When you picked your plan/phone you were not free, just a consumer.
How was I not free? Did someone force me to buy the plan I have (or even to buy one at all)?
And if you were in the US (or worse, Canada), _all_ your options were overpriced and crappy.
I am in Canada, and I think the plan I got fits my needs perfectly so I don't think it's overpriced or crappy, otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. You might think differently, but that's because we don't have the same needs.
There are places not requiring it. But generally speaking, you'd prefer to avoid them. Voluntarily.
Which ones? Would they let me move there if I wanted to or would they consider me as a trespasser?
Why? what is wrong with voting?
What is wrong with voting is that you can't make your own choices, you have to go with the majority.
we all use/need the collective services in the same way.
No we don't all need the same services in the same way.
If it makes you happy, think of voting as a market operation. But remember: it is not freedom to individually decide on a globally suboptimal solution that we then all need to collectively live with. It is stupidity.
You might argue that it is stupid or not optimal (I would disagree with that), but it certainly is freedom to individually decide.
And BTW, yes, people can decide for you. They do, all the time: doctors decide what you have, engineers decide on your car's design, coders on how your programs are made, cell phones companies on their pricing schemes, the shop owner on the products that are on his shelves, the traffic authority the circulation plan of your neighbourhood, other countries the rules for access to their territories, the central banks decide on the value of your bank account, designers decide on the look of your garments.
But they don't decide which car I buy, which programs I use, what cell phone scheme I buy or if I even buy one of those. Imagine if we had to vote on what cell phone plans we wanted and then everyone would get what the majority decided. What if I didn't want a cellphone, or I wanted a cheaper plan or a more expensive one? I would have no choice but to accept what the majority decided for me. Even worse, we rarely vote on direct issues like that. We only vote for who is going to decide for us, leaving us with even less choice on how to run our own lives.
Also, what is "waste"? is funding fundamental science waste? is funding liberal arts waste? are the likes of the FDA waste? is paying for some dubious piece of art in your own town waste? is paying people to check for fraud waste, or is the fraud the largest cause of waste?
In the marketplace, we can all decide individually what we consider waste and what we don't. Nobody can decide for us. That is called freedom (also capitalism).
Pascal is not a high-level language. -- Steven Feiner
