An Individual's Freedom

[August1991]

Do posters to this forum know how valuable/wonderful this freedom is?

We all face constraints in life. We can't do what we would like to do, usually because we don't have enough money.

But money aside, can we say what we want to say? In private, among friends?

[eyeball]

Do posters to this forum know how valuable/wonderful this freedom is?

We all face constraints in life. We can't do what we would like to do, usually because we don't have enough money.

But money aside, can we say what we want to say? In private, among friends?

Or power.

[Oleg Bach]

Do posters to this forum know how valuable/wonderful this freedom is?

We all face constraints in life. We can't do what we would like to do, usually because we don't have enough money.

But money aside, can we say what we want to say? In private, among friends?

I am thrilled! They will look back on these days and say ---look how much freedom and fun they had back in the good old days..Just yesterday I was commenting on this nation and my life - I lived like a noble man all my life--- no money though - the best locations - natural luxury - had the adventure of rearing children - fell in love more than once - every day - I wake up and prey of a about 2 seconds - I say "thanks" _ that's it...Yes - this place is a miracle and I am so privledged for having lived - and living here...ooops - I just saw my bitterness fly out the window>

[Oleg Bach]

I am thrilled! They will look back on these days and say ---look how much freedom and fun they had back in the good old days..Just yesterday I was commenting on this nation and my life - I lived like a noble man all my life--- no money though - the best locations - natural luxury - had the adventure of rearing children - fell in love more than once - every day - I wake up and prey of a about 2 seconds - I say "thanks" _ that's it...Yes - this place is a miracle and I am so privledged for having lived - and living here...ooops - I just saw my bitterness fly out the window>

Forgot ----even though we are faceless - I am getting to slowly know some of the members - they are adorable bright intelleigent wonderful people = five bucks please!

[Bonam]

Do posters to this forum know how valuable/wonderful this freedom is?

We all face constraints in life. We can't do what we would like to do, usually because we don't have enough money.

But money aside, can we say what we want to say? In private, among friends?

Yeah freedom is pretty awesome. Although I have a feeling most people these days would rather have freebies than freedom.

[Peter F]

Do posters to this forum know how valuable/wonderful this freedom is?

We all face constraints in life. We can't do what we would like to do, usually because we don't have enough money.

But money aside, can we say what we want to say? In private, among friends?

Yes freedom is wonderful. Yes we can say what we want in private among friends (or enemies or the indifferent).

Did you not know that?

[Sir Bandelot]

Freedom is not measured by what we can say in private to our friends, but what we can say in public, to anyone.

Then again, maybe absolute freedom is something that is not desirable, or even wise. Total freedom amongst unlike-minded individuals leads to chaos. There has to be discipline. The rejection of certain forms of freedom, by preference and for specific reasons, is a part of growing up and leads to another type of freedom.

[charter.rights]

Freedom

And an orator said, "Speak to us of Freedom."

And he answered:

At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,

Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.

Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.

And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,

But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?

In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.

And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?

If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.

You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.

And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.

For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their won pride?

And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.

And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.

Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.

These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.

And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.

And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.

The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

[Mr. Whiteman Esq.]

Do posters to this forum know how valuable/wonderful this freedom is?

We all face constraints in life. We can't do what we would like to do, usually because we don't have enough money.

But money aside, can we say what we want to say? In private, among friends?

Thank European civilization for our rights and freedoms. No other culture has developed such a sophisticated philosophy and system for ensuring individual human rights. If it wasn't for Europe, billions of people would be living in abject poverty and ignorance, without rights or access to education and modern health care.

[enlightment]

Thank European civilization for our rights and freedoms. No other culture has developed such a sophisticated philosophy and system for ensuring individual human rights. If it wasn't for Europe, billions of people would be living in abject poverty and ignorance, without rights or access to education and modern health care.

---------

I agree with you human rights are important but do you know that the human rights of this entire planet is going to be taken away in the near future soon ? This is has to do with the following - U.S. politics :

The best way to know U.S. politics is to view " Obama Deception Full Length " on youtube.com

Also download the free Obama Deception Guide :

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13404412/The-Obama-Deception-Guide

There is no Left or Right in US politics , they are only acting in front of the camera. When off camera, the Left and the Right go to parties and dinner...etc.

The only people controlling the White House is the International Bankers and the US Presidency is only a puppet post.

For the explanation of all these wars in the past 100 years, please check out the link below and then read all the links of that site. One thing for sure, we have been sidetracked to petty issues while something deadly serious, threatening to Mankind is being secretly engineered.

http://nworesistance.com/war-and-conflict-explained.html

[August1991]

Yes freedom is wonderful. Yes we can say what we want in private among friends (or enemies or the indifferent). Did you not know that?

Peter F, I think you touch on one of my points. Most Canadians feel free to say what they want in private among friends - although they may add an ironic smirk referring to political correctness.

Freedom is not measured by what we can say in private to our friends, but what we can say in public, to anyone.

That's a good point, Bandelot. But it seems to me that the power of the State is most pernicious when it uses private means. The Soviets and Nazis used children to denounce their parents. A measure of individual liberty is what we can say to our work colleagues and to our children, if they go to school.

Thank European civilization for our rights and freedoms. No other culture has developed such a sophisticated philosophy and system for ensuring individual human rights. If it wasn't for Europe, billions of people would be living in abject poverty and ignorance, without rights or access to education and modern health care.

Europe? Europe is a Killing Fields. Europeans are not civilized in any sense of the term. Nowadays, Leftist Americans may think that Europe is cultured and sophisticated but in fact, Europeans are violent tribalists. European history is violent and its 20th century, horrifically violent. As recently as the 1990s, some Europeans were killing each other while other Europeans watched and did nothing. In comparison, South and North Americans are peaceful and civilized. North Americans in particular are civilized. The last time Americans fought was in the 1860s. IMV, Americans are from Venus, and Europeans are from Mars. North America is a bastion of peaceful, civilized, individual freedom.

Europe civilized? There is no such place as Treblinka in America, North or South.

I lived like a noble man all my life--- no money though - the best locations - natural luxury - had the adventure of rearing children - fell in love more than once - every day - I wake up and prey of a about 2 seconds - I say "thanks" _ that's it...Yes - this place is a miracle and I am so privledged for having lived - and living here...ooops - I just saw my bitterness fly out the window>

Oleg, did you feel free to say what you wanted to say, and enjoy a good life? Or did you accept that saying what you wanted was the price of your freedom?

If we are impolite and offend friends, we lose them. If we insult the State or offend Official Dogma, we are put in jail or lose our livelihood.

Oleg, there is a difference between Society and the State.

Edited July 6, 2009 by August1991

[Remiel]

European history is violent and its 20th century, horrifically violent. As recently as the 1990s, some Europeans were killing each other while other Europeans watched and did nothing. In comparison, South and North Americans are peaceful and civilized. North Americans in particular are civilized. The last time Americans fought was in the 1860s. IMV, Americans are from Venus, and Europeans are from Mars. North America is a bastion of peaceful, civilized, individual freedom.

I do not think so, August. It is odd to say that " My cousins family is violent. He is violent, his father was violent, his fathers father is violent, his fathers fathers father, and so on and so on, " without implicating your own family, since your fathers father and his fathers father (or mothers father, of course) are the same. We cannot distance ourselves from their bloody legacy so easily just by parking on the other side of the Pond.

And North Americans fought in Europe, so we own our own little piece of the " Killing Fields, " literally even in France. Places are not violent though, people are, and we share in Europes violence enought to call it our own.

[Michael Hardner]

Yes, it's wonderful. It's so good that people don't appreciate it at all.

The freedom we enjoy today emerged as 'freedom' when writers started to opine on the rights of man during the enlightenment. That means that our freedom is culturally an emancipation from the system of slavery that the Europeans developed wherein 'free men' were still bound to their church and state. But that system also ensured relative stability and hence prosperity.

I sense that people will soon start to discover real freedom - to downsize their materialism and upsize their desire for free time and personal growth in all forms. As prosperity diminishes in importance, freedom will increase in importance.

[Argus]

Do posters to this forum know how valuable/wonderful this freedom is?

We all face constraints in life. We can't do what we would like to do, usually because we don't have enough money.

But money aside, can we say what we want to say? In private, among friends?

Last week I sent an extremely snide, insulting and mocking letter to Dalton McGuinty, and never paused once to consider whether there might be reprisals.

My friends all know I'm crazy, and so they tolerate most of what I have to say.

But no one can be completely honest with his friends, well, depending on the friend. One always guards ones own tongue to varying degrees depending on the known personality of ones friends, especially in this day and age, when friends can be of either gender. There are few people who really want to see too deeply into another man's soul.

[August1991]

Last week I sent an extremely snide, insulting and mocking letter to Dalton McGuinty, and never paused once to consider whether there might be reprisals.

I don't think this is what I meant. You know as well as I do Argus that such letters get filed under G.

In the movie Moscow On the Hudson, the grandfather mocks the Soviet TV news but he's dismissed as a harmless crank.

My OP referred (perhaps inarticulately) to political correctness. To me, this is a new version of staid 19th century Victorian restrictions.

[eyeball]

Yes, it's wonderful. It's so good that people don't appreciate it at all.

The freedom we enjoy today emerged as 'freedom' when writers started to opine on the rights of man during the enlightenment. That means that our freedom is culturally an emancipation from the system of slavery that the Europeans developed wherein 'free men' were still bound to their church and state. But that system also ensured relative stability and hence prosperity.

I sense that people will soon start to discover real freedom - to downsize their materialism and upsize their desire for free time and personal growth in all forms. As prosperity diminishes in importance, freedom will increase in importance.

Freedoms that exist only because some authority says they exist leave me feeling like we're still not quite as free as we might like to think we are.

The church may not be to the state what it was in the past in many societies but power still flows down through them from on high in much the same fashion. I think many people are still far to bound to that dynamic. Perhaps it gives them some comfort.

I'd like to think society will be freest when power diminishes in importance. I agree that the west may well be on the cusp of a period in which materialism and wealth will be eschewed so what will become of power if that happens?

In lieu of money what will the state have at its disposal to concern, sway, woo, frighten, buy, etc voters with?

[Argus]

I don't think this is what I meant. You know as well as I do Argus that such letters get filed under G.

In the movie Moscow On the Hudson, the grandfather mocks the Soviet TV news but he's dismissed as a harmless crank.

My OP referred (perhaps inarticulately) to political correctness. To me, this is a new version of staid 19th century Victorian restrictions.

How bound you are by political correctness depends on the circumstances of your career and who you choose as your friends.

At work, I'm not free to speak my mind. In fact, one of the main reasons I don't use my real name on this forum is because of the possibility someone at work might read it and my words my give general offense to people I need to work among. Outside of work, my friends are under few illusions with regard to my very politically incorrect opinions. I would not normally choose to spend time around someone who was very politically correct, and who thus was likely to be offended by my opinions.

[charter.rights]

How bound you are by political correctness depends on the circumstances of your career and who you choose as your friends.

At work, I'm not free to speak my mind. In fact, one of the main reasons I don't use my real name on this forum is because of the possibility someone at work might read it and my words my give general offense to people I need to work among. Outside of work, my friends are under few illusions with regard to my very politically incorrect opinions. I would not normally choose to spend time around someone who was very politically correct, and who thus was likely to be offended by my opinions.

Yet you choose to stifle your freedom of expression by using political correctness here (by not revealing your name) and by watching what you say at your work. That is hypocritical, you think?

Freedom of expression means that we can say what we want (within the legal restrictions banning hate language) here OR at work without fear of reprisal. What you are really saying to my mind, is that exercising your freedoms isn;t worth the hassle of having to defend your opinion in person. Thus what you considered ":freedom" is really a yoke around your neck that you place their yourself.

[Argus]

Yet you choose to stifle your freedom of expression by using political correctness here (by not revealing your name) and by watching what you say at your work. That is hypocritical, you think?

Freedom of expression means that we can say what we want (within the legal restrictions banning hate language) here OR at work without fear of reprisal. What you are really saying to my mind, is that exercising your freedoms isn;t worth the hassle of having to defend your opinion in person. Thus what you considered ":freedom" is really a yoke around your neck that you place their yourself.

To an extent, we have always self-censored in public. That is why, for example, unless he's had too much to drink, a polite young man does not compliment strange young women on the shapeliness of their breasts or bottoms, or inform them of the sexual fantasy he's just had about them. A man might find his neighbor and ignorant, arrogant, stupid fool, but for the sake of peaceful relations he is unlikely to tell him so. Nor does a woman tell her hostess she finds her taste in fashion laughably bad, and her cooking inept. We do not tell doting parents we think their children are ugly, or miserable, squalling brats. Social harmony pretty much demands this. It's not really a matter of freedom. It's a matter of socialization. One of the reasons flamewars are so common on the internet is that people abandon much of this socialization effort, unconcerned with giving offense to people they do not and never will know or meet.

Edited July 11, 2009 by Argus

[eyeball]

One of the reasons flamewars are so common on the internet is that people abandon much of this socialization effort, unconcerned with giving offense to people they do not and never will know or meet.

Much of our socialization is biological and out of our hands so to speak. Apparently we also communicate a lot through our body language and facial expressions and the absence of these in a internet forum seems to incapacitate the usual constraints people would normally excersize in a real forum.

This is one of the main reasons I think we might want to govern ourselves with citizen's assemblies and referenda. These seem far more in tune with natural individual freedom as opposed to the institutionalized form that many seem to think represents the pinnacle of democratic evolution.

[August1991]

Intriguing thread.

Freedom is not measured by what we can say in private to our friends, but what we can say in public, to anyone.

My grandfather, an independent Newfoundland cod fisherman, would agree.

He used different words but he said the same.

Edited July 11, 2009 by August1991

[tango]

To an extent, we have always self-censored in public. That is why, for example, unless he's had too much to drink, a polite young man does not compliment strange young women on the shapeliness of their breasts or bottoms, or inform them of the sexual fantasy he's just had about them. A man might find his neighbor and ignorant, arrogant, stupid fool, but for the sake of peaceful relations he is unlikely to tell him so. Nor does a woman tell her hostess she finds her taste in fashion laughably bad, and her cooking inept. We do not tell doting parents we think their children are ugly, or miserable, squalling brats. Social harmony pretty much demands this. It's not really a matter of freedom. It's a matter of socialization.

I think this is true. What some snidely call 'political correctness' is merely good manners.

In every generation, there are some who don't progress with the rest, and who continue to hold onto ways of the past that have become simply bad manners.

[Argus]

I think this is true. What some snidely call 'political correctness' is merely good manners.

In every generation, there are some who don't progress with the rest, and who continue to hold onto ways of the past that have become simply bad manners.

Yes... and no. If by that you mean old mean who still call black men "boy" and get indignant when women offer their opinion I'll agree. But PC goes far and away beyond that. In its worse form it seeks to shout down and silence those whose opinions on racial, ethic, religious and other similar social issues are at odds with current PC think.

I said I wouldn't knowingly spend time with someone who was PC, but one of my closest friends is extremely PC when it comes to abortion. She gets angry when anyone even questions the total right to abortions, and there's no point in even attempting to discuss it with her or around her. She is incapable of discussing the issue with any degree of restraint, logic or, for that matter, manners. Fortunately, I'm fairly pro-choice and it's not a big issue with me anyway so it doesn't come up between us. But there are people like her who are just as sensitive but on a whole slew of social issues and cannot abide anyone disagreeing with them. They take upon themselves a sort of moral righteousness, and presume that anyone who questions them is, therefore, immoral. Of course, immoral people deserve no respect.

For example, how do you think a mother would react to a man who wants to discuss his feelings that he should be allowed to have sex with children? Would she be willing to grant him a polite hearing and discuss the issue with him rationally? Unlikely. I think you can imagine what she would think of him. PC zealots feel that way towards anyone on the wrong (that is to say, on the right) side of social issues.

[tango]

Yes... and no. If by that you mean old mean who still call black men "boy" and get indignant when women offer their opinion I'll agree.

Ya, some of that, and loudly demanding the right to do so.

Thing is, they tend to pay for it in people walking away from them.

No one has to listen.

But PC goes far and away beyond that. In its worse form it seeks to shout down and silence those whose opinions on racial, ethic, religious and other similar social issues are at odds with current PC think.

The right to shout down is also free expression.

I said I wouldn't knowingly spend time with someone who was PC, but one of my closest friends is extremely PC when it comes to abortion. She gets angry when anyone even questions the total right to abortions, and there's no point in even attempting to discuss it with her or around her. She is incapable of discussing the issue with any degree of restraint, logic or, for that matter, manners. Fortunately, I'm fairly pro-choice and it's not a big issue with me anyway so it doesn't come up between us. But there are people like her who are just as sensitive but on a whole slew of social issues and cannot abide anyone disagreeing with them. They take upon themselves a sort of moral righteousness, and presume that anyone who questions them is, therefore, immoral. Of course, immoral people deserve no respect.

Friends accept friends' personal sensitivities.

For example, how do you think a mother would react to a man who wants to discuss his feelings that he should be allowed to have sex with children? Would she be willing to grant him a polite hearing and discuss the issue with him rationally? Unlikely. I think you can imagine what she would think of him. PC zealots feel that way towards anyone on the wrong (that is to say, on the right) side of social issues.

You are only guaranteed the right to speak.

No one is guaranteed an audience.

If you choose to speak in ways that offend those present, they have a guaranteed right to say so, and to not listen (shout you down, walk away, etc).

People are free to express their views even if unpopular, and free to experience the social consequences too.

I think your sensitivities have to do with being a small and shrinking minority view.

Edited July 12, 2009 by tango

[Argus]

The right to shout down is also free expression.

Depends on the context. Certainly people have the right not to listen. I do not believe they have the right to shout down someone who wishes to speak, however, and this is something the PC types commonly employ. In fact, they are the only ones who employ this method of free speech denial. I've seen cases where whole groups of them will attend a speech or gathering with only one specific intent; to shout down someone they don't want to be able to speak.

I think your sensitivities have to do with being a small and shrinking minority view.

Yes, PC zealots always believe they are not only righteous but in the majority. In reality they are a tiny minority, however loudly they proclaim otherwise.