-
Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
What is freedom?
- Thread starter Resha Caner
- Start date
True Scotsman
Objectivist
Freedom and liberty to me are freedom from coercion. It's the freedom to act within my natural rights to pursue my own good in my own way as long as I don't interfere with others doing the same.
Upvote
0
True Scotsman
Objectivist
Well freedom is crucial. We have ample evidence for what happens when freedom and liberty are denied. Just look at North Korea vs. South Korea, East Germany vs. West Germany, The former Soviet Union, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan.......
Upvote
0
I think that's a decent definition - similar to the way I think of it.
What is a natural right?
How would interference be arbitrated?
Upvote
0
P
prov1810
Guest
If your freedom depends on external changes in material conditions (technology, politics, economics) you will always be a helpless victim and you will never be free. Freedom is peace of mind. You have the freedom to think differently if you are not at peace.
Upvote
0
True Scotsman
Objectivist
Natural rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival. Not life as a animal but as a thinking being.
The purpose of government is to protect these rights.
Upvote
0
I'm not sure the phrase "proper survival" helps me understand you if the proper survival of a human is different than a mouse. Maybe an example?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_a_Mouse (Burns is my favorite poet.)
So does government then have the right of coercion? I doubt there is a self-evident aspect to natural rights. If I jump from the top of the Empire State Building I will die. There is no negotiating the result. I can always negotiate a natural right.
So, isn't this just a civilized way of saying, "Might makes right"? The guy with the biggest stick wins, and government is a way to get a bigger stick.
Upvote
0
True Scotsman
Objectivist
Proper survival for a Human being is obviously very different from the proper survival of a mouse. We need more than a little food and shelter to thrive. We need above all to have the freedom to think and to act on our judgement, again so long as we do not interfere with others doing the same.
Look at how people live in North Korea, where it is illegal to grow a cabbage and sell it, as opposed to the United States where we still have a greater amount of freedom.
A proper Government does not have the right to coerce. It has the right to the use of retaliatory force but not the initiation of force. The only justifiable use of force is in self defense, of life or property.
Upvote
0
It seems you are trying to appeal to the self-evident. That only works with people who already agree with you.
This comment belies a somewhat libertarian attitude. Would that describe your position? After all, this position puts you in opposition to many government practices - the draft, taxation, zoning laws, environmental regulation, etc.
Personally, I find the libertarian view naive and idealistic. There's always going to be some big, bad dude who won't play by the "be nice" rule and wants to take away your toys. In practice people give up their idealistic views of freedom in favor of security.
Upvote
0
"Freedom" is, in my experience, contextually defined: you experience something as limiting you in a way you don´t like, so you want to achieve freedom from this limitation.
If you insist you want an absolute definition, I´d go with "'Freedom´s just another word for nothing left to lose."
As for "liberty": I am not sure about the particular connotations that would differenciate it from "freedom".
Depends. Freedom from what? Freedom to do what?
Upvote
0
True Scotsman
Objectivist
No Natural rights are not self evident. They are inferred from man's nature and they are not all that difficult to discover. But they are definitely not irreducible primaries.
Not a libertarian at all. Objectivist. I recognize that there is a need and a proper role for government. I am opposed to many government practices such as the welfare state and definitely the draft as both are a violation of individual rights. Libertarians want no standards basically and that's not me. We would end up back at a primitive, tribal existence.
Upvote
0
OK. Give me an example, then.
OK. Still, they are similar. Some might say a libertarian is an irresponsible objectivist, while others may say an objectivist is a tyrannical libertarian. Of course I wouldn't say that because then people (cough - Eudamonist) stop talking to me.
Hmm. How does that work then? ... the government is the people, and the government is supposed to protect you, but to involve you in that protection is a violation of your rights.
Upvote
0
durangodawood
re Member
- Aug 28, 2007
- 27,714
- 19,387
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Seeker
- Marital Status
- Single
Not really.
Liberty is French/latin. Freedom is germanic..... in origin.
Take your pick.
Upvote
0
durangodawood
re Member
- Aug 28, 2007
- 27,714
- 19,387
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Seeker
- Marital Status
- Single
Freedom is the latitude to do what you want.
many forces can constrain this:
family
friends
society
government
your own body
disease
voluntary obligations
Upvote
0
In terms of basic meaning, yes. But if you trace the history of the usage, there are some interesting differences. From the French direction of the Enlightenment, liberty was grouped with equality and fraternity to take on an essence of a need for responsible liberty (the bloodbath of the French Revolution proved what happens when responsibility is absent).
From the German direction, freedom (freiheit) is the exact opposite - freedom from responsibility. That became a real problem for the Quakers when German peasants started pouring into the Pennsylvanian colony because they had promised them a "free" society without understanding each other. What I find so amusing about the German path was that Bismarck realized that most people associate freedom with comfort. So his approach was to give the German people that freedom from responsibility that they sought. Build up industry and make Germany an economic powerhouse so that the people are fat, dumb, and happy - leaving him "free" to use that economic might for whatever personal (imperial) ends he desired. And yes, his personal correspondence was that blunt about his intentions. Look what it produced in Germany.
So which model is America?
Upvote
0
Similar threads
