What Is Freedom To You

[Kuskovian]

Well TomOfSweden, all I can say is you beat me to it.

Hobbes without Locke or Hume is like Socrates without Plato or Aristotle.

Some things just have to be taken, be force if nessesary.

Freedom is like an apple; if you wait for it to fall from the tree it is probably allready rotten.

[Rational Head]

Freedom for me means "self-ownership" as John Locke said, the individual "has a right to decide what would become of himself and what he would do, and as having a right to reap the benefits of what he did." Or, as stated more succinctly by Locke, "every man has a Property in his own Person."
(read more about self-ownership here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ownership)

Some excerpts from Dr. Ron Paul taken from his 1987 book “Freedom Under Siege" will clarify how it can be achieved.


I see no conflict between the self “ownership” concept associated with natural rights and those who, for religious reasons, believe their life is “owned” by God. One is a political concept and the other a religious concept. Obviously no one can dictate another’s religious belief. What one does with one’s life and property is a personal decision and it may or may not include religious beliefs. In a free society a person can “turn his life over to God” or squander it as he chooses. The important thing is that the state not be permitted to assume any ownership role of the individual.

A society built on the principle of individual rights rejects the notion that the state should protect a citizen from himself. Government cannot and should not protect against one’s own “unwise” decisions. Freedom is impossible once a government assumes a role in regulating the people’s eating, sleeping, drinking, smoking, and exercise habits. Once government believes it has an obligation to improve or protect the people physically it will then claim it can protect them economically and intellectually. It leads to a regimented society, hostile to individuals who cling to the notion that their lives and liberty are their own. Conservatives certainly must be reminded that “civil” liberty is the same as economic liberty, and present-day liberals must be told that economic liberty deserves the same protection that the written and spoken word under the First Amendment.
Preemptive regulations of either literary commercial activity, for any reason, are prohibited in a free society. Fraud and libel are crimes that, when proven in a court of law, must be punished.

The most important element of a free society, where individual rights held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence. Initiation of force is a violation of someone else’s rights, whether initiated by an individual or the state, for the benefit of an individual or group of individuals, even if it is supposed to be for the benefit of their individual or group of individuals. Legitimate use of violence can only be that which is required in self-defense.

This means that all associations are voluntary and by mutual consent of both parties. Contracts drawn up without force or fraud must be rigidly adhered to. This sounds reasonable, and most people would agree this outline of mutually agreed-to associations. But it also means that free people have the right to discriminate – in choosing a spouse, a friend a business partner, an employer, an employee, a customer, etc. Civil rights legislation of the past thirty years has totally ignored this principle. Many “do-gooders,” of course, argue from the “moral high ground” for their version of equal rights, knowing that they can play the sympathies and the guilt of many Americans. Yet the real reason for some of these laws is less than noble. For instance, minimum wage laws are popular, but the proponents rarely admit that this protects higher paid union-jobs and it increases unemployment.

Total freedom of contract and association is what the “pursuit of happiness” is all about. Once this principle is violated, the gradual but steady erosion of our liberties can be expected unless the principle of individual rights is reestablished.
Free choice means that the incentive to produce is maximized, since it’s assumed that we can keep the fruits of our labor. In a free society, an individual benefits from wise and frugal decisions and suffers the consequences of bad judgment and wasteful habits. The state should neither guarantee nor tax success, nor compensate those who fail. The individual must be responsible for all of his decisions. Because some suffer from acts outside of their control, we cannot justify the use of violence to take from someone else to “help out.” People in need are not excused when they rob their neighbors, and government should not be excused when it does the robbing for them. Providing for the general welfare means that the general conditions of freedom must be maintained. It should never be used to justify specific welfare or any transfer of wealth from one person to another.
A free society permits narrow self-interest but allows for compassion and self-sacrifice. Greed, when associated with force or fraud, is not acceptable. A free society is more likely to survive if compassion is voluntarily shown for the unfortunate than if the poor are ignored. A healthy self-interest associated with a sense of responsibility for family and friends is far superior to a welfare state built on foolish self-sacrifice and violent redistribution of wealth.

A society that holds in high esteem the principle of individual rights is superior in all ways to a society that distorts the meaning of liberty and condones the use of government coercion.
Dr. Ron Paul, “Freedom Under Siege”, 1987

[TomOfSweden]

Rational Head, there's an old Aristotelian theory which I think is relevant. This theory is formulated about the nature of God. Aristotle is the father of the monotheist idea and what later became Christianity. He pondered about what an all powerful omnipotent God would want. His reasoning was this:

Will stems from needs. Needs stem from lack. The things we lack dictate what we want. An omnipotent God lacks nothing and therefore wills nothing. As far as we know Aristotle didn't apply this to humans, but I think it is possible.

If what we lack dictate what we want, isn't our will just a function of our needs? If our will isn't free, how could anybody ever argue that we freely chose our destiny? How could we have "self-ownership" as Ron Paul formulates it?

There was later philosophers who formulated this much more succinctly but I like quoting Aristotle, just because he's so old.

Anyway, I'm not really trying to push an agenda. As I said earlier, "freedom" is a relative term.

[TomOfSweden]

This is a great one on the subject. I saw it a long time but it's an hilarious argument against freedom.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/93

[Kuskovian]

Here is a good one:

Freedom is as freedom does.

[TomOfSweden]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VhAD0dMslB8&feature=user

Here's a great lecture from a guy arguing against democracy for the sake of freedom. No, he's not a loony crack-pot.

[wind_dancer{W_W}]

To quote one of my favorite songs by Disturbed "Tell me exactly what does freedom mean, if i'm not free to be as twisted as i want to be" i believe this is a perfect example of what freedom means and this is not to say that i support like psychopathic murders and what not it just means that i think people have the right to be however bizarre as they want to be without having to worry about societies reaction...... this very much applies to things such as Wiccanism and BDSM.