What definition of freedom would you like elected officials to implement? - It seems so simple, freedom is freedom

[teriyakiburns]

Freedom means leave me the fuck alone so I can die in peace, god dammit.

I want diplomatic immunity

It's just been revoked.

I'm too old for this shit...

 

[Absurdist Laughter]

I want diplomatic immunity

Pfft, that pales in comparison to being established left...also welcome back.

 

[Sage In All Fields]

Freedom is freedom from subservience to false gods and the freedom from infatuation with this world. Who is more free than the man who can stare down the barrel of a gun and smile?

 

[Bad Gateway]

Be smarter than to believe that defining freedom is an acceptable methodology to outline what freedom is, even in the abstract.

 

[ABE LINN COHN]

Freedom is freedom from subservience to false gods and the freedom from infatuation with this world. Who is more free than the man who can stare down the barrel of a gun and smile?

The man holding the gun

 

[Sage In All Fields]

The man holding the gun

Not necessarily

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

Freedom is freedom from subservience to false gods and the freedom from infatuation with this world. Who is more free than the man who can stare down the barrel of a gun and smile?

This is the sort of thing that Buddhism preaches, and it's an idea I couldn't disagree with more. Placating people by encouraging them to become content with their lot in life only serves to disempower them, and as such, it can only make them less free.

 

[ABE LINN COHN]

I think most people only think about freedom in terms of actions and direct consequences, rather than indirect consequences. An example I would give of the flawed method of this kind of thinking is hunting. I believe everyone has a right to hunt and to do whatever they want with the animals they hunt. However, let's say that one individual in particular decides to kill a significant amount of the population of deer in an area. In doing so he has thus crippled the population, making it more difficult for others to hunt. If enough hunters hunt and it results in the population of deer plummeting, that infringes upon the right of others to hunt. By legislating things like hunting licenses, tags, etc, we have regulated people and in a purely libertarian sense "infringed" upon the individual's rights, but by doing so we have also expanded on the freedom of the many to hunt.

 

[Sage In All Fields]

This is the sort of thing that Buddhism preaches, and it's an idea I couldn't disagree with more. Placating people by encouraging them to become content with their lot in life only serves to disempower them, and as such, it can only make them less free.

Life is pretty insignifcant when you have eternity to look forward to.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

Life is pretty insignifcant when you have eternity to look forward to.

An eternity of death. Freedom is a concept which can only apply to the living. If you no longer exist, you have no freedom.

 

[Sage In All Fields]

An eternity of death. Freedom is a concept which can only apply to the living. If you no longer exist, you have no freedom.

The difference between you and I is that I don't believe death is the end.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

The difference between you and I is that I don't believe death is the end.

I still don't see what that has to do with freedom in the context of this life. Granted, I'm not religious, so this argument can probably only go so far, but the God that I was raised to believe in was one who provided us with this life on the understanding that it is up to us to make the most of it.

A lot of the early abolitionists during the era when slavery was still practiced were Christians, and it isn't clear to me that they opposed slavery out of an indifference to what happens in this life. Rather, they opposed it out of a concern for the welfare and the dignity of the lives of other people. In other words: they wanted the slaves to have freedom, in this world, not the next.

Regardless of what your beliefs may be on the nature of divinity, I don't think an indifference to what happens in this world is a defensible position.

 

[Sage In All Fields]

Rather, they opposed it out of a concern for the welfare and the dignity of the lives of other people. In other words: they wanted the slaves to have freedom, in this world, not the next.

A person does what benefits them in some way at the end of the day, the defense of the dignity of others is ideally done to serve God because that is what secures your welbeing.

Regardless of what your beliefs may be on the nature of divinity, I don't think an indifference to what happens in this world is a defensible position.

I'm not advocating complete indifference, just dealing with life with the understanding that it's not much more real than a hallucination. So long as God is happy with what you've done nothing else matters.

 

[Haim Arlosoroff]

I think most people only think about freedom in terms of actions and direct consequences, rather than indirect consequences. An example I would give of the flawed method of this kind of thinking is hunting. I believe everyone has a right to hunt and to do whatever they want with the animals they hunt. However, let's say that one individual in particular decides to kill a significant amount of the population of deer in an area. In doing so he has thus crippled the population, making it more difficult for others to hunt. If enough hunters hunt and it results in the population of deer plummeting, that infringes upon the right of others to hunt. By legislating things like hunting licenses, tags, etc, we have regulated people and in a purely libertarian sense "infringed" upon the individual's rights, but by doing so we have also expanded on the freedom of the many to hunt.

I think that fits "Freedom is, since I live in a society, a sane social contract between my neighbors and government" where balances and sustainability hedge in on complete freedom for the sake of an abstract future citizenry or simply our blood-line after we are gone.

Ultimately, I think we are continuing to move away from such definitions into an era where there is a feeling in the air that larger societal agreements are not possible and where groups are labeling the others as the 'enemy of American Values' whatever the modern consensus on that means anymore. So people instead value freedom in terms of as an absolute line in the sand, where "Freedom is the ability to die from too many liberties rather than too few liberties in society" or "Freedom is independence from being tied down with and controlled by government incentives" instead of long-term stability because long-term stability itself seems a fool's bargain to make currently.

From around 2012-2016 until around 2032-2046 will be a period in history which will no doubt be titled something ominous. It was the same with slavery, Americans flee into the middle and away from population densities which seem unsustainable once trust and logistics breakdown and twenty-thirty years of escalations happen first. Then a spark, and its off to the races. I think a large percentage of people feel this, whether or not it is correct.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

A person does what benefits them in some way at the end of the day, the defense of the dignity of others is ideally done to serve God because that is what secures your welbeing.

It depends upon how you define personal benefit. It's perhaps possible to frame the satisfaction of one's conscience as a selfish desire, but I find this to be an overly cynical view, and one which doesn't provide much moral clarity.

History is full of people who went against the order of the day only to be persecuted greatly for it, and it's not clear to me that this can be described as selfish on their part; especially when their justification for acting as they did was often merely that it was the right thing to do.

There is a heroism in putting righteousness before self-interest which isn't present in most of the acts we would describe as self-serving. Likewise, I would argue that there is a heroism in the struggle for freedom and liberation which isn't present in servility and conformity.

I'm not advocating complete indifference, just dealing with life with the understanding that it's not much more real than a hallucination. So long as God is happy with what you've done nothing else matters.

I don't think solipsism is a defensible position either. If reality is little more than a hallucination, then it logically follows that I must be a hallucination too, in which case, it's as good as real to me.

 

[Sage In All Fields]

History is full of people who went against the order of the day only to be persecuted greatly for it, and it's not clear to me that this can be described as selfish on their part; especially when their justification for acting as they did was often merely that it was the right thing to do.

In cases like those I regard the motivation as not being fully articulated. The person does the right thing, or something resembling a right thing because their innate predisposition drives them to act in a way that is pleasing to God, although they don't acknowledge this. This is in a sense the is similar to the distinction between the concious and unconcious egoist.

I don't think solipsism is a defensible position either. If reality is little more than a hallucination, then it logically follows that I must be a hallucination too, in which case, it's as good as real to me.

It's not solipsism exactly, because the idea is that there is a reality that is more real than this world, not that only the self is knowable.

 

[mickey339]

To me freedom is best measured by the presence of choice. The more power you have to choose the course of your destiny, the more free you ultimately are.

I agree with this. Having the freedom to do what you want without any official institution punishing you is the definition of freedom.

But there is the issue of when a private corporation become de facto institutions that you either have to deal with or loose the ability to carry out many transactions in society. Still, if there are no obligations to cooperate with said corporation it is still freedom.

If choosing to not comply with a company means you can’t buy from certain stores, open bank accounts, use collective transportation or rent a living space then you are still free because you can always choose to comply. Choosing not to might mean poverty or death but that would still be your own choice.

public education, healthcare, and a right to a social safety net. Without these things, I argue that people would be less free, not more, as they would have less power over the circumstances of their life.

I disagree. If you can’t opt out of paying to those services then you aren’t free to do so. Also the logic that free-of-charge services makes you more free relies on an assumption that having government funded possibilities instead of your own decisions makes you free. What if you want to live in the woods and rely on hunting animals? What if you want to pay for your own alternative education that you choose yourself? What if you want to pay ahealer to cure your cancer?

All those situations constitutes freedom because you make a choice yourself.

It increases overall freedom by maximizing the choices available to people, on aggregate.

Which isn’t freedom to choose or not.


All these points is why I don’t see maximum freedom as a positive. Government funded services that relies on unfree obligations to official institutions is the only way to ensure well being and personal rights.

Twitter/Facebook/Amazon kicking Trump from their services is a perfect example off unrestricted freedom. Private firms choose to quit cooperating with a customer. That isn’t cencorship. That is freedom.
Ironically it was the proponents of freedom that end up being bitten in the ass by their own policies.

 

[Lemmingwise]

In my continuing watching of Adam Curtis's documentary The Trap, which has nothing to do with a fictional character in an anime who dresses up in the opposite gender's clothing to trick people into thinking that they're the opposite gender (I'm sorry), I came across a point [@12:38] where they stated Bill Clinton introduced a dystopian scheme into America where Freedom is redefined as nothing more than the ability for individuals to get whatever they want and the government spending he was hoping to use to fix America with would destroy the economy. Luckily Alan Greenspan and the CEO of Goldman-Sachs had a counter proposal; Instead of seeing the markets as a force greed uses to enrich it, the market would respond democratically to people's needs instead of government.

As the argument only works if freedom is a material desire rather than any ideal for breaking free from controlling influences and the commodification of everything sacred, I wonder what America's or the World's idea of freedom really is?

Funny how they supposedly warned clinton to not make more debt as it would result in disaster. I'm glad the US hasn't taken on more debt since.