[QUOTE=Thorne;904608]Yeah, I for one am getting very tired of all those corporation thugs coming around and forcing me into the stores to buy and buy and buy. I don't seem to have a choice anymore. Just spend, spend, spend or they'll take my family away and torture them. [/sarcasm]

Thanks, but I think I just about spotten that sarcasm ;-)

To my mind, anyone who complains about "materialism" is only complaining because people have the choices and the means to buy things. No one is required to buy anything except the essentials.
True, of course, except that we are told that we will not be happy if we do not buy this that or the other, for one thing.
It tends to take away the attention from other more important things as well.
I do not have all the words in my head right now, but I truly believe that 'the people' are there to buy, and the corps are the masters.

Having 15 kind of soap powder is not really nessecary for freedom, IMO, but this tendency does empty our the resources of the world which are not infinite.

But having the choice implies having the freedom to choose, and to some people that freedom is heresy. People who have the freedom to choose which car to buy, or which TV program to watch, or which religion to believe in just might realize that they can have a choice in whether or not some asshole preacher/minister/priest/rabbi/imam should really be allowed to control other peoples' lives! Can't have that, now, can we?
The funny thing is that in so many mails on mine I have gone on and on about how important choices are, and how taking people's choices away from them is treating them like things.
But I cannot see that having the choice of 124 kinds of radio is important, nor does it have anything to do with freedom of religion, or of the press, or any other freedom.

If it does, please explain, because I do not see it.