10 ms·

The point is that security is a precondition to enjoying all of the freedoms you list. There are trade-offs to make between freedom and security, and neither t

The point is that security is a precondition to enjoying all of the freedoms you list. There are trade-offs to make between freedom and security, and neither the freedoms nor the security are absolute, and they never have been.

baddox 13y ago
You're doubly wrong. Security is not a precondition of freedom, and security does not have to come at a loss of freedom.
- irishloop 13y ago
  Not at all. The moment someone points a gun at you and tells you what to do, your freedom has been usurped. Without the security to make your own choices, you do not have freedom. Thus, it's important to restrict certain actions (i.e., your ability to point a gun at someone and make demands) in order to protect the freedom of others.
  - JanezStupar 13y ago
    The moment someone points a gun at you, your freedoms are completely intact. Moreover, this is the moment when you can show whether you are really free. Free men do not mind dying when their time comes.
    - 542458 13y ago
      You're being pedantic. "Freedom" in this case quite clearly refers to "Liberty" or "Autonomy" rather than to "Free Will".
    - potatolicious 13y ago
      That sounds nice. Let's hear you deliver that soliloquy when you're held by a mugger at gunpoint, about how you are your own master.
      - baddox 13y ago
        You realize that armed muggings and burglaries are thwarted a lot, right?
    - loup-vaillant 13y ago
      What the heck do you mean by "freedom"? When I say "freedom", I talk about choice. Options. Influence over one's light cone. All of which are drastically diminished whenever you're locked in a cell, or threatened by a madman with a gun.
      - JanezStupar 13y ago
        As do I. If I am to find myself in an unenviable situation I would rather make it hard for the villains to go about their business than to bow down and beg for mercy. I might be taken out. I might take my enemy out (shooting a person is not as trivial task as it seems). Or I might just cause enough trouble for the bad guys so their total cost goes up, hopefully beyond break even point. It is no different attitude than the one US tries to project upon the world. I only acknowledge that nobody will fight for me if I don't fight for myself.
  - shpxnvz 13y ago
    The first part is true; forcible coercion does usurp freedom - and even more so when done by the government. The second part is fallacy; you obviously cannot remove the ability to point a gun (or knife) at someone and make demands, and any attempt to do so necessarily tramples other's rights. In reality there are two effective choices - the person being mugged can defend them-self and/or the government can attempt to find and punish the person after the fact. The second one does not do a bit of good for the current victim, of course.
    - brianpgordon 13y ago
      You can deter people from pointing guns at people by promising to punish those who do that..
    - rtpg 13y ago
      it's a balance. By preventing people to point guns and make demands (to a certain extent), you (for example) allow for more freedom to walk around at night without a fear of getting mugged. Everything is a tradeoff, saying 'tramples other's rights' is misleading because it doesn't indicate which rights. Some rights are more valued than others to people (I'd gladly trade my right to kill myself for my right to free speech, if such a tradeoff existed).
      - shpxnvz 13y ago
        it's a balance. By preventing people to point guns and make demands (to a certain extent), you (for example) allow for more freedom to walk around at night without a fear of getting mugged. When I say you cannot remove the ability of people to do it, I mean only that - you cannot remove the ability. And that is what all the gun-grabbing hoopla is about - physically removing the ability to do so by restricting access to guns. That, I contend, is impossible and absolutely infringes on individual rights. The threat of retaliation, either by the victim immediately or after-the-fact by the government, is of course effective at prevention. The former is more effective, as evidenced by crime rates in areas where the government does not infringe on the right to self-defense. Everything is a tradeoff, saying 'tramples other's rights' is misleading because it doesn't indicate which rights. Some rights are more valued than others to people (I'd gladly trade my right to kill myself for my right to free speech, if such a tradeoff existed). It does not matter which rights - the government may not pick and choose which individual rights to value over others, it's their duty to protect them all equally - and for all people equally. Of course it is your right to determine which rights you value the most, but it is not a power of the government. And it's a power of neither you or the government to determine which rights I value most.
- Datsundere 13y ago
  Hobbes had said that humans give up some of their rights to be protected by the government. That's what the western philosophy is built on. You may try to deny it but needing security is already a loss of freedom. Examples of peaceful countries like sweden or switzerland can be given, but what did they do to stop hitler? Poland started to crack the enigma code and later turing with his friends in secrecy completed it in England. What we need is people that can be trusted to be in power. The voting system in America is just plain wrong. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g
ekianjo 13y ago
Since where Security is a precondition to Freedom ? I wonder where you conceived that strange idea. We never had as much security as we have now (compared to the hundreds of generations before us) yet we are losing our liberties at an alarming speed.
- davidw 13y ago
  > Since where Security is a precondition to Freedom ? If you have zero physical security, that means that anyone can come up and just knock you down and take your things, your woman, whatever... Not my idea of "freedom". I think that it follows that you do need some security in order to live a free life. Does that justify secret government spying programs? Probably not! People here seem to have awfully black and white thoughts about some aspects of life. > yet we are losing our liberties at an alarming speed. Except for minorities (at least for some things, like, say, being able to vote in Alabama), gays, people who consume marijuana in Washington and Colorado, and various others who have gained rights recently. It's not black and white.
  - TelmoMenezes 13y ago
    > If you have zero physical security, that means that anyone can come up and just knock you down and take your things, your woman, whatever... Not my idea of "freedom". These are orthogonal issues. There are strong reasons to believe that the modern stability that we enjoy is maintained by networks of mutual self-interest, soft social norms and overall cultural sophistication. The idea that we are being protected by the state is just a fairy-tale and there is no scientific evidence of this whatsoever. Saying that something is not "black and white" sounds clever, but can be used as a way to disguise unscientific, mushy ideas.
    - davidw 13y ago
      > unscientific, mushy ideas. Uh, most things involving people are kind of mushy, because you can't experiment on them like you would with rats. And they tend to behave oddly at times. Also, there are a tremendous number of things that bear on their behavior - isolating them is not easy. > modern stability that we enjoy is maintained Could it be that the modern stability also exists because most of us feel relatively safe in our persons? It's not as if the only thing preventing most of us from running amok is the presence of police, but some kind of security force does act as a backstop for those individuals who do not care about your self-interest, social norms, or whatever. Once again: not trying to justify the NSA stuff, but I think the idea that no security at all is needed for one to live in freedom is handwavy bullshit.
VladRussian2 13y ago
>The point is that security is a precondition to enjoying all of the freedoms you list. the position you state was formed by Greek and Roman civilizations. Majority of people in these civilizations were slaves. And security was a precondition for the freedom of few at the top of these ancient societies. The American revolution was a break in that order of things. It resulted in granting of unheard of freedoms while dismantling a lot of Imperial Britain security. And now we're sliding back to imperial level of security and freedom.
- stcredzero 13y ago
  About 35 to 40% were slaves in Rome. The American Revolution carried forward slavery.

baddox 13y ago

You're doubly wrong. Security is not a precondition of freedom, and security does not have to come at a loss of freedom.

irishloop 13y ago
Not at all. The moment someone points a gun at you and tells you what to do, your freedom has been usurped. Without the security to make your own choices, you do not have freedom. Thus, it's important to restrict certain actions (i.e., your ability to point a gun at someone and make demands) in order to protect the freedom of others.
- JanezStupar 13y ago
  The moment someone points a gun at you, your freedoms are completely intact. Moreover, this is the moment when you can show whether you are really free. Free men do not mind dying when their time comes.
  - 542458 13y ago
    You're being pedantic. "Freedom" in this case quite clearly refers to "Liberty" or "Autonomy" rather than to "Free Will".
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    That sounds nice. Let's hear you deliver that soliloquy when you're held by a mugger at gunpoint, about how you are your own master.
    - baddox 13y ago
      You realize that armed muggings and burglaries are thwarted a lot, right?
  - loup-vaillant 13y ago
    What the heck do you mean by "freedom"? When I say "freedom", I talk about choice. Options. Influence over one's light cone. All of which are drastically diminished whenever you're locked in a cell, or threatened by a madman with a gun.
    - JanezStupar 13y ago
      As do I. If I am to find myself in an unenviable situation I would rather make it hard for the villains to go about their business than to bow down and beg for mercy. I might be taken out. I might take my enemy out (shooting a person is not as trivial task as it seems). Or I might just cause enough trouble for the bad guys so their total cost goes up, hopefully beyond break even point. It is no different attitude than the one US tries to project upon the world. I only acknowledge that nobody will fight for me if I don't fight for myself.
- shpxnvz 13y ago
  The first part is true; forcible coercion does usurp freedom - and even more so when done by the government. The second part is fallacy; you obviously cannot remove the ability to point a gun (or knife) at someone and make demands, and any attempt to do so necessarily tramples other's rights. In reality there are two effective choices - the person being mugged can defend them-self and/or the government can attempt to find and punish the person after the fact. The second one does not do a bit of good for the current victim, of course.
  - brianpgordon 13y ago
    You can deter people from pointing guns at people by promising to punish those who do that..
  - rtpg 13y ago
    it's a balance. By preventing people to point guns and make demands (to a certain extent), you (for example) allow for more freedom to walk around at night without a fear of getting mugged. Everything is a tradeoff, saying 'tramples other's rights' is misleading because it doesn't indicate which rights. Some rights are more valued than others to people (I'd gladly trade my right to kill myself for my right to free speech, if such a tradeoff existed).
    - shpxnvz 13y ago
      it's a balance. By preventing people to point guns and make demands (to a certain extent), you (for example) allow for more freedom to walk around at night without a fear of getting mugged. When I say you cannot remove the ability of people to do it, I mean only that - you cannot remove the ability. And that is what all the gun-grabbing hoopla is about - physically removing the ability to do so by restricting access to guns. That, I contend, is impossible and absolutely infringes on individual rights. The threat of retaliation, either by the victim immediately or after-the-fact by the government, is of course effective at prevention. The former is more effective, as evidenced by crime rates in areas where the government does not infringe on the right to self-defense. Everything is a tradeoff, saying 'tramples other's rights' is misleading because it doesn't indicate which rights. Some rights are more valued than others to people (I'd gladly trade my right to kill myself for my right to free speech, if such a tradeoff existed). It does not matter which rights - the government may not pick and choose which individual rights to value over others, it's their duty to protect them all equally - and for all people equally. Of course it is your right to determine which rights you value the most, but it is not a power of the government. And it's a power of neither you or the government to determine which rights I value most.
Datsundere 13y ago
Hobbes had said that humans give up some of their rights to be protected by the government. That's what the western philosophy is built on. You may try to deny it but needing security is already a loss of freedom. Examples of peaceful countries like sweden or switzerland can be given, but what did they do to stop hitler? Poland started to crack the enigma code and later turing with his friends in secrecy completed it in England. What we need is people that can be trusted to be in power. The voting system in America is just plain wrong. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g

ekianjo 13y ago

Since where Security is a precondition to Freedom ? I wonder where you conceived that strange idea. We never had as much security as we have now (compared to the hundreds of generations before us) yet we are losing our liberties at an alarming speed.

davidw 13y ago
> Since where Security is a precondition to Freedom ? If you have zero physical security, that means that anyone can come up and just knock you down and take your things, your woman, whatever... Not my idea of "freedom". I think that it follows that you do need some security in order to live a free life. Does that justify secret government spying programs? Probably not! People here seem to have awfully black and white thoughts about some aspects of life. > yet we are losing our liberties at an alarming speed. Except for minorities (at least for some things, like, say, being able to vote in Alabama), gays, people who consume marijuana in Washington and Colorado, and various others who have gained rights recently. It's not black and white.
- TelmoMenezes 13y ago
  > If you have zero physical security, that means that anyone can come up and just knock you down and take your things, your woman, whatever... Not my idea of "freedom". These are orthogonal issues. There are strong reasons to believe that the modern stability that we enjoy is maintained by networks of mutual self-interest, soft social norms and overall cultural sophistication. The idea that we are being protected by the state is just a fairy-tale and there is no scientific evidence of this whatsoever. Saying that something is not "black and white" sounds clever, but can be used as a way to disguise unscientific, mushy ideas.
  - davidw 13y ago
    > unscientific, mushy ideas. Uh, most things involving people are kind of mushy, because you can't experiment on them like you would with rats. And they tend to behave oddly at times. Also, there are a tremendous number of things that bear on their behavior - isolating them is not easy. > modern stability that we enjoy is maintained Could it be that the modern stability also exists because most of us feel relatively safe in our persons? It's not as if the only thing preventing most of us from running amok is the presence of police, but some kind of security force does act as a backstop for those individuals who do not care about your self-interest, social norms, or whatever. Once again: not trying to justify the NSA stuff, but I think the idea that no security at all is needed for one to live in freedom is handwavy bullshit.

VladRussian2 13y ago

>The point is that security is a precondition to enjoying all of the freedoms you list. the position you state was formed by Greek and Roman civilizations. Majority of people in these civilizations were slaves. And security was a precondition for the freedom of few at the top of these ancient societies. The American revolution was a break in that order of things. It resulted in granting of unheard of freedoms while dismantling a lot of Imperial Britain security. And now we're sliding back to imperial level of security and freedom.

stcredzero 13y ago
About 35 to 40% were slaves in Rome. The American Revolution carried forward slavery.