First, relax and take a deep breath. There is no doublespeak in what you see. Certainly, Google is providing you with a free voice service and doesn't want to be a big brother in return. Nothing Orwellian here!
Now, with these metaphors out of the way, let's get to the GV setup. GV wants to associate the free number they give you with some real US-based phone number. I assume you have a phone number, if not - there are ways around it. Once you specify the real number, Google will make a verification call and will ask you to put two digits that they will give you.
Once you have an account established, you need to uncheck forwarding to this real number, and check forwarding to google chat. see documentation for more details. It is believed that you need to make an outgoing call using Google chat, however, I was able to start dialing out of OBihai device without it. One you finish all the setup, the phone on your desk will ring if someone calls the GV number you chose, and if you don't grab it by 4 rings or whatever, for GV to do its email/voicemail thing
Good luck!