Destroying Freedom?

Freedom: The condition of being free of restraints.

I feel that there is no such thing a true freedom, because of government and laws. If so, isn’t freedom (Like the free United States) only based on the prospective of seeing nations not free. We say we’re free because other countries are not, when it comes down to “it could be worse.”

So am I correct in saying if all, or most, countries get freedom from ruthless governments, people, and laws, then the U.S. will loss there’s.

If there is no true or absolute freedom, then it is a comparison to others. If we are equal in free rights, then we have no freedom!

Yes or No?

if your freedom is a matter of comparison, yes, you have no freedom.

some (i am not included) will boldly hold that freedom in us is not dependant on law or government, and it comes from the constitution.

that might have been the case when people had balls and guns. nowadays, they have ties and cubicals.

Is “true freedom” being able to do what you want? That is what ithink absolute freedom is, being able to do what I want to do, since i am not alone on the planet, i presume everybody else wishes for the same as i (to do what they want to do). How then can everybody do what they want to do? Should we limit yours and my freedom so that everybody can do what they want to do?..i think so.

rami, saying freedom is the ability to do what you want is the crudest possible definition of freedom (doesn’t mean it’s wrong). we coiuld say freedom consist of, for instance, never having to do arbitrary things. or a few other ways to go about freedom.

i agree that we basically have freedom in relation to other countries that have less.

(in contradiction to what somebody said, it’s not in comparison to others that we have no freedom, it’s in comparison to others that we do have freedom)

my speculation is that culture isn’t yet evolved enough to handle non-governance. on the other hand, i have nothing against eliminating the system because of what we as a country are doing to the planet. but that is a digression.

Actually we have freedom because of laws. Laws create fear of violating another person’s rights and allow us all to go about our business with some assurance that we won’t be attacked. This is what allows women and other people not capable of defending themselves against aggressors the option to walk down the street.

Exactly what i was getting at. Social laws give negative freedom(from) and positive freedom(to), which inevitably gives us the choice to do what we wants.

Yes, there’s a question on an IQ test about this. It’s the hardest question in it’s group. So, step to the head of the class buddy!

Unfortunately, some of the post 911 laws, which according to old Roman tradition were time limited, seemed like they were limiting our freedom but were put into place to stop tyrants from attacking the very system that promotes freedom.

I’ve said before that “freedom” is a concept that must be constantly fought for. It’s not a naturally occurring right.

it is not possible to destroy freedom, you are condemned to make a choice, even if you do not. Like Existentialism says, you are condemned to make a choice.

Very “Epictetus” of you!

Freedom from, freedom to. All too often we focus on the latter

There is no true freedom without laws to protect individual rights and freedoms.

If you mean do I have the right to violate other people’s freedom than no because what kind of freedom would that be.

absolute freedom aka anarchism

i agree, freedom from the old victorian laws that the us still holds dear, all human beings should have equal rights. that’s freedom to me.

i think america considders itself freer than anyone else because it has more democracy, however i would pont out that hitler was elected democratically. democracy does not mean freedom, just freedom for the majority.

Hey… I agree with Mat, this is… awesome.

Under the same system of control as the US uses now, Hitler used during WWII. For anyone living inside Germany at the time, everyone else was the enemy and they were ‘defending’. Just like the US tells their citizens (and ours) today. Sadly, most americans can’t see through this veil of deceit

I forgot this post wasn’t about politics… so here is the rest.

My version of ‘pure freedom’ or as I’ll use for this post “The best freedom” comes from within, not from some appointed law or something like that. For instance I like to write, not so much for others, for me it’s a way of living our stories that would otherwise never happen. Compound this with the power of dreaming; lucid dreaming is the ultimate in freedom, the ultimate virtual reality game.

This is not a knock on waking life, but the power of sleep is so underused in today’s world it’s sickening.

In some places you get your tongue ripped out for speaking and killed for writing, but we have laws against that.

The States do have their Constitution and fundamental rights for everyone.

I don’t think Hitler could pull the same thing off there, but then again McCarthy came close.

you’re talking about political freedom. But freedom of choice cannot be taken from you, you are condemed to choose.

i feel that the human race can never be free to its purest extent. if we exist by gods will and his first creation was adam and eve, then he gave them the ideas and universal warnings we share today, such as falling from a height will kill us or staying under water will cause us to drown. the only way to completely free your mind is to be devoid of these ideas. the only time we ever get close to this is at birth. we are born close to absolute freedom, but we are raised to no these warnings and pre-defined imposibilities. if we came into this world knowing absolutly nothing about how this world works and without any of these ideas, we would truly be free to do anything