Freedom is not a virtue

Freedom is neither. Its a joke and you're the punchline.
 
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To me, freedom is the ability to exercise your will, and so true freedom can only be acquired through power, because that's what you need in order to avoid losing it by someone/thing else that overwhelms you.

But no one here is omnipotent, you will lose your life against your will at some point, your rights by an entity that you can't or is very difficult to fight, or whatever else that you have but won't be able to defend.

In this society one would generally acquire "more freedom" by luck/personal circumstances or merit. If you're born into a rich family you might be more free than someone less fortunate than you, if you're born with good genetics (physically and intellectually) you can use it to escalate in this world, I can even put the example of people being rich enough/have enough connections that they'll get away with literal murder, as I believe happens in some part of Asia.

So whatever form of power you have and how you use it can earn you this great thing, which is always at risk.
 
Every person is born under the authority of their parents. Freedom is neither natural nor a virtue. It is something which is granted with the expectation it will be used wisely; granted not by authority, but through authority by nature itself. If it is not used wisely, you, and maybe others, perish along with it, replaced by those who used it better.

It is this reality which prompts authority to gatekeep freedom, as most better serve themselves and their progeny without it. At least, if the authority guiding them does so in their interest. Modern people confuse the desire for freedom and the desire for honesty in sovereignty and leadership aligned with their interests. Being free to make your own mistakes is better than being exploited by parasites, but a good leader, one that prevents parasites and looks out for his flock, is better than both.
 
mr.moon1488 said:
It's a blessing you're given. It's in no way vitreous in and of itself.
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You're both correct and incorrect.

You are correct in stating that freedom is not a virtue. Freedom is a good - like justice, happiness, prosperity, knowledge, or having boobs the shape and size of Bayonetta's. These things are not virtues, but rather, are goods towards which virtues may aid the individual in achieving.

You are incorrect in asserting that freedom is a blessing you're given. Freedom is your natural state; it is the condition in which man is born in a state of nature. The degree to which that freedom is then taken away from you is either
  1. the consequence of a voluntary, informed social contract, in which an individual sick of his freedom and conscious of what it is he is losing, chooses to live as a slave.
  2. an unjust and illegitimate imposition by tyrants.
Freedom is not a blessing, as it is something you always possess in a state of nature, and cannot be bestowed upon you by outside authority. Nor can freedom be given; it can only be taken, surrendered, and ultimately, won back.

Tree said:
Every person is born under the authority of their parents. Freedom is neither natural nor a virtue. It is something which is granted with the expectation it will be used wisely; granted not by authority, but through authority by nature itself. If it is not used wisely, you, and maybe others, perish along with it, replaced by those who used it better.
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The idea that parents may typically choose to use their superior physical and social power in order impose limitations on a child's freedom, does not repudiated the fact that freedom is a child's natural state.

Furthermore, whether or not one "knows" how to use his or her freedom, is a separate issue entirely from whether one is naturally free, or can be free, or should be free.

I agree that
Tree said:
It is this reality which prompts authority to gatekeep freedom, as most better serve themselves and their progeny without it.
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as this is precisely what is meant by paternalism. The paternalist mindset is not just a poetic allusion to parenthood; it is, by design, a literal and direct extension of the logic of parenthood. However,

Tree said:
but a good leader, one that prevents parasites and looks out for his flock, is better than both.
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given that a family unit is rarely larger than a couple dozen people, and never constitutes millions, I find it difficult to envision exactly what you mean by "a good leader" who looks out for "his flock".

Your argument also fails to take into account the simple fact that no parent in his or her right mind will restrict their child's freedom indefinitely. Indeed, most parents will try as hard as they possibly can to prepare their children for a state of absolute freedom and independence, even to the point of throwing the child out once that child reaches the age of maturity, whether he feels he's ready or not. Any parent who does not do this is seen as abhorrent and mocked - and rightly so! As any "child" who remains in a state of prolonged deprivation, sequestered away in his mother's basement long after the age of maturity, will almost invariably turn out to be a monster.

If the state is meant to be a parental analogy, then it should cease to bother us after we graduate high school. At most, it should ask us - NICELY - if we could maybe give it a call every week or two, just to check in and let it know whether we're married to that nice girl from art class yet.

If the state is a parental analogy, then any state that fails to do this is a terrible state, may be a hoarder, and almost certainly wants to turn us into an autistic, shut-in troon, whose only real purpose in life is to feed the state's cats, fetch the state's medications, and keep the state company in its old age.
 
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mr.moon1488 said:
It's a blessing you're given. It's in no way vitreous in and of itself.
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Of course it's not a virtue, it's an idea not a quality. Perhaps if you spoke of freedom on a social level you might be able to call it a virtue, but then you have to quibble with people over what freedom is. Like the subhumans over in Britain would probably tell you they have the freedom to avoid gun violence.
Zero Day Defense said:
More than that, you're never really "free".
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Man must choose his own chains.
 
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mr.moon1488 said:
It's a blessing you're given. It's in no way vitreous in and of itself.
Click to expand...

Freedom can be two things

a) "free will"
b) political freedom - things like tax evasion, free markets and owning unregistered firearms

None of these things really are "virtues".

a) "Free will" seem to be quite important when it comes to being a Man in this world created by God. Someone once called this earth "an experiment in free will". It's ostentatiously quite important to God to see what will men do with their free will. Most men waste it which makes the ones who does not the more important, perhaps resonating the words of Psalm 82:6: "I have said, you are gods". Jesus Himself quoted this particular excerpt which is quite significant, and makes me think that people should embrace their free will and the consequences of their actions.

b) Here again is something God is invested in. God liberates the Hebrews from the egyptian slavery. It's worth noting that the very word "Hebrew" comes from a nickname "Eber", etymologically meaning more or less "a nomad". The forefather Abraham is the best example of a lifestyle clearly preferred by God - not being a subject to any government, moving freely around the world, having a harem of slave girls that you fuck and using gold and silver to make business. In this manner, Jesus was also "abrahamic" - stealthily making his moves, living outside of the grid and so on.

Q.E.D.: freedom is neither a "virtue" nor a "blessing" but something that any child of God will naturally strive to possess, as freedom is clearly a very significant portion of the imago dei
 
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Freedom stretches only as far as the limits of our consciousness. If we are lax, then freedom closes in and eventually disappears entirely. A disciplined mind is the most free, not the least, because it does author its own fate. To be libertine or libertarian is to be only potentially free but forever caged by vice and addiction until freedom exists where you are told to value it alone. You author nothing of your fate, but color your world within lines drawn by your master. People today worry so much about how free they could be that they chain themselves off from acting free. Freedom from meaning and accomplishment and to fast food and pornography is hardly free at all.

We never think back and regret our failures, we think back at the times we did not act and regret not trying. That is the instinct to be free, not our envy of the rich or our obedience to a mob.

Discipline is thereby a virtue, and laxity or libertine debauchery a sin.
 
Solid Snek said:
The idea that parents may typically choose to use their superior physical and social power in order impose limitations on a child's freedom, does not repudiated the fact that freedom is a child's natural state.
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Excuse me? It'd be more accurate to say the child's natural state is death. I get that we live in a comfortable time but holy molly I can't take anything else you say seriously.

Solid Snek said:
Your argument also fails to take into account the simple fact that no parent in his or her right mind will restrict their child's freedom indefinitely.
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But they do. They support the society which restricts them and their child for their whole lives. When and where states don't exist to do this, families police themselves for life. You maintain the benefits of family by maintaining respect within it. It is only in cases where the state is such a nanny that you can even envision that this is not the norm. The state steps in where family fails.

Like you think a child is naturally free, your whole frame of existence is within a state which is terrible as you put it, one that controls people by making them think comfort and freedom are default states of man. You think it is compelling to say the state should behave as you think the world works.

You are brainwashed by the state, even as the rebel kiwifarms user that you are, to think that man is an island, that in the real world a man could or should want to exist as an individual and not as a collective. Examples of healthy collectives have been intentionally sabotaged by parasites; religion, fraternities, ethnic solidarity; in all its forms, collectivism has been vilified by the collectives that hate you. Family is an ultimate enemy of the parasitic state and, because of its efforts, is less than what it used to be.

Back when there was free land to settle, man could pretend he were independent. Now we're besieged by enemies on all sides and subversives within, and you still resist the idea of being subjugated by family or your own people, as opposed to those who only want to exploit you, because you are led to seek an alternative which has never existed.

I know I went at you with this post, but please, for all of those waiting for your help, stop being a slave to the collective which has taken over by convincing us that freedom is a virtue in and of itself.
 
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