If humans desire liberty, then why don’t we have it? To borrow from what I understood from another thread, if government is a reflection of human nature, then why haven’t we ever seen a libertarian society? I conclude, that we as humans, do not desire liberty. We may say we do, but we don’t. We always choose government. It has come down to this: Liberty or government. No political spectrum. No "left or “right”. We always choose government, and that is confounding to me. Why not liberty?
Because liberty is seen as granted by government, as opposed to granted by nature.
It is always an interesting question. And you will probably get lots of answers.
Education is a big part of it. Fear is another part. I would say apathy plays a part. So does close-mindedness.
Are you saying that human beings really do want liberty, but they are simply mistaken about it’s source?
Humans want liberty. There are political parties in power that are just willing to take it away from them. It would be totally supercilious to say that people don’t want more liberty. Not many people would voluntarily take a tax on him or herself. The government, directed by special interest parties-- is bound to restrict more and more liberties. People do not wish for this state of affairs. They only have two choices-- and both are anti-liberty parties, so… that’s what you get. As for other societies-- liberty exists in name only. It still is a meaningful concept. But political parties who say they’re pro-liberty are in fact for restricting liberty’s very nature. People don’t desire liberty because they aren’t offered a real choice for it. When they are-- they don’t get exactly what they want by the parties in power.
Excellent. Thanks.
Do all people really desire liberty in the form you’re talking about?
Hmm. I guess so:).
Where is the proof? I can SAY I want liberty, it sounds good, but where is the evidence? There are 5 billion people, and humans have lived in modern societies for how long, 3000 years or more? Where is liberty? It should be here by now.
Why does liberty have to be offered if it is innate? If it is an innate part of our nature, who we are, then it should not have to be offered. It seems to me if we actually desire liberty, then we would do an “end-around” the political parties, kings, dictators, etc. I want to believe humans desire liberty, I just don’t see any evidence of it.
Most people desire only as much liberty as they can get without compromising their security. It isn’t that they don’t want liberty - they just want other things more.
Does liberty come in “forms”? Does that mean there is “more” liberty and “less” liberty and “somewhere in between” liberty?
Ofcourse. Liberty means one thing to you it could mean entirely another to me. Some people, when they say freedom, they mean freedom from want. Others mean freedom from coercion. Liberty could mean unrestricted, uninhibited behavior to some and to others it could mean the absence of prior restraint. I do not accept the idea that freedom is an either/or proposition. But instead it exists in degrees. So while something may not be entirely free, it can be mostly free. Or it can be mostly not free. You want 100 percent liberty. I don’t necessarily want 100 percent liberty. I would be satisfied with 80 percent. Right now, I feel we’re at 60 percent. To me, everything is shades of gray.
“Only a few prefer liberty, the majority seek nothing more than fair masters”, Sallust, Histories
Some things never change I guess.
"But if Ireland was essentially an anarchistic (or libertarian) society, how was law and order maintained? How was justice secured? Was there not incessant warfare and rampant criminality?
To answer the last of these questions first -of course there were wars and crime. Has there ever been a society statist or otherwise - without war and crime? But Irish wars were almost never on the scale known among other civilized* European peoples. Without the coercive apparatus of the State which can through taxation and conscription mobilize large amounts of arms and manpower, the Irish were unable to sustain any large scale military force in the field for any length of time. Irish wars, until the last phase of the English conquest in the 16th and 17th centuries, were pitiful brawls and cattle raids by European standards.
The contemporary Irish historian, Kathleen Hughes, has remarked that one reason why the English conquest, begun in the 12th century under Henry II and completed only under William III in the late 17th century, was so long in being achieved was the lack of a wellorganized State in Celtic Ireland.
A people not habituated to a Statist conception of authority are incapable of considering a defeat in war as anything more than a temporary limitations upon their liberty. Submission to the enemy is viewed as no more than a necessary and temporary expedient to preserve one’s life until opportunity for revolt and recovery of liberty presents itself. The English, of course, considered the Irish notorious in their faithlessness (they repeatedly repudiated oaths of submission and allegiance to their English conquerors); they were repeatedly characterized by English commentators as natural-born, incorrigible rebels, barbarians, savages who refused to submit to the kind of law and order offered by the English State. The Irish, unfettered by the slave mentality of people accustomed to the tyranny of the State, simply refused to surrender their liberty and libertarian ways."
The intellectual whores cloak the state with ideology, to keep the masses in check.
There will always be the remnant. Who the hell are all these people on the forum? lol
False.
I feel pretty free, all things considering. Even without a government telling me what to do, I could still feel restricted in a society free of government rule. Maybe I don’t like the private road systems around me or feel that the court systems are fair. It’s just a different system that I’d have to put up with. I’d much rather a society without government but I’d be a damned fool to believe that everything would be hunky dory.
I don’t know if I’m on topic with this reply or not. Guess it’s hard for me to put my thoughts into words with this one right now. [:P]
I used to believe that. Now, after watching the train wreck of this nation (bailouts, stimulus, homeland security, wars without end or purpose, etc), I am convinced the people of the U.S., and more profoundly, that people in general, do not want liberty. It explains so much when one takes this point of view. Clinging to the belief that people really do want liberty makes these actual events seem so odd and unexplainable.
Wow, very nice. So, going back almost 2,100 years (coincidentally, to last great empire) the historian made the above observation. Hmm. At this point, my conclusion stands: Human beings do not desire liberty. And that is the real problem libertarians face. It’s not the Fed, or government, or minarchism vs. anarcho-capitalism. It is that human beings are not equipped to desire liberty. I’m sorry to repeat myself, but it’s the only way I can express it.
I don’t think it is that humans aren’t equipped to desire liberty; they simply don’t know how to achieve or obtain it. Lack of education is probably #1 on the list as to the failure of an individual to know how to go about obtaining liberty. I’ve helped enlighten a couple of people into thinking differently about things, which would be stepping stones towards being able to live in a much more free society. The only thing that was holding them back before was their complete misunderstanding on a specific subject, primarily because all they knew was what they were told from sources such as mass media. This doesn’t mean that they weren’t equipped to desire freedom though.
Don’t get too gloomy Chloe[:)].
I used to be as statist too you know! I was even sympathtic to socialism once.
I think liberty seems a bit more of a higher ideal, compared to the desire to retain one’s property. For example, I enjoy explaining what inlfation is and am still amazed at how people don’t know what causes it. It’s a simple thing like this, around which we can build a critical mass I feel.