The term "liberty" is NOT undefinable and vague.

[Hister]

I am striving for liberty because liberty is individualistic in nature.

I'm not sure how true that is, since individual liberty (as generally understood in these discussions) is virtually always reliant on social institutions. That is to say, those things your recognize as essential individual liberties--"natural rights"--are meaningless without social recognition. So in that sense, "liberty" exists at the societal, not the individual level: dismantle society and its institutions and enter some sort of Hobbesian state of nature in which the individual truly is supreme and you won't have anything resembling your conception of liberty.

So it sounds more like "liberty" here refers to carving out and retaining a certain role for the individual within society. Obviously defining that role is a never-ending process and one of the primary sources of political/social tension in our society. In that sense, your "idiot liberal acquaintance" was correct that the exact meaning or interpretation of "liberty"--the role societies preserve for the individual--is malleable. The definition you provided in the OP is very open-ended, in that one can imagine a broad range of possible societies satisfying it, all while disagreeing with each other about the exact relationship of the individual to the society.

well, shit. well said, although I disagree as i believe the society as it is today is overvalued and placed in a "national" view, where my definition of liberty would flourish in small communities rather than gigantic nations. Locke took a lot from Hobbes and shook it up a bit for his definition of liberty.

Lib is just selfish. That said, Lib's liberty is to satisfy himself with not total liberty, but just enough so that he can consider himself free. But he's still in the man's prison called liberty.

 

[Liberty]

I'm not sure how true that is, since individual liberty (as generally understood in these discussions) is virtually always reliant on social institutions. That is to say, those things your recognize as essential individual liberties--"natural rights"--are meaningless without social recognition. So in that sense, "liberty" exists at the societal, not the individual level: dismantle society and its institutions and enter some sort of Hobbesian state of nature in which the individual truly is supreme and you won't have anything resembling your conception of liberty.

So it sounds more like "liberty" here refers to carving out and retaining a certain role for the individual within society. Obviously defining that role is a never-ending process and one of the primary sources of political/social tension in our society. In that sense, your "idiot liberal acquaintance" was correct that the exact meaning or interpretation of "liberty"--the role societies preserve for the individual--is malleable. The definition you provided in the OP is very open-ended, in that one can imagine a broad range of possible societies satisfying it, all while disagreeing with each other about the exact relationship of the individual to the society.

well, shit. well said, although I disagree as i believe the society as it is today is overvalued and placed in a "national" view, where my definition of liberty would flourish in small communities rather than gigantic nations. Locke took a lot from Hobbes and shook it up a bit for his definition of liberty.

Lib is just selfish. That said, Lib's liberty is to satisfy himself with not total liberty, but just enough so that he can consider himself free. But he's still in the man's prison called liberty.

order this, read it, and then come back.
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Treatises-Government-Letter-Concerning-Toleration/dp/1452847525/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281285576&sr=8-3]Amazon.com: Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration…[/ame]

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Sorry Lib, but there's no liberty in a merikka. You have the biggest army, the most prisoners, the IRS, ... and you're only 1 party better than china. In other words, no liberty of vote, you have only choice A and choice A1 (both the same choice).
So the word "liberty" in the US is meaningless, no one is free, and nothing is free either.

way to miss the point entirely. the point is liberty is what everyone should be striving for. not a socialist utopia where everyone is the same and no one is free to bloom their own talents.

That's good, because you missed my point as well. You think you're striving for liberty, when all you're striving for is what the man wants to give you.
Just ask yourself: are you free to live in a country that does attack the rest of the world constantly? Are you free to vote for a party that will pull all its troops out of every corner of the world and let those people live in peace? ...

The answer to both those questions is yes. You can move to Switzerland if all you want is a country that never gets involved in a war. If you just want to vote for a political party that will bring home those troops you just said you do not want, I could give you a list.

 

[Hister]

well, shit. well said, although I disagree as i believe the society as it is today is overvalued and placed in a "national" view, where my definition of liberty would flourish in small communities rather than gigantic nations. Locke took a lot from Hobbes and shook it up a bit for his definition of liberty.

Lib is just selfish. That said, Lib's liberty is to satisfy himself with not total liberty, but just enough so that he can consider himself free. But he's still in the man's prison called liberty.

order this, read it, and then come back.
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Treatises-Government-Letter-Concerning-Toleration/dp/1452847525/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281285576&sr=8-3]Amazon.com: Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration…[/ame]

I've already read that book, so what?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Very true, one cannot have true liberty while living in current US soiciety.

Some things to consider.

I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Robert Anson Heinlein
​

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything — you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

Robert Anson Heinlein
​

If, I repeat if, you are not free the reason you are not free is that you have not freed your mind of the shackles placed upon it by tyranny.No one but you is responsible for your freedom when the means for that freedom are within your grasp. Reach out and take hold of your freedom and stop waiting for others to hand it to you. The only way you will value it is if you take it.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I am striving for liberty because liberty is individualistic in nature.

I'm not sure how true that is, since individual liberty (as generally understood in these discussions) is virtually always reliant on social institutions. That is to say, those things your recognize as essential individual liberties--"natural rights"--are meaningless without social recognition. So in that sense, "liberty" exists at the societal, not the individual level: dismantle society and its institutions and enter some sort of Hobbesian state of nature in which the individual truly is supreme and you won't have anything resembling your conception of liberty.

So it sounds more like "liberty" here refers to carving out and retaining a certain role for the individual within society. Obviously defining that role is a never-ending process and one of the primary sources of political/social tension in our society. In that sense, your "idiot liberal acquaintance" was correct that the exact meaning or interpretation of "liberty"--the role societies preserve for the individual--is malleable. The definition you provided in the OP is very open-ended, in that one can imagine a broad range of possible societies satisfying it, all while disagreeing with each other about the exact relationship of the individual to the society.

Liberty is only dependent on social institutions in a social context. Free individuals come together and work toward a common goal to build those social institutions, so they actually depend on the liberty of individuals to work properly. it is when people start thinking it works the other way around that things start getting gummed up.

Social constructs should be designed to preserve individual liberty, and remember that without those individuals society cannot exist. I don't know where that concept got lost in the mess, but it did. It got so lost that people think it is insane when it is even brought up. They think that society is about the group, and that the individual owes everything to that group, which allows the group to define the behavior of the individual.

In other words, it isn't the people who look to the individual who are wrong, it is those who look to the group. This is the same group that says who can, and cannot, get married. this is the group that determines who does, and does not, live. that is, and always will be, wrong.

 

[Liberty]

quantom windbag is a smart cookie. Glad to see some intelligence on USMB.

 

[Greenbeard]

Liberty is only dependent on social institutions in a social context.

Liberty doesn't exist outside of a social context. It refers to the way in which human beings interact (you only have property if others recognize and respect your claim to ownership, you only have life if others refrain from killing you, and so on).

You either choose to communally define regulations inhibiting the actions of others or you don't. "Liberty," as the word is being used here, is a product of the former case because it refers specifically to limiting what other people can do to you (and, in turn, what you can do to them).

Social constructs should be designed to preserve individual liberty, and remember that without those individuals society cannot exist.

No, they're designed to create it. If liberty existed in their absence you wouldn't need them. For example, without a legal system (and perhaps a dominant moral philosophy) prohibiting murder, someone else can kill you. Without those things in place, you have no right to live because the concept of a right hinges on others recognizing and respecting that right. It doesn't matter what you think your rights are, it matters what others think your rights are because they, not you, are the ones who might infringe on those perceived rights. That's where the social institutions come in. When the consensus emerges that people have a right to life (or any right), that's a philosophical and legal statement on the part of that collection of people. But that statement/philosophical point, and the structures that are created to make it so, don't exist before that event.

Yes, individuals make up societies. But societies in turn determine what exactly an "individual" is.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Liberty doesn't exist outside of a social context. It refers to the way in which human beings interact (you only have property if others recognize and respect your claim to ownership, you only have life if others refrain from killing you, and so on).

You either choose to communally define regulations inhibiting the actions of others or you don't. "Liberty," as the word is being used here, is a product of the former case because it refers specifically to limiting what other people can do to you (and, in turn, what you can do to them).

Of course it does. As I said before you have it backwards, which is not your fault.

There are two ways to make society work. The first, and easiest, is to have the group define the social contract for the individual, under this method liberty is only defined by the social contract because it is an agreement of the group to allow individuals a certain amount of freedom, as long as it does not harm the group, which is what you are describing.

The second is for the individuals to define the limitations the group can impose on an individual in order to meet the needs of those individuals. This is the method that I believe was the intent of the founding fathers, and we lost it somewhere along the way. This method is harder to make work because every individual in the group has to work to not only maintain his own freedom, but that of the group of individuals.

No, they're designed to create it. If liberty existed in their absence you wouldn't need them. For example, without a legal system (and perhaps a dominant moral philosophy) prohibiting murder, someone else can kill you. Without those things in place, you have no right to live because the concept of a right hinges on others recognizing and respecting that right. It doesn't matter what you think your rights are, it matters what others think your rights are because they, not you, are the ones who might infringe on those perceived rights. That's where the social institutions come in. When the consensus emerges that people have a right to life (or any right), that's a philosophical and legal statement on the part of that collection of people. But that statement/philosophical point, and the structures that are created to make it so, don't exist before that event.

Yes, individuals make up societies. But societies in turn determine what exactly an "individual" is.

You are correct, even though you did not address my point, which is that social constructs should be designed to protect the individual. If the contract is designed to protect the individual murder would still be illegal, because it takes away the rights of an individual, but suicide would be legal, because it being illegal takes away the rights of the individual.

Our current legal system is designed to protect the group, and only makes murder illegal in order to protect the group. The murderer is not taking something away from the individual by committing murder, he is taking away something from the group. this is why courts award more to families of productive individuals than to those of children and old people in liability cases, their loss causes more damage to the group.

If, on the other hand, the individuals grant the group certain rights in return for protection from the dangers that an individual cannot deal with, and the security of having help when needed. Society should exist for and because of the individual, not in spite of him.

It is not a consensus that an individual has rights, it is a fact. If our social construct was set up to protect the individual there would be no debate about same sex marriage, because the individual would have that right, unless he chose to cede it to the group.

It might sound radical, but it shouldn't be.

 

[Hister]

Very true, one cannot have true liberty while living in current US soiciety.

Some things to consider.

I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Robert Anson Heinlein
​

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything — you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

Robert Anson Heinlein
​

If, I repeat if, you are not free the reason you are not free is that you have not freed your mind of the shackles placed upon it by tyranny.No one but you is responsible for your freedom when the means for that freedom are within your grasp. Reach out and take hold of your freedom and stop waiting for others to hand it to you. The only way you will value it is if you take it.

What a total load of crap!

The only way to be truly free is to live in a society with no laws. So really, there is no freedom to grasp, it's an illusion of freedom, like reaching out to god, nice thought, but ain't reality.

So Heinlein is willing to break laws to be free? So he can kill someone if he wants, (thus taking away that person's modicum of freedom)? Nice guy.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Very true, one cannot have true liberty while living in current US soiciety.

Some things to consider.

I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Robert Anson Heinlein
​

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything — you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

Robert Anson Heinlein
​

If, I repeat if, you are not free the reason you are not free is that you have not freed your mind of the shackles placed upon it by tyranny.No one but you is responsible for your freedom when the means for that freedom are within your grasp. Reach out and take hold of your freedom and stop waiting for others to hand it to you. The only way you will value it is if you take it.

What a total load of crap!

The only way to be truly free is to live in a society with no laws. So really, there is no freedom to grasp, it's an illusion of freedom, like reaching out to god, nice thought, but ain't reality.

So Heinlein is willing to break laws to be free? So he can kill someone if he wants, (thus taking away that person's modicum of freedom)? Nice guy.

Even if you lived in a society with no laws you would not be free.

Freedom is not something granted to you by others, it is something that comes from you, and you alone are responsible for it. Until you grasp that concept you will remain a slave to those chains you claim to hate.

 

[Hister]

Some things to consider.

I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Robert Anson Heinlein
​

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything — you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

Robert Anson Heinlein
​

If, I repeat if, you are not free the reason you are not free is that you have not freed your mind of the shackles placed upon it by tyranny.No one but you is responsible for your freedom when the means for that freedom are within your grasp. Reach out and take hold of your freedom and stop waiting for others to hand it to you. The only way you will value it is if you take it.

What a total load of crap!

The only way to be truly free is to live in a society with no laws. So really, there is no freedom to grasp, it's an illusion of freedom, like reaching out to god, nice thought, but ain't reality.

So Heinlein is willing to break laws to be free? So he can kill someone if he wants, (thus taking away that person's modicum of freedom)? Nice guy.

Even if you lived in a society with no laws you would not be free.

Freedom is not something granted to you by others, it is something that comes from you, and you alone are responsible for it. Until you grasp that concept you will remain a slave to those chains you claim to hate.

Total Windbag for sure.

btw, what chains do I claim to hate? wtf?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Think about it, it might help set you free.

 

[Liberty]

Very true, one cannot have true liberty while living in current US soiciety.

Some things to consider.

I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Robert Anson Heinlein
​

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything — you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

Robert Anson Heinlein
​

If, I repeat if, you are not free the reason you are not free is that you have not freed your mind of the shackles placed upon it by tyranny.No one but you is responsible for your freedom when the means for that freedom are within your grasp. Reach out and take hold of your freedom and stop waiting for others to hand it to you. The only way you will value it is if you take it.

What a total load of crap!

The only way to be truly free is to live in a society with no laws. So really, there is no freedom to grasp, it's an illusion of freedom, like reaching out to god, nice thought, but ain't reality.

So Heinlein is willing to break laws to be free? So he can kill someone if he wants, (thus taking away that person's modicum of freedom)? Nice guy.

OMFG you are soooooooooooooooooooooooo fucking moronic.

 

[Hister]

What do you expect from a moronic thread?