Freedom has no degrees. You are either free or not.
There are degrees in the comprehension of it.
Nice…you are talking about Absolute Freedom.
Absolute Man Freedom is related to time. We are Born free… and we lose it as time goes by….as the thinking process starts…
…What? That makes no sense.
Wonderful double think. I am wrong but you admit that people have more stake in economic affairs resulting in a reluctance to revolt.
No one is going to have to pay with their life in order for the state to crumble due to a financial situation.
People starve and die everyday, are we more free because of it?
Again a false analogy. We are discussing the natural state of freedom which is one without coercion. The multitude of coercion comes from the state apparatus.
Because apathy is such that one minds their own business. No one ever became a slave because everyone pursued their self-interest and were apathetic to the happenings of others. However, if you feel I am wrong then present empirical proof. This ‘preemptive’ attitude is more likely to produce coercion based on reason alone.
Do not dictate my subjective actions to me. I don’t walk down streets with my fists clenched ready to punch any poor soul who try to converse with me.
A wonderful platitude that I dismissed with my first response. Do you deny there are levels of freedom? And do you deny that freedom is inalienable?
Well then we are not free and if the state were suddenly pass a law throwing you in jail for no reason then you are no more ‘less’ free. Do you concede this?
The man does not “have to”, but as history tells us things that are not treated with responsibility are not respected, not only by their possessors but also by others…
I expect such too, but I am prepared for a failure to respect their role…
The United States has applied all 10 planks of communism outlined by Marx, not in a day, but gradually over time…
I did not admit they have more at stake in economic affairs, they have more at stake in comfort, it is an inconvenience for them to revolt, life under capitalism is not easy, you HAVE TO produce, or you fail, people have grown comfortable in having what they do not earn, and not really owning anything other than useless crap…
What I am saying is owning a business is less a deterrent to revolution than owning a game console…
No, people are going to have to die in the process of the state crumbling, but as Russia teaches us, just because it crumbles does not mean it goes away either…
US Gun Law…
First it was created to keep black people from owning them, then the government realized that nobody cared (apathy), so it expanded, eventually we have the situation that we have today, heavily regulated gun ownership as a privilege as opposed to an inalienable right of man to self defense…
I did not say that you did, are you saying that you are unfit to defend yourself and hope that all others abide by a NAP, and if they don’t you take your lumps and go home, you are taking the simple act of knowing that your defense is your responsibility and turning into I am going to kick everyone’s *** that approaches me…
Prepared and preemptive are two different concepts, preparedness is the realization that you may have to react to uexpected situation, preemption is assuming a situation and acting before the situation arrives…
I do not understand how you can define a level to freedom, there is no grey for me, and this is my opinion, if you have less than total freedom, you are not free, I do not ask you to share it…
Do you deny that people are coerced away from freedom? You are only free until aggression is applied and you do not defend against it…
Is a man free when he is in shackles?
Yes…I’m waiting for how this justifies the reduction of government. I never postulated that the growth of government is stagnant, quite the contrary it is always growing
I call that economic affairs.
What is true of Russia is not necessarily true of the United States. And what is this fascination with sacrifice? What are you trying to become a history textbook hero?
Obviously that is not following my example of EVERYONE being apathetic. Clearly someone took preemptive action towards establishing their dominance over other beings.
I am fit to defend myself but that is the natural state of things. Being able to defend yourself is not an exception.
Sitting around and theorizing different unexpected events and how you will react to them (oddly enough an inconsistent action) is a waste of brain power in my mind. You seem to implictently imply that 50+1% of society is out to cage you up or restrict your freedom.
If you feel it is a black and white issue then I will propose the same question I did to another in this topic with like-minded ideas. If the government were to establish legislation throwing you in jail for no cause, then would you be more ‘unfree’? If your answer is yes, then you are establishing degrees of freedom and therefore ‘grayness’. You seem to have been bitten by the romanticized idealism bug where anything but total freedom is intolerable yet if such were true then why are you on LvMI speaking your mind in such a blahzay format. Intolerability should mean you are hitting the streets trying to start your own revolution. Go at it John Connor. I’m not some Hegelian who thinks that this is the plateau of human political evolution, however I’m not so foolish to think that what we have now is ‘intolerable.’ Of course it could get a lot worse but to concede that is to concede degrees of freedom and that seems to be incomprehensible to you. I do not ask you to share it…
Never said it did, I said it was gradualism at work…
I call that indoctrinated complacency…
No, but if we use history as our example of what will likely happen, we cannot deny the possibility…
Only the people not effected need be apathetic, and again history has shown us that this process works time and time again…
I am not theorizing anything, I am noting that the unexpected can happen and I will have to adjust to such, just adding the wiseness in preparing for the unexpected…
No, you are just not free when your life is at the whim of the government, any “level” percieved is just toleration of a lack in freedom…
I understand that the war of ideas has a long way to go before we can hit the streets, we have a government with more power and a propaganda machine at their aid, and then there are the numbers issues…
I have no desire to form a cult of personality to defeat the current one, I find the notion hypocritical…
It is not a case of degrees of freedom, when you have freedom you are just free, I believe you are talking about degrees of tyranny, much like when you have a society it is free or it is statist, the degrees are in statism, not in freedom…
In a free society, as I see it, one is free to do immoral acts, take life for example, but the consequences of such an action will be that individual’s to bear…
Right but that still doesn’t mean that one should conflate liberty with a positive responsiblity.
Would you grant monopoly status to the grocery owner ? What for ? And if you did, would you expect him to charge low prices ?
But it gets even more absurd - would you grant monopoly status to a grocery owner that you know is an outright criminal ?
I do not see how being on guard against government intrusion automatically assumes there is a monopoly in government, even in the absence of government on your particular domain does not guarantee that a government will not use force to exert control over you…
My determination through fact and logic is more of a path to success in order to live free…
I will concede that you do not “have to” do anything to live free, but with that said, history proves you will not be free for long before coercion comes your way, and if you continue to do nothing, you will not live free…
Oh. Are you an anarchist now ? =]
Not exactly, I am open to it, but I do not think it is really workable…
But your failed, monopolistic, government is ?
Obviously since we are not Communists I meant the gradual reduction of the State itself.
Are you blaming capitalism for people becoming ‘complacent’?
One cannot use history to on one hand justify one’s argument then on the other refuse to acknowledge history [showing that no government has reduced its size over a period of time]. Also I would say that historical is not cycical or deterministic so simply stating, ‘well it happened in the past therefore it must happen again like this’ is a fallacy.
You purposely refuse to acknowledge that my ‘ideal’ consists of everyone. Meaning…everyone.
In being prepared for the ‘unexpect’ you are in fact expecting it
If the situation was intolerable then a cult of personality would at least be more tolerable would it not?
Degrees of statism imply degrees of freedom.
So we are free to kill people so long as we get our ‘coming upings’? What happened to that whole responsibility tripe?
Well, it is really here is it not?
It is a poor option but realistic, I am looking for a better realistic option
Of course it is here - A criminal gang which will kill you if you try to pretend it’s not here. And from a libertarian point of view it is a failure.
You are advocating so called ‘minimal’ aka monopolistic government so maybe you could address this ? :
As nazgulnarsil pointed out individuals can either be sovereign or not. I can’t think of a third option ? Can you ? Strict logic would seem to forbid it.