[ExI] Freedom (was: "PC")

[Spargemeister]

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 9:08 PM, Harvey Newstrom
<mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
>
> I think everybody wants "freedom".  It's just that different people have
> different interpretations of what they need to be free from.

Obviously different people want different things, and conflicts
abound. But describing every possible desire as a "freedom"
exaggerates the problem and devalues true freedom. I'd like to be free
of financial concerns, but I certainly don't consider that to be a
fundamental human right.

The key concept, I think, is *personal* freedom: the right to do
whatever you want as long it doesn't interfere with another person's
personal freedom. The government should be working to maintain the
personal freedom of citizens, not imposing various arbitrary
restrictions favored by popular ideologies.

> A libertatian
> blames all ills on the government, and therefore wants the freedom of
> anarchy.

That's a serious mischaracterization of libertarianism. We don't want
anarchy, we want a small government framework does the things only a
government can do, such as manage public assets, coordinate national
defense, and maintain and enforce federal laws.

> A person tired of spam and scammers wants freedom from criminals
> and wants the government to "do something".

Nope. I'm tired of spam and the last thing I want is for the
government to try to fix the problem.

> A communist wants freedom from
> corporations making everybody a wage slave.  While a free-marketeer wants
> freedom to be in charge of their own business all by themselves.  Some
> people want the freedom to experiment with drugs, while others want the
> freedom to walk down a city street without drug-crazed persons mugging them.
> Gun lovers want the freedom to carry protection, while gun haters want the
> freedom to walk down the street unafraid of armed robbery.  A gay person
> wants the freedom to form any relationships, while a fundamentalist wants
> the freedom to live in a country "free" of gays.  Everybody wants freedom,
> but only for their own desires, and only using the methods they think will
> bring about their freedom.

I'm not going to bother with addressing each of those examples. I'll
leave it as an exercise for the reader to evaluate them in terms of
maximizing personal freedom.

-Dave