to pursue happiness.





Also, you're applying "tyranny" to describe acts that may not be "tyrannical".

For example, if the laws of Praetoria are all "tyrannical" then the laws of our real world are as well, even in the most democratic government.

It is only "tyranny" if the acts of the government are "tyrannical".



Sure, there probably are "tyrannical acts" in Praetoria making the government a "tyranny", but the same can be said of any government in the real world, such as the USA's regulation of the finances of all the people and their addiction to raising taxes instead of fixing their idiotic budgeting.


So really, Praetoria certainly isn't any worse overall than the real world, better in fact. It has some worse things that need to be dealt with, but the system needs far less changes than the real world's completely broken systems.





Look at Praetoria from an objective point of view, the point of view of an ordinary citizen that just wants to live happy and safe with the freedom to do what they want so long as it doesn't harm others(thus robbing others of freedoms).

Would you rather have the freedom to rob freedoms from others, absolute freedom, or would you rather have a system that brings peace and justice and has far less fear?

Would you rather tolerate fearing every one of your fellow humans being able to do evil or tolerate just a couple bad programs in the government that actually do bring you more peace and security and freedom from fear despite the few other fears they bring?


It's not an easy choice. But, at least Praetoria is relatively free from rampant crime and fear compared to the real world and certainly a LOT better than Primal Earth where villains such as Lord Recluse are left in power by the UN due to international laws on sovereignty and even Paragon City is overrun by villains.





You want to call Praetoria evil and a horrible place to live? Shovel the crap covering everywhere in your home of Primal Earth first.

We have to truly make Primal Earth(and our own real world) as good or better than Praetoria before we can call Praetoria "bad".

Primal earth(and our real world) is far from "as good as" or "better than" Praetoria.
Stop throwing stones in your glass houses and see the truth. Primal Earth(and our real world) is easily proven to be worse.








Edit:
I also don't see Praetoria having any law preventing people from having too many children like one huge country in the real world. I bet the people of that country would rather live in Praetoria if given the choice, as well as anybody else from any worse off country.

You really need to look at all the factors before you jump to "omg, they have one person with power over everyone....they're absolute EVIL!".

No factors need to be looked at - a dictatorship is always evil.

Then humanity is clearly evil.

Every civilization can trace it roots to a dictatorship of one form or another. Many of which did a fine job of caring for said civilization.

They did and do choose who leads them.

They do so either through willingly giving power or by doing nothing, thus willingly accepting the rule of that one person.


No dictator can stay in power without the support of the people, not even Emperor Cole.

Why else would he be trying to hide the truth from people? Obviously, he needs their support. Though, hiding the truth never works well enough or long enough. So the Resistance, the warden side, pops up, and other people probably know but still just don't want to change things because they are happy/content.


Anyway, they elected Cole and the majority still support him, otherwise he wouldn't have power anymore or there would at least be an all out civil war rather than an underground resistance movement.

They weren't drugged when they elected him, though, and I'd be willing to bet that if they ran a second round of elections this very day Cole would still win by a wide margin. And there is representation in Praetoria, a chamber full of sycophants calling themselves senators that give legitimacy to Cole's perpectual rule. Too bad they keep following his every whim. Why wouldn't they? After all, Cole controls everything, the police, the courts, the media, not to mention that the whole Praetorian workforce consists of clockwork that follow his every command.

Face it, GG, the problem with Tyrant isn't that he's withholding the people's right to vote, but rather that he and his goons have unlimited power and zero accountability, and have used and abused that power to perpectuate a system of absolute dependence from which the average Praetorian cannot possibly escape.

It's nonsensical to say that if you don't oppose Cole's regime then you're evil and part of the problem. A normal person without superpowers rightfully fears the Hamidon, the Destroyers, the Syndicate, he interdimensional invaders, and wouldn't want to risk his family's lifestyle without some sort of guarantee that the outcome will be better than the status quo. What would people do, just blow everything up, then pack up and head into the nuclear wastes?

Do you want to make a difference in Praetoria? Get the truth out, fight for a bill of rights, lobby for due judicial process rather than vigilante expediency, ensure adequate defenses to protect against the Devouring Earth and Vanguard/Arachnos/Longbow invaders, THEN hope that the next round of elections offers actual representation, not mere puppet shows.