"Created Equal:" what it really means

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

- I do not accept that liberty comes with any obligations. If I have rights, then I have rights without any strings attached. Once you start making my rights conditional on how I behave, they are no longer rights. What you seem to be suggesting is a form of extortion... "you are free to do as you want as long as you do what I say."

This is the way Learned Hand describes it in his eloquent speech:

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And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=1199

What he's saying, in plain language, is that if people abuse freedom to do whatever they please, it leads to an overthrow of liberty. His point, in other words, is that liberty is not something that is honored limitlessly. People can reach a point where they no longer respect your liberty because they deem that you have overstepped the boundaries of what constitutes responsible behavior.

That is a hard reality to face when you believe as you do, that liberty guarantees no one will ever hold you accountable for what you choose to do with your liberty. But surely you can also imagine situations where others' failure to behave responsibly would lead you to withdraw support for their liberty?

Respect for liberty comes with the assumption that people will behave responsibly and that a good society results from everyone governing themselves well by virtue of their liberty. When liberty seems to be failing to prevent problems, that's when confusion arises as to what can or should be done, i.e. because we still hold the ideal of liberty, yet we can't stomach the problems that it is failing to solve by its own self-governance.

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- I do accept that living in society comes with obligations. These obligations come with how I am expected to live with the people around me. Of course the nature of these obligations differ from society to society... and even from person to person (someone who is a father has different expectations than a single college student).

I think you are confusing the two.

Determining and upholding righteous obligations is a prerogative of moral liberty.

Liberty doesn't obligate you to recognize and/or uphold 'societal obligations' that fall outside your conscience, and that is the religious freedom that the republic embraced as its reason for coming into being. But of course problems ensue when people begin abusing their freedom, either by upholding or defying cultural obligations in a way that causes problems.

You could say the current day problem of climate change and the widespread resistance against reforming industrial culture to achieve sustainability is due to a situation where the societal/cultural/economic obligations that have normalized with the evolution of industrial-consumerism have become exposed as harmful, and so conflict has arisen between upholding the societal obligations of participating in industrial economics and upholding the greater obligation of living in a way that minimizes harm to others, including future generations.

People have gotten used to making the sacrifices that come with work/economic obligations, but they have also gotten used to shirking the obligations to live conscientiously insofar as many have 'farmed out' the responsibility of regulating economic practices to the government, thinking that doing so would free them up to do whatever they want within the boundaries of what the law allows.

As it turns out, however, the government is for sale in some ways and simply incapable of solving problems in others, so the principle of self-governance by liberty is more relevant than ever, yet people are resistant to the task of voluntarily choosing sacrifices that forego economic opportunity in favor of a greater good and/or sustainable future.

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@livinglava,

What Learned Hand is describing isn't liberty... it is tyrrany.

He wants to control people by giving them an illusion of liberty. But he will still punish them if they don't do what he wants.

One you start threatening people to get them to act in a certain way, there is no liberty.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

What Learned Hand is describing isn't liberty... it is tyrrany.

He wants to control people by giving them an illusion of liberty. But he will still punish them if they don't do what he wants.

One you start threatening people to get them to act in a certain way, there is no liberty.

I don't think you're looking at the bigger picture of what liberty stands in contrast to:

Authoritarian government provides security that is out of reach where people govern themselves by their own liberty. (I am not advocating authoritarianism or security by saying this, btw)

Learned Hand was not promoting authoritarianism, btw. He was explaining a situation that had emerged during the WWII era where, "A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow. "

In other words, his point was that people can use freedom to manipulate and control others. In other words, if people have the freedom to undermine each others' freedom, they may well do so. It is an irony of freedom that people can use it undermine freedom in various ways, but it is the reality that creates the greatest challenge for those who believe in liberty and want it to produce a truly good society.

I think what we're currently seeing with regards to intense attachments/desires, such as those having to do with sexuality; is that some people want sexual freedom so badly that they actually want to go beyond having to deal with democracy and religious liberty that allows others to withhold support for sexuality they don't believe in.

So the pride movement as well as abortionism are both so angry that there are religious views that fail to validate their sexual freedoms that they would rather suppress religious freedom and subjugate people to support abortion, gay marriage, etc. rather than allow them the liberty to consult their own conscience regarding how to deal with others who adopt sexual ethics in conflict with their beliefs.

Imo, all the media focus on sexual diversity ultimately amounts to little more than a trial of liberty. Ever since the inception of the Declaration of Independence there have been haters of liberty who want to push it to its limits. Sexual diversity has always existed since before humans were even a species, so why is it suddenly such a major issue thrust into the spotlight of US politics if not for the sake of bringing political conflict to the point of undermining the grand project of progress in liberty more generally?

Interestingly, it was also sexual liberty that precipitated the splitting off of the Anglican church from the Catholic church. Henry VIII famously wanted to divorce and the pope said no, so he made his own church and crowned himself pope.

In the US, we have freedom of religion so Catholics, Anglicans, and every other religion/denomination can theoretically interact democratically within a common republican society. But will they/we manage to continue to haggle over our religious/lifestyle differences in peace or will some people reject the premise of religious freedom in order to secure their own religious (or anti-religious) beliefs against those of others?

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@livinglava,

What you are describing is authoritarianism.

What Learned Hand is saying is no different than any other dictator. Every dictator plays this game with freedom... he is saying we are "free" as long as we do what he says.

Did you read 1984?

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@maxdancona,

I was just reading about the real life Judge Learned Hand. I assume that is who you are invoking. Am I right?

I don't think he would agree with your characterization of what you are saying. He seems to be saying the opposite of what your saying... that the risk to liberty is our ability to accept each other.

He also became very skeptical of religion. I should apologize to the ghost of Learned Hand.

What you are saying is unquestionably authoritarian. What Learned Hand was saying is that people need to learn to live together.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I was just reading about the real life Judge Learned Hand. I assume that is who you are invoking. Am I right?

I don't think he would agree with your characterization of what you are saying. He seems to be saying the opposite of what your saying... that the risk to liberty is our ability to accept each other.

He also became very skeptical of religion. I should apologize to the ghost of Learned Hand.

What you are saying is unquestionably authoritarian. What Learned Hand was saying is that people need to learn to live together.

Can you cite any quotations that exemplify what you're claiming?

It sounds like you're just projecting your own POV.

More importantly, I don't think you're understanding the broader meaning of freedom of religion and thus conscience.

You seem to have a negative view of religion, but that is blocking you from recognizing whatever values you have fall under "freedom of religion." In other words, it is your right to have you own 'church,' even if your POV is that yours is not actually a religion or church, because you are against those things.

If what you want, however, is to end freedom of religion by creating an 'anti-religion' secular authoritarian government that protects things like sexual freedom against democracy, then that's your POV.

In that case, what you're for is more like what Henry VIII was for when he rejected Catholic rule in favor of protecting the freedom to divorce. That may be your prerogative, but that is different than the philosophy that liberty and freedom of religion are sufficient for people with different POVs to settle their differences within a democratic/republic framework.

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@livinglava,

1. I am absolutely projecting my own POV. That is what liberty is all about.

2. I agree with you that freedom of religion means I can form my own church. I can also choose to reject religion. This is my own choice. Personally I would not say I am anti-religion. I don't really get your argument about not having a church. But it doesn't matter. Freedom mean that how I decide to resolve these issues is my own business

3. I do not see a conflict between sexual freedom and religious freedom. You have both. I choose to have sex. You choose not to have sex. We are both acting freely. I choose to reject religion, you choose to accept religion. We are both acting freely. The fact that you have the freedom to practice your religion doesn't hurt in the least my freedom to be irreligious. Who I had sex with last night doesn't impact you in the least or affect your ability to be celibate.

4. A secular government is not an anti-religion government. You can be both secular and supportive of religion... as long as you accept the right of each person individual freedom.

5. I don't know exactly why you are dragging Henry VIII into this. He has been dead for almost 600 years. I do believe that people should have the freedom to divorce.

Freedomdom

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@livinglava,

I accept that there are sometimes places where my freedom has a conflict with your freedom... where legitimately what I do impacts you in some way. As I said before, the issue here is our social interactions. In order to have a smoothly running society, we need to have a shared agreement on what is proper behavior in public.

I understand that seeing sexuality on TV is upsetting to some people. Sexuality is pervasive in our society. I don't mind it (and apparently it gets me to buy beer). But it is a legitimate concern for people who are bothered by it. Note that this has nothing to do with what I do with whom in my private bedroom.

We have laws... that set legal standards for behavior based on shared values determined in a democratic process. There are also cultural ideas about civility. Laws have legal consequences. Following cultural norms means I have better relationships with people around me and don't feel like a jerk.

Freedom means that what I believe, or think, or do in private is no one's business but my own. However, I am also part of a broader society. In my public interactions I take other factors into consideration when I decide how to act.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

1. I am absolutely projecting my own POV. That is what liberty is all about.

Liberty is not about lying. Liberty is about the freedom to do what's right. You know it's deceptive to project your own POV onto a text when it obfuscates the actual meaning of the text. If you misunderstood, that is one thing; but deliberately claiming that a text represents your POV when you know it doesn't is a different story.

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2. I agree with you that freedom of religion means I can form my own church. I can also choose to reject religion. This is my own choice. Personally I would not say I am anti-religion. I don't really get your argument about not having a church. But it doesn't matter. Freedom mean that how I decide to resolve these issues is my own business

Still, you can't argue that people just making their own choices as their own business honors the principle of liberty, because there is more to liberty that just getting away with whatever you want to get away with. There is a corresponding principle of honoring the moral responsibility to choose a greater good above your own personal interests.

Choosing a greater good is not outside or beyond "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It is part and parcel of those things.

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3. I do not see a conflict between sexual freedom and religious freedom. You have both. I choose to have sex. You choose not to have sex. We are both acting freely. I choose to reject religion, you choose to accept religion. We are both acting freely. The fact that you have the freedom to practice your religion doesn't hurt in the least my freedom to be irreligious. Who I had sex with last night doesn't impact you in the least or affect your ability to be celibate.

Sexual choices/behaviors cause various effects, some of which are harmful. If people regulate their own sexual choices to the degree that harm was averted, there would not be the political uproar that there is over things like abortion and marriage.

If Roe v Wade had initiated a steady decline in abortion rates, I doubt a pro-life movement would have grown in opposition to it. Instead, abortion has become more normal and popular and so the amount of resistance from people of conscience has grown very strong. If people had taken the liberty of having sex responsibly and abortions were very rare occurrences, Roe v. Wade would be considered a success for having ushered in a decline in abortions.

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4. A secular government is not an anti-religion government. You can be both secular and supportive of religion... as long as you accept the right of each person individual freedom.

Part of religious freedom includes the freedom to participate in democracy based on your religious values. So people who insist that legislating morality violates the separation of church and state misunderstand the difference between democracy and an autocratic state-church

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5. I don't know exactly why you are dragging Henry VIII into this. He has been dead for almost 600 years. I do believe that people should have the freedom to divorce.

Because it shows an example of a political-religious event in which the government took over the right to define and regulate marriage, in Henry VIII's case to install and protect the right of divorce.

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I accept that there are sometimes places where my freedom has a conflict with your freedom... where legitimately what I do impacts you in some way. As I said before, the issue here is our social interactions. In order to have a smoothly running society, we need to have a shared agreement on what is proper behavior in public.

I'm more concerned about the general public failure to progress toward a more sustainable industrial-consumer culture.

I don't think it is possible for the government to regulate certain unsustainable activities, such as overreliance on driving. Some people need to drive for some reasons, but in general so many people drive so much that the planet is getting overrun with pavement and development.

Liberty would solve this problem, i.e. by people recognizing and acknowledging that they should take responsibility for the environment by actively reforming their behaviors in the interest of progress toward sustainability, but in reality such progress is barely happening because people just aren't putting the level of effort and sacrifice into it that is necessary to achieve significant gains.

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@livinglava,

You can't tell people there is only one way to live their lives and call it liberty.

1. Liberty is about the freedom to do what is right. Liberty is also about the freedom to do what is wrong. Liberty is also about the freedom to lie.

Most people do what they think is right (although not always), but what I think is right other people think is wrong... and it doesn't matter. Liberty means I can choose how I will live my life whether it is right or wrong.

2. There is no obligation for me to choose a greater good. I might decide based on my own values to do so, but liberty makes no such obligation.

3. You are completely wrong about religious values. My right to vote is mine whether or not I believe in God or not. You don't need religious values, or any other type of values to vote.

4. I agree somewhat about environmental issues. I don't think liberty has anything to do with this.

Civic responsibility has nothing to do with liberty... they are two independent issues.

I personally favor an economic solution to our environmental problems.

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@maxdancona,

I spend a lot of time in Mexico (as you might know from reading my posts).

I took my daughter to the park. There was a gentleman their who bought a dozen or so of those electronic plastic cars for kids they sell in Walmart. For a few dollars worth of pesos, you could rent a car for your kid.

It was great fun. The kids were driving around this little course. The parents were running around after the kids telling them to slow down and be careful. Everyone was laughing. My daughter had a great time driving around.

This would never happen in the United States. The electric cars would have never gotten whatever permit is needed. He would have had to have insurance, and prove that the cars were inspected by city and local authorities. If some kid fell off the car can bruised her knee, there would be a law suit. This business would never work in the US.

There is a liberty in Mexico that we don't have in the US. You can pay for a car, accept the responsibility and have a great time. And you can start a business with a small investment and not worry about getting sued.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

You can't tell people there is only one way to live their lives and call it liberty.

1) Liberty is choosing your own life path, but doing so responsibly.
2) You CAN tell people how to live; that's freedom of speech. What you shouldn't do is immediately resort to intervention beyond speech. Liberty means that we expect to be able to reason with others about how to better govern themselves without having to intervene via governmental force.
3) I don't even think how many different ways to live responsibly there are because I just think in terms of liberty; i.e. that people must make their own choices responsibly. Democracy complements the liberty to self-govern by allowing people to freely speak to each other with critique and to publicly/openly discuss when and how government should intervene; not to do so in secret backrooms, plan covert interventions, etc.

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1. Liberty is about the freedom to do what is right. Liberty is also about the freedom to do what is wrong. Liberty is also about the freedom to lie.

No, liberty presumes that people will self-govern with good ethics/morals. It was never about the freedom to do wrong.

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Most people do what they think is right (although not always), but what I think is right other people think is wrong... and it doesn't matter. Liberty means I can choose how I will live my life whether it is right or wrong.

There is a difference between having a conscience that dissents from other POVs and just not having a conscience at all, or not worrying about ignoring your conscience. If you are choosing to live in a way that you have determined is wrong, but you do it anyway, you are shirking responsible self-governance. Likewise, if you receive critique and fail to give it adequate consideration because you are just obstinate and don't care about becoming a better person, that is also shirking responsibility.

Liberty means freedom from the obligation to obey others against your better judgment and/or conscience. It doesn't mean freedom from obeying your conscience and putting full effort into making the best decisions you are capable of.

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2. There is no obligation for me to choose a greater good. I might decide based on my own values to do so, but liberty makes no such obligation.

A proper conscience obliges you to seek the greatest good you are capable of and choose it.

Liberty is the idea that government should allow people to seek out the greatest good, consult their own consciences, etc.

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3. You are completely wrong about religious values. My right to vote is mine whether or not I believe in God or not. You don't need religious values, or any other type of values to vote.

I'm getting tired of explaining the deeper meanings of these things for you to reduce the discussion to the right to vote or not. People who think like you do shouldn't have the right to vote until they understand it is a small part of a much larger democratic responsibility.

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4. I agree somewhat about environmental issues. I don't think liberty has anything to do with this.

This discussion is getting old. I don't think you've understood anything I've explained. You just keep going on asserting your own POV without thinking about what this thread is about.

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Civic responsibility has nothing to do with liberty... they are two independent issues.

Again, you've failed to understand the principle of liberty as a basis for a functional society of free self-governing people.

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I personally favor an economic solution to our environmental problems.

This discussion has gone off track. The environmental issue was an example of how liberty is currently failing to produce adequate results. You don't see the big picture of how government succeeds/fails at achieving progress toward a better world, whether we're talking about a republic where all people are thought to be created equal, or an authoritarian regime where only members of a designated ruling class are allowed to make decisions.

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We are at an impasse.

I believe that liberty is an intrinsic right. It is something you have. It isn't dependent or based on anything.

You seem to think that liberty is a reward. It is dependent upon you acting in a certain way, and can be taken away from people who don't follow some set of rules.

If we can't agree upon which of these two definitions of liberty is correct, I don't know if we can go any further. I do think that having liberty can inspire me to be more civic minded... but this is a consequence of liberty (not the other way around). I have liberty whether or not it has this effect.

I think your view of liberty is backwards. But since we have different definitions, I don't know if there is any way to resolve this. Arguing over definitions of words isn't often very productive.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

We are at an impasse.

I believe that liberty is an intrinsic right. It is something you have. It isn't dependent or based on anything.

I never said it was 'dependent or based on anything.' I said that there's a point where respect/honor for liberty breaks down and there's nothing you can do about it as long as you respect the liberty of those people who are disrespecting/dishonoring yours.

Read this quote again:

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Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.

What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias . . .
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=1199

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You seem to think that liberty is a reward. It is dependent upon you acting in a certain way, and can be taken away from people who don't follow some set of rules.

It can't be taken away, but it can be persecuted/discriminated/etc. The fact that one person's liberty can be disrespected/dishonored as such doesn't validate that fact. It may be wrong to attack someone's liberty in this way, but then the question becomes what did the person do with their liberty that may also have been wrong? In short, can you defend your actions according to a true conscience and sincere moral reasoning; or do you just do whatever you feel like and expect to get away with it?

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If we can't agree upon which of these two definitions of liberty is correct, I don't know if we can go any further. I do think that having liberty can inspire me to be more civic minded... but this is a consequence of liberty (not the other way around). I have liberty whether or not it has this effect.

I think you're right that there's no point in discussing it further. The purpose of the thread is to discuss what it means for people to be 'created equal' to ruling authorities and what responsibilities that power confers on them.

Yes, of course you 'have liberty.' It's an inalienable natural right. It is a power that everyone has, and as we know from so many Marvel movies, with great power comes great responsibility. Shirk the responsibility and see what happens. You have to be prepared to defend your choices and ethics.

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I think your view of liberty is backwards. But since we have different definitions, I don't know if there is any way to resolve this. Arguing over definitions of words isn't often very productive.

Agreed, but I appreciate the fact that you engaged with the topic. If you develop an interest in discussing liberty as a basis for social control and societal regulation vis-a-vis other forms of government, and the relationship self-governance by liberty has to the contemporary state of industrial-consumerism and its social and environmental/sustainability effects, feel free to re-enter the discussion.

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@livinglava,

I think you have this backwards....

What would I do that would dishonor your liberty?

1) Let's say I had sex with Sandra and Jessica last night. All three of us wanted to be there. We understood the risk (maybe we used protection to minimize it). We all had a great time that was well worth it.

There is no way that my sex romp impacts your freedom. There is no risk to you. I didn't harm you. It made our lives better (by our own judgement) and didn't hurt anyone else.

2) Let's say I pull a gun on you and force you to have sex with Jessica. Maybe I have the mistaken belief that having sex is good for people and that I am doing you a favor. But you don't want to have sex... and I am forcing it on you.

In this case I am taking away your liberty by forcing you to do something against your values. Even if I think I am doing the right thing, I am not.

3) Let's say I am not a violent man, but I believe that your church is harming you. So I go and pass laws to shut down your church and make your practice of religion.

I think that the first example is completely consistent with liberty. I am doing what I want in a way that doesn't hurt anyone outside of my consensual partner.

The second two examples... where I am forcing people to do things against their values, or preventing people from doing something that makes them happy are examples where liberty is being threatened.

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@livinglava,

Your environmental case is an interesting in-between case. My careless use of resources impacts the society at large. It does make my life better to get yogurt in little plastic containers, and it is part of the economy at large (people make their livings putting yogurt in little plastic containers, transporting them, etc.).

Getting water in little plastic containers is even worse.... because filling up my reusable water bottle isn't that difficult and is better for the environment. Sometime I still buy bottled water (when I am out and get thirsty).

In this case, my liberty is hurting the common good.

I oppose the bill banning plastic water bottles (many towns around where I live are doing that that). Maybe I am hypocritical in doing these, but there are times when I have been out exercising that I wanted a bottle of water.

I do think that economics provides a good practical solution for these issues. If you make "irresponsible" behavior more expensive, people do it less.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

What would I do that would dishonor your liberty?

First of all, let's get the meaning of 'honor' straight. To honor something means to make good on it. Honoring someone's liberty thus means that you avoid intervening in their freedom for as long as you can determine that it is responsible to do so.

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The second two examples... where I am forcing people to do things against their values, or preventing people from doing something that makes them happy are examples where liberty is being threatened.

These are dumb, pornographic examples. Use real, relevant examples and I will consider discussing them for the sake of clarification. Discussing this sexual nonsense is ridiculous.

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Your environmental case is an interesting in-between case. My careless use of resources impacts the society at large. It does make my life better to get yogurt in little plastic containers, and it is part of the economy at large (people make their livings putting yogurt in little plastic containers, transporting them, etc.).

It's not an 'in-between case.' The issue is why people aren't taking the liberty to figure out and implement ways of reducing environmental harm and unsustainability. At what point do we give up on liberty as a foundation for progressing toward sustainability because the people are simply not going to utilize their liberty to self-govern in that interest?

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Getting water in little plastic containers is even worse.... because filling up my reusable water bottle isn't that difficult and is better for the environment. Sometime I still buy bottled water (when I am out and get thirsty).

These are all small details. The bigger issues are fuel and land waste due to overreliance on driving as transportation and overdevelopment of land, which leads to more energy use for heating and cooling than necessary.

Plastic packaging is not unimportant, but there are bigger fish to fry, so to speak, and the people aren't taking the liberty to come up with solutions they can progress toward voluntarily.

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In this case, my liberty is hurting the common good.

So don't forget to bring a water bottle instead of buying a new one. That is the solution that doesn't require any intervention in your freedom to buy one when you need it.

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I oppose the bill banning plastic water bottles (many towns around where I live are doing that that). Maybe I am hypocritical in doing these, but there are times when I have been out exercising that I wanted a bottle of water.

I do think that economics provides a good practical solution for these issues. If you make "irresponsible" behavior more expensive, people do it less.

Sometimes yes, sometimes they just go on blowing more money as the prices go up.

The problem with taxes/fees/fines and rising prices as deterrents for waste is that they create an incentive to trigger others into wasting and incurring the fines/costs so that their money is transferred into public coffers to be spent by government.

Even if the money doesn't go to the government, it goes somewhere and whoever can control and thus benefit wherever it goes has an incentive to trigger the price to go up.

People should just take the liberty of re-using bags more, whether they're free or not. Unfortunately there's no way to enforce bans except by fining people. It's not like you can require them to go home without food because they forgot to bring their re-usable bag; and if they just buy a new re-usable bag every time they forget to bring their old ones from home, that generates more waste than when they forget to bring the thin single-use bags that are so despised even though they're actually really good and light and thus suitable for re-use even though they are free.

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@livinglava,

I am choosing these examples to make the clear line between using your own liberty, and taking the liberty of others.

Obviously the example needs to be "controversial"... if I had used eating chocolate cake as the example (rather than sexual behavior) the example wouldn't have made sense. The point is that when it comes to consenting adults... who has sex with whom is a matter of personal liberty. The only way this behavior impacts anyone else is if they have the need to set moral standards on other people.

I think my examples were good examples. Maybe you can suggest another example of a controversial behavior that doesn't impact anyone other than the willing participants.

I agree that the environmental case is a good example where individual decisions impact the common good. It is a balance between legislation and personal responsibility.

I think I agree most of what you are saying in the environmental case. I disagree with you when you generalize this to topics that don't involve a shared public resource.

I disagree with your claim that I need to "honor" liberty. This implies that I have an obligation to liberty. This goes against my belief that liberty is an intrinsic right that comes with no obligation.

I do believe that I have a social contract; an obligation to people around me. But this is not related to liberty.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I am choosing these examples to make the clear line between using your own liberty, and taking the liberty of others.

Obviously the example needs to be "controversial"... if I had used eating chocolate cake as the example (rather than sexual behavior) the example wouldn't have made sense. The point is that when it comes to consenting adults... who has sex with whom is a matter of personal liberty. The only way this behavior impacts anyone else is if they have the need to set moral standards on other people.

Consent is almost unprovable, and what's worse is that it can be bought/coerced so that people don't complain/report rape. Abortions are killing, and so there are people who want to represent the interests of the unborn. As for the rest of sex that is actually consensual, that doesn't mean the people involved are behaving responsibly, no matter how you spin it. So you could still call the culture of sexual liberalism a failure of liberty, though I hesitate to say it because I know people like you will never stop rationalizing your desire/addiction for something that's ultimately not good for you.

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I agree that the environmental case is a good example where individual decisions impact the common good. It is a balance between legislation and personal responsibility.

I think I agree most of what you are saying in the environmental case. I disagree with you when you generalize this to topics that don't involve a shared public resource.

I don't think you understand the big picture of what societies are and how they function. Every society has to manage resources. When resources are wasted, it leads to eventual conflicts between people who run out of resources and those who saved theirs.

This is as true of sex as it is for fossil fuels, the air/water, and undeveloped land. When you create and maintain a culture of liberal sexuality, it results in social norms and other expressions of sexuality, such as pornography, that seduce young people into falsely understanding that they can indulge in liberal sex without becoming addicted, ruining their relationships, etc. Basically, playing with sex is playing with fire and by claiming that life without risk isn't worth living, you're denying that there are other sources of joy in life that don't cause as much risk and pain.

Many lives are getting wasted on liberal sexuality, both unborn and born. Children are neglected due to parents whose attention is fixed on their own sexual relationships. People waste money on dating, updating their wardrobes, etc. etc. all because they feel they need to keep renewing their image to be more attractive. All this waste is not harmless. It affects the economy as well as the environment. If people would sober up from their obsession with sex, they would see how much less waste they could produce by focusing on other things.

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I disagree with your claim that I need to "honor" liberty. This implies that I have an obligation to liberty. This goes against my belief that liberty is an intrinsic right that comes with no obligation.

You're using the word, "honor" wrong again, after I just explained to you what it really means. It does not mean the same as "praise." It means that you respect someone else's right to determine their own life path as long as they are acting within the margins of their own conscience and rigorous moral reason. When people give up on their own ability to regulate themselves according to their own conscience, they have forsaken their own liberty.

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I do believe that I have a social contract; an obligation to people around me. But this is not related to liberty.

The extent to which you recognize contracts and obligations is based on your liberty to determine that is the right thing to do. If you determined that a contract or obligation was unjust or harmful, how could you go on honoring it without hurting your conscience?

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@livinglava,

You are saying that that a life without risk is worth living. I disagree with this. I take a lot of calculated risks in life especially travelling. Life to me is about experiences. I don't actually think the risks for anything I do are extraordinarily high... but sure I could stay in my house.

I am curious how this works for you....

What brings you joy in life?

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