3 ms·

Sure, but there is no country in the world that satisfies the platonic ideal, in which you are totally immune to attack by the court. No country on the planet

by bhupy 6y ago

Sure, but there is no country in the world that satisfies the platonic ideal, in which you are totally immune to attack by the court. No country on the planet is absolutely free. The US just happens to be the most negatively free country.

mindslight 6y ago
If you're trying to do justice to the concept of negative freedom, then what definition are you using? To me, it's about being free to be left alone and go your own way, as opposed to being provided for (eg freedom from hunger, or whatever). I would classify a public defender as a mitigation of an impingement on negative freedom rather than a bona fide positive freedom. There are surely other countries where you have less of a chance of being harmed by the courts, because they compensate for their general infringement of freedom by giving you better protections to defend yourself from it. > The US just happens to be the most negatively free country. The US has some of the most draconian copyright laws in the world. Are those outweighed by something else, or should we dispense with this notion of "most" ?
- bhupy 6y ago
  > If you're trying to do justice to the concept of negative freedom, then what definition are you using? To me, it's about being free to be left alone and go your own way, as opposed to being provided for (eg freedom from hunger, or whatever). Yes, and for most people in America, this is unquestionably the case. > I would classify a public defender as a mitigation of an impingement on negative freedom rather than a bona fide positive freedom. There are surely other countries where you have less of a chance of being harmed by the courts, because they compensate for their general infringement of freedom by giving you better protections to defend yourself from it. It's debatable that the US public defender system somehow mitigates this impingement less effectively than any other Western country, indeed most western countries have similar public defender systems. For the sake of argument, even if we were to accept that premise...the majority of Americans spend far more of their lives exercising the uniquely strong negative liberties extended to them than interfacing with the one aspect of American life in which a globally uniform impingement of negative rights is allegedly mitigated the least. > The US has some of the most draconian copyright laws in the world. Are those outweighed by something else, or should we dispense with this notion of "most" ? The US's copyright laws are on par with those in most of the Western world. All EU countries are signatories of the Berne Convention, and the copyright length in the US is the same as it is in France, Singapore, Switzerland, South Korea, Italy, UK, Australia, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark...
  - deathgrips 6y ago
    Just stop. This guy has already made up his mind that the US is one of the worst countries in the world.
    - mindslight 6y ago
      "I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
      - deathgrips 6y ago
        If you don't seem to react to the content of outside information and if we know what you're going to say before you say it, you're not thinking independently, you're just buying into someone else's beliefs.
        mindslight 6y ago
        I don't see how it's remotely possible to form that conclusion based on the mere two comments I said before yours. What specifically from my second comment was so predictable?
  - mindslight 6y ago
    > Yes, and for most people in America, this is unquestionably the case. Maybe you should start questioning it. AFAICT, people in other developed countries enjoy comparable day to day freedoms. > It's debatable that the US public defender system somehow mitigates this impingement less effectively than any other Western country The original argument you engaged with was about a complete lack of public defenders in the past. > The US's copyright laws are on par with those in most of the Western world Empirically this is not true - eg most VPN providers prohibit torrenting on US exit nodes. And international copyright infringement inducers (eg Kim Dotcom) aren't prosecuted strongly in their own countries, but rather extradited to the US. Overall, this refrain of "freedom" is actually blinding and counterproductive. And this doesn't change when it's limited to "negative freedom". Unquestioning assertions of "We're #1" erode our rights - detailed critiques preserve them.

by bhupy 6y ago

mindslight 6y ago

If you're trying to do justice to the concept of negative freedom, then what definition are you using? To me, it's about being free to be left alone and go your own way, as opposed to being provided for (eg freedom from hunger, or whatever). I would classify a public defender as a mitigation of an impingement on negative freedom rather than a bona fide positive freedom. There are surely other countries where you have less of a chance of being harmed by the courts, because they compensate for their general infringement of freedom by giving you better protections to defend yourself from it. > The US just happens to be the most negatively free country. The US has some of the most draconian copyright laws in the world. Are those outweighed by something else, or should we dispense with this notion of "most" ?

bhupy 6y ago
> If you're trying to do justice to the concept of negative freedom, then what definition are you using? To me, it's about being free to be left alone and go your own way, as opposed to being provided for (eg freedom from hunger, or whatever). Yes, and for most people in America, this is unquestionably the case. > I would classify a public defender as a mitigation of an impingement on negative freedom rather than a bona fide positive freedom. There are surely other countries where you have less of a chance of being harmed by the courts, because they compensate for their general infringement of freedom by giving you better protections to defend yourself from it. It's debatable that the US public defender system somehow mitigates this impingement less effectively than any other Western country, indeed most western countries have similar public defender systems. For the sake of argument, even if we were to accept that premise...the majority of Americans spend far more of their lives exercising the uniquely strong negative liberties extended to them than interfacing with the one aspect of American life in which a globally uniform impingement of negative rights is allegedly mitigated the least. > The US has some of the most draconian copyright laws in the world. Are those outweighed by something else, or should we dispense with this notion of "most" ? The US's copyright laws are on par with those in most of the Western world. All EU countries are signatories of the Berne Convention, and the copyright length in the US is the same as it is in France, Singapore, Switzerland, South Korea, Italy, UK, Australia, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark...
- deathgrips 6y ago
  Just stop. This guy has already made up his mind that the US is one of the worst countries in the world.
  - mindslight 6y ago
    "I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
    - deathgrips 6y ago
      If you don't seem to react to the content of outside information and if we know what you're going to say before you say it, you're not thinking independently, you're just buying into someone else's beliefs.
      - mindslight 6y ago
        I don't see how it's remotely possible to form that conclusion based on the mere two comments I said before yours. What specifically from my second comment was so predictable?
- mindslight 6y ago
  > Yes, and for most people in America, this is unquestionably the case. Maybe you should start questioning it. AFAICT, people in other developed countries enjoy comparable day to day freedoms. > It's debatable that the US public defender system somehow mitigates this impingement less effectively than any other Western country The original argument you engaged with was about a complete lack of public defenders in the past. > The US's copyright laws are on par with those in most of the Western world Empirically this is not true - eg most VPN providers prohibit torrenting on US exit nodes. And international copyright infringement inducers (eg Kim Dotcom) aren't prosecuted strongly in their own countries, but rather extradited to the US. Overall, this refrain of "freedom" is actually blinding and counterproductive. And this doesn't change when it's limited to "negative freedom". Unquestioning assertions of "We're #1" erode our rights - detailed critiques preserve them.