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So what is freedom?


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Besides the US foreign policy definition, which seems to be whatever gives us an excuse to go to war. So basically, throughout history freedom has remained the thing that pretty much everyone claims to be fighting for, from Gandhi to William Wallace (loudly) to Hitler. Of course, this would mean that everyone's definition of freedom varies widely, and quite frankly I don't really know what the correct definition of freedom is anymore. I'm getting more and more convinced that freedom is at best a double edged sword and at worst something to be avoided. And no, that isn't just because I'm a monarchist. So what do the people of SF think? What is freedom, and is it even desirable?

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Freedom to me is basically just being unrestrained, though that means we can only ever be so free. Freedom when it's discussed politically usually seems to mean being unrestrained by other people, particularly those in power.

Freedom is always a slippery slope to me because you can argue that so much as having basic laws is a repression of freedom. Of course, you can just say "people can do whatever they want so long as it doesn't harm other people," but pretty much everyone has a different definition for what exactly that means, as there are a lot of things you can do that inadvertently harm others and people tend to want to restrict different things, and restricting all of them you can think of tends to involve totalitarianism.

I'm not some kind of fascist or nihilist, I'm just young and uneducated and a little cynical.

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Of course, you can just say "people can do whatever they want so long as it doesn't harm other people,"

For some people, it's simply "people can do whatever they want so long even it hurts other people's feeling."

Edited by hanhnn
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Incidentally, I also think freedom has a habit of being confused for independence. For example, both the Americans and William Wallace claimed to be fighting for freedom when they were really fighting for independence.

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I think that freedom, in its most purest form, means that you're not bound by any rules whatsoever, free to go wherever you want, free to choose whatever wish to do.

Say something that you're free to do so, and you have the freedom to do it! Somewhere where you have such freedom, there would be nothing that would say to you that you shouldn't.

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Well, it certainly is an interesting question since, in its purest form, freedom is anarchy. After all, there are no laws or restrictions in anarchy beyond those that you enforce yourself. However this doesn't work for anyone on a social level. You can claim you desire freedom but when you go to steal your neighbors food, while such an act is 'free', odds are almost the entire town would want you in jail.

So, IMO, 'freedom' comes in several parts.

1) Responsibility to others. You need to help out others and be able to protect the group as a whole. Just because someones personal choices don't affect you directly (the thief didn't steal from you and may live in an entirely different city) doesn't mean you should be 100% apathetic about it. You should do your best to help others achieve what is considered 'right'.

2) Communication and travel. If you are tied to the land, if you cannot communicate and share ideas, then you are at the mercy of whatever you can handle in the surrounding area. Simply being able to talk to someone in the next town over and hear his ideas, which may be different from yours, grants new thoughts, perspectives, and the advancement of knowledge on the whole. It's no surprise that the advancement of technology co-incides closely with improvements in both travel and long-distance communication.

3) To be treated as a person deserving of respect and decency even if you do something that does not conform. That doesn't mean others have to like you, accept you, or that you won't end up in the slammer because you broke the law, but it DOES mean that breaking the law won't result in you being tossed in a prison where you're considered inferior to even farm animals.

Beyond that, I dunno. I mean, I believe in certain things, but I'm not certain that they should be considered 'freedom'.

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I'm really glad you said responsibility to others, because I hate the Objectivist view on freedom (having no obligation to anyone whatsoever under the law). In my mind, you don't have to contribute anything to the state, fine, but have fun being murdered because the state then isn't obligated to do anything to help you. That includes a police force, a fire department, roads, hospitals, etc. Society cannot survive without the state.

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I'm really glad you said responsibility to others, because I hate the Objectivist view on freedom (having no obligation to anyone whatsoever under the law). In my mind, you don't have to contribute anything to the state, fine, but have fun being murdered because the state then isn't obligated to do anything to help you. That includes a police force, a fire department, roads, hospitals, etc. Society cannot survive without the state.

I think a better way to describe it is 'It's freedom until it hits you'. After all, if thieves aren't stopped it's only a matter of time until one comes for you. It may not be the SAME thief but they'll rob you just as blind. Maybe you see, say, murder as part of freedom. You're not free unless you can kill someone. That may be all well and dandy... until you get murdered. Then your 'freedom' is defined by how much dirt the killer placed over your body if any at all.

But let's talk realistic here. We all have families and, odds are, we want to see them all well and safe. Even if you live in a horribly sexist society you probably don't want to see your siblings and spouses shuffled around as little more than breeding stock. But in order for that to work you have to make sure that the person they end up with agrees with that point of view. Problem is that not everyone will. So society must give up some of its freedom (the ability to treat the other sex as mere pleasure objects/breeding stock) in favor of something people can agree is mutually beneficial. If you wanted to focus on JUST the self then there is little reason not to. After all, they aren't you and you have the freedom to treat them horribly as well as to feel good. But this is not a free society. This is a place where the only thing between you and losing all your freedom is some random person conking you on the head and deciding that you look sexy and should be a pleasure object. Better to be responsible for all and develop a society framework, even if it limits some personal freedoms, to ensure many others as well as punish those who deviate.

Caring only about the self and breaking rules wantonly is a short-term solution that cannot sustain any sort of civilization. At best it can function on a tribal level but, anything above, it simply can't sustain.

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That is IMO one of the two reasons laws are made. Either they are made because they are needed for society or because of the reason you stated. Civilization is basically people coming together collectively and agreeing that they would all rather not risk being murdered than have the right to murder. The main problem with Objectivism and to a lesser extent Libertarianism is that it fails to realize this. You also can't guarantee absolute economic freedom without hurting the governments ability to enforce the laws that even Ayn Rand would agree should exist. And anyone who thinks if you can't afford a bodyguard you should be defenseless should test that theory on themselves.

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That is IMO one of the two reasons laws are made. Either they are made because they are needed for society or because of the reason you stated. Civilization is basically people coming together collectively and agreeing that they would all rather not risk being murdered than have the right to murder. The main problem with Objectivism and to a lesser extent Libertarianism is that it fails to realize this. You also can't guarantee absolute economic freedom without hurting the governments ability to enforce the laws that even Ayn Rand would agree should exist. And anyone who thinks if you can't afford a bodyguard you should be defenseless should test that theory on themselves.

Objectivists and Libertarians do not believe this. They are not anarchists.

Edited by Anouleth
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I wasn't saying they do, I was saying it is hypocritical of them to assume that there is no moral or financial obligation to the government while still expecting to be protected from murderers by the police. If they do not expect this, then they could in fact be called anarchists.

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I wasn't saying they do, I was saying it is hypocritical of them to assume that there is no moral or financial obligation to the government while still expecting to be protected from murderers by the police. If they do not expect this, then they could in fact be called anarchists.

I think libertarians are fine with paying taxes that go towards police and judicial functions. The thing is that the majority of taxes aren't spent on these things and are instead spent on welfare in all it's many forms, and that even the police and military arms of government can still be mismanaged by government.

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The only kind of freedom that has any value is freedom from vice. Freedom in the sense of being able to do whatever makes virtue and vice equally valid options and inevitably leads to vice as the more appealing and easier choice of the two. Triumph of vice is always the latent goal of preaching for freedom of this kind.

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Well,who would you prefer managed them? Private citizens surely can't be trusted to do so.

You say that, but I think that civilian oversight of police and military is a good thing. Part of the reason why the US police force is so out of control is due to a lack of civilian oversight, since police unions have deliberately worked to tie the hands of oversight committees and limit their power to investigate misconduct.

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You say that, but I think that civilian oversight of police and military is a good thing. Part of the reason why the US police force is so out of control is due to a lack of civilian oversight, since police unions have deliberately worked to tie the hands of oversight committees and limit their power to investigate misconduct.

How would it work though? Obviously someone would have to be paying the police, and that would probably be whoever is rich. Thus, the police would be loyal not to normal people, but to whoever is rich enough to afford them.

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You say that, but I think that civilian oversight of police and military is a good thing. Part of the reason why the US police force is so out of control is due to a lack of civilian oversight, since police unions have deliberately worked to tie the hands of oversight committees and limit their power to investigate misconduct.

Citizens should not have control over the police force. For a very good reason. The whims and wills of civilians can change frequently and leap to bizarre and strange conclusions in boughts of mass hysteria. Let's take the problems with the black community ATM. Regardless of your feelings in the recent issues, do you honestly think that there are no black criminals who should be arrested? Do you think that civilians having control over the police force won't suddenly result in a lot of ACTUAL criminals going free simply due to the current on-goings because the public has a memory span of about half-a-year? It would be chaos.

That's not saying that the civilians shouldn't have a voice or the government is always right (far from it), but when you take a force like the military or police and make Jo the supermarket sales clerk their 'oversight' despite little to no actual experience, or even knowledge, of what the police and military face; you're begging for trouble. The civilians should work to make and refine the laws, but its the job of the police and military to keep those laws in place.

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Citizens should not have control over the police force. For a very good reason. The whims and wills of civilians can change frequently and leap to bizarre and strange conclusions in boughts of mass hysteria. Let's take the problems with the black community ATM. Regardless of your feelings in the recent issues, do you honestly think that there are no black criminals who should be arrested? Do you think that civilians having control over the police force won't suddenly result in a lot of ACTUAL criminals going free simply due to the current on-goings because the public has a memory span of about half-a-year? It would be chaos.

That's not saying that the civilians shouldn't have a voice or the government is always right (far from it), but when you take a force like the military or police and make Jo the supermarket sales clerk their 'oversight' despite little to no actual experience, or even knowledge, of what the police and military face; you're begging for trouble. The civilians should work to make and refine the laws, but its the job of the police and military to keep those laws in place.

Another reason why it's a bad idea is that the people can't be trusted with that kind of power. They'd just use it for their own self interest. I can see, for example, white communities in the South using the police to create Jim Crowe 2.0.

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