Nomads of the present

The hostility shown to freedom campers is age-old and based on fear. The Cain-Abel story depicted this hostility, (unsuccessful) propaganda to show how morally superior herdsmen were. In the American West, the farmer fought the cowman. Australian farmers exterminated nomadic Aborigines, Chinese detested Mongols, Egyptians didn’t want the pastoral Israelites.

Early farmers worked hard and the extra wealth went to an elite. Most gained nothing and died young. Today, most workers, tied to their jobs, mortgages and time-payment debts, fear the freedom of our new nomads. They feel judged in their settled lives devoted to hoping their TVs will not die before they are paid off. Prisoners. Missing out. (On youth?)

So they imagine themselves as virtuous, prudent, decent, clean folk, faced with foreign freedom campers who are filthy, drunken, sexually loose, imprudent, parasitical destroyers of respectable, settled towns, where good folk are building a happy ending. At least in the next life.

Today I cut the hedge. Freedom campers don’t have to do that.