Being a Texan, I can guarantee you that freedoms have decreased precipitously in this country over the last 80 years.  Our philosophy has seriously changed, in this country, from rugged individualism to safety in numbers (herd mentality). 

While I agree with you that the over all trend it positive, I am afraid that it may take several hundred years for reason to win out.  Obviously, reason wins in the end (unless the world ends), but I don't want to wait that long. 

I understand your point, but I think it is dangerous.

... I think you're observations are sadly more correct. Like here in the United Police States, whatever liberties you have gained in New Zealand they have been somewhat overtaken by the liberties you have lost. Not to sound overly cynical, but it seems the UPS and now the UK are moving at a more rapid pace toward elimination of liberty than NZ, and with less opposition.

Back then this man could discipline his children without risk of being arrested.

He could insult anyone he wanted until the cows came home.

Political correctness would have been "given the arse".
Can you imagine the local rugby clubrooms conversations embracing PC? LOL no way.

During local rubgy matches, at half time they drank sherry and would have thought an electrolyte was something to do with modern furnishing.

He could smoke anywhere and everyone had an ashtray. (In those days a paua shell was big enough to cater for a rugby team of smokers.

He wasn't fined a week's wages if he dropped his cigarette but on the ground. If someone told him that one day he would be facing an enormous fine for doing so, he would think you were talking about a communist country, certainly not New Zealand.

Sure pubs closed at 6pm, but that never stopped anyone from going down to the local rugby club afterwards or taking a few flagons home to the shed! (A bottle of Cold Duck or Marque Vue for the girls would probably sort out a plate of cheese on toast for the boys).

The crime rate was much lower. There was never a need to lock your house if you popped out to the neighbours for a cup of sugar or drove to the shops for a half loaf of bread.

You didn't need a license to own a gun.

Very few people worked during the weekend so he wasn't missing out on anything.

Milk was delivered to your house at no extra cost.

Class systems are a figment of the imagination. If you don't feel worthy then that is your own fault. Judgement whether it be of yourself or others is a personal matter.
It has nothing to do with freedom.

His children would have received a much higher standard of education.

His kids would walk 2 miles to school in the rain and think nothing of it and they would do so in much safer conditions than they do today.

He could do his job with his own safety responsibility with no interference from the Health & Safety police.

He could put out as much rubbish as he wanted and he could burn his rubbish in his own backyard (an entire 1/4 acre) without needing a "fire permit"

He wasn't fined obscene amounts of money if Rover decided to head out for a night on the town. Nor was Rover made to have an identity insertion.

He could go to the beach and light as many fires as he wanted and collect as much seafood as he wanted.

He could fish where he wanted and did not need a license to do so.

Finally he could really enjoy Christmas and everybody got into the spirit of the occasion.

I reckon over my lifetime (1965 until now) net freedoms have been lost, with perhaps a bit of a hic cup around the last years of Muldoon. I know this has to be so because the bureaucracy is so much bigger now. And I can certainly vouch for the fact the tax system is the most vicious it has ever been for at least the last twenty years I have been practicing in it, and that department affects every single person.

Historically, Americans in the old West had a huge amount more freedom than we have now I bet.

Hang on, I am no historian but when you go back in our own western history you will see no other time where people had as much freedom as we enjoy now.

Even in the old feudal systems the peasants were under strickt rule of the lords. So I find it a bit rich for us to sit here and claim that the tide has just reversed because of Helen Clark. This gradual movement to freedom is a much bigger and slower machine with plenty of inertia in which even a World War II did not make a dent.

I can't help but see similarities between global wamists who grab every little opportunity to point out pending disaster and us pointing out the Anti Smacking Bill or the EFB to show how we slip into Rand's doomed world in Atlas Shrugged.

This doesn't mean we should keep quiet when yet another freedom is threatened but for me it is important to stop and realise how far we have come.

Global warming is a hoax carbonhoax.org.nz and spread the word.

I think the argument would not be look what I have lost, so much as we are losing what is rightfully ours.  It is hard to make progress, or reverse the tide, when we are easily contented.  100 years ago toilets weren't too common and there were no antibiotics.  Yes life is better, but is it good enough?

Indeed, we live in the best of times, with so many opportunities and possibilities. Sometime back, Lance linked to a TED talk about a Hungarian guy that was inspiring as well; a bit like this old man you met.

Slightly OT. When I feel like wallowing in self-pity, Beethoven is my pick-me-up. In his late twenties, he started to suffer from tinnitus, and later became completely deaf (medical science in that age was atrocious), yet he went on to create so much beautiful music till his death at age 57. I can't think of a more cruel set of circumstances in life (wanting to create music and being deaf), and anything I have ever faced is the 10th root of piffle compared to that. Sure makes me get off my ass and do something. Ofcourse, in my better moods I am inspired by super humans like Dagny