America Has a Freedom Problem (And We’re Yelling at the Wrong Things)

America has a problem. A freedom problem. And it’s dwindling.

Not that the problem is dwindling, but that freedom is, and that should scare the hell out of people a lot more than it seems to.

Instead, here we are. Protesting the idea of kings. Badmouthing artificial intelligence for “using too much water.” Regurgitating half-understood talking points like they’re moral truth. And somehow, this passes for civic engagement.

Let’s talk about the AI thing, because it’s a perfect example of how broken our public discourse has become.

AI doesn’t “use water.” Data centers do. AI isn’t a conscious being turning on a faucet and walking away like a petulant child. It’s a technological tool that runs on the same infrastructure that already powers:

• Google searches

• Microsoft Word and Office 365

• Netflix and Hulu

• Online banking

• Cloud backups

• Literally the modern internet

When people say, “AI wastes water,” what they mean, whether they understand it or not, is that data centers require cooling, usually provided through refrigeration or evaporation. Evaporative cooling, by design, uses water.

And here’s the part that makes the outrage especially stupid in the American Southwest: evaporative cooling works extremely well in low-humidity environments. Like, say… New Mexico.

The same people whining about “AI water usage” are often:

• Sitting in homes cooled by evaporative systems

• Sitting in public buildings cooled by evaporative systems

• Living in a state where this method is specifically chosen because it’s efficient here

Complaining about water usage while benefiting from the exact same physics.

That’s not environmentalism. That’s performative ignorance.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Let’s be honest. If you:

• “Researched” your opinion on Google

• Typed it in Microsoft Word

• Shared it online

• Streamed Netflix that night

…you are using the same infrastructure you’re condemning. You don’t get to scream about AI while pretending the rest of the cloud somehow runs on fairy dust. This isn’t a principled stand. It’s a trendy villain.

And here’s where this stops being funny. While people work themselves into a froth over imaginary problems, real freedoms are quietly shrinking, often sold to us under the comforting language of safety, protection, or the greater good.

We’ve normalized the idea that trading individual liberty for a false sense of security is reasonable, even noble, despite the fact that the “security” is often abstract, unproven, or purely theatrical.

Meanwhile, actual freedoms erode through mechanisms most people never protest because they’re boring, technical, and uncomfortable:

• The quiet trade of individual liberty for the promise of safety

• Insurance liability structures that screw ordinary people

• Bureaucratic systems designed to exhaust rather than serve

• Laws that quietly shift risk downward while protecting institutions

• Regulatory capture that nobody protests because it requires reading instead of chanting

Those fights don’t come with clever signs or social-media applause. They require:

• Understanding systems

• Reading actual law

• Sustained pressure

• Uncomfortable conversations

So instead, people rage at abstractions. Because outrage is easy. Understanding is work.

This is the American disease right now. We’ve replaced thinking with signaling. We’ve replaced freedom with feeling righteous.

We yell about kings we don’t have, villains we don’t understand, and problems that aren’t actually the problem, all while the slow grind of diminished agency continues in the background, unnoticed, unchallenged, and unopposed.

That’s not activism, that’s distraction. And yeah, that’s a fucking problem.