Freedom vs Liberty:

Heck, you can have freedom to the same extent as liberty. Both are available, both come with restrictions in many places across the globe.

So, under your definition... people living in North Korea have liberty (if they only take it for themselves).

The difference is from where limitations originates. You have all the liberty you can afford. You get all the freedom an authority allows you.

An individual has all the liberty he takes. He gets all the freedom the Korean state allows. Having liberty is not necessarily without consequences. Liberty is not an all or nothing proposition. Being at liberty doesn't confer immunity from the state.

I see the distinction you are making. I am not at liberty to agree with it.

Freedom is just freedom. Liberal exercise of freedom involves doing whatever for whatever reason you want. Freedom is thus the basis for liberty, but liberty brings a level of maturity to freedom where free individuals choose to live in a way that takes responsibility for things that would be dictated to them by a monarch or other reigning authority.

So, in an authoritarian system, you have rules and people are rewarded and punished for following or not following the rules. People's lives are structured to try to prevent them from messing things up with their freedom. The assumption is that people can't be trusted with their own authority.

Liberty, on the other hand, is the idea that people can make choices with their freedom and self-regulate/self-structure in a way that achieves the same degree of goodness or better than if they were being controlled by a top-down regime.

The problems happen when free people insist that they are making responsible use of their liberty, but they're actually in denial of problems that are being caused by widespread irresponsibility. This is the case with climate/sustainability problems currently, i.e. because industrial-consumerism was stoked as an economic engine throughout the 20th century without people constraining their own use of machines and energy to prevent CO2 levels from rising and/or land from being overdeveloped.

So now you have lifestyle norms that are unsustainable and people want individual liberty to determine how to reduce industrial-consumer machine/energy dependency to the point of restoring natural climate, but there are simply many people who just deny that it's a problem in the first place, either to be solved at the level of government or the level of individual liberty.

Then you have people who support government/structural solutions and reject the potential of individual liberty to solve climate, but what they fail to realize is that 1) democracy prevents government from doing anything that's not popular; and 2) lobbyists work hard to ensure that anything that government does to ostensibly pursue climate reform doesn't interfere with business/economic interests.

So what you end up with is a public who wants government to tell them they're fixing the problem(s), and people in government who are basically just sales-marketers who create policies that look like they will make a difference, but when all is said and done they just prevent the people and/or the business side of the equation from actually changing anything they don't already want to change on their own.

And in that sense, you might as well just leave it up to individual liberty to solve problems rather than going through the whole elaborate and expensive dog-and-pony show of legislation, regulation, etc. that ultimately just generates more spending and jobs so people get the money they need to spend on all the wasteful industrial-consumer activities that cause climate unsustainability to begin with.

Freedom u always ours. Even if a particular governing body says "No!" people are still free to choose. Same as for liberty. Will there be, can there be, consequences? Of course. They may range from minor to permanent.

I use the words "liberty" and "freedom" as pretty close to synonyms. The definitions don't make any sense if they don't distinguish between people in North Korea from people living in a liberal Democracy.

If "freedom" applies to everyone in any circumstance whether they are in a protest march or a forced labor march then what's the point?

Ugh!
I must agree.

Anywho, the o.p. never did give us any idea where this theoretical existential experiment would be occurring.

Plus, in the words of Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster, "Freedom's just another word, for nothing left to lose." (as stated in the song Me and Bobby McGee, which Janis Joplin had posthumous success with.)

Bingo. And the state gives you that freedom. And I would be at liberty to pinch your nose over it even though the state does not give me the freedom to do so. Some might argue that interfere with my right to free expression. It wouldn't, of course but If I am so inclined I am at liberty to do it.

The obligation, of course would be to to explain my liberty and see if a judge and jury would nullify the law, in effect give the freedom post facto. That;s how we test the Constitutionality of laws. It also requires me to take my punishment like a man if liberty over steps my freedom.

The ideal of liberty is be free without overstepping the compact that we have with the state, that is: they will guarantee my liberty if I do not overstep the set of freedoms they give.

Not at all. take any liberty past freedom far enough and you will be put in jail. Again: you give yourself liberty out of your free will. The state gives you freedom within the scope of laws designed to bring about the goals of the state. Applying your liberty either changes law or gets you sanctioned.

This is the process that evolves society from <for example> to prohibition and then from prohibition. It requires taking the liberty to break laws to test those laws to see if a specific freedom or the will to possess or abridge a specificfreedom exists or not.

They are not synonyms. The state does not deal in liberty/free will. The state deals in freedom/rights. One comes to you guaranteed from the state, the other you have as a natural born man/woman.

The freedom to march or not comes from the state. The liberty to march comes from you when the state doesn't want you to march. The consequence from that act of liberty is what changes law and the state. Or gets you jailed: for example the Berrigan brothers who dumped blood on draft records. They didn't whinge because they were acting out of conscience, not dramatics. Which is how a man/woman acts when they are truly at liberty.

I'm speaking generally. But there's no difference. Pick any national state and we can discuss the difference between liberty and freedom. It works with any kind of political system.

So I have liberty to do things that are prohibited by law?

1) If I burn down a building for insurance money... is that liberty?

2) Or is it a matter of conscience. If White supremacists burn down a building out of their conscience (believe that it will be good for the world at large), are they acting out of liberty?

Well duh. You are at liberty to burn your house and try to collect insurance and you own the obligation to face the consequences. You do not have the freedom to burn your house and to try to collect insurance. There. Now do you get the difference.

I have the liberty to march and protest. By doing it in the face of law enforcement that operates for the interests the state (cops DO represent the state after all) we get to change the laws and tear down monuments dedicated racism LEGALY. Liberty sometimes creates new freedom by changing laws. Its going to change how police forces are used and organized.

You want to roll the dice with your liberty and freedom by burning your house - that's on you. Its your free will.

Do fascists have the same liberty that you have to march and protest?

American people also get to change the rights to keep the monuments dedicated to racism LEGALLY. That will also change how police forces are used and organized.

In a democratic society, you and fascists are equals. The fascists have the rights that you have to march, protest and change policy.

I would think that the word "liberty" would also apply to everyone equally.

The real question I am asking is whether the word "liberty" only applies to people who agree with you.

Everybody is at liberty to do what they do. Do you believe that lynchers didn't feel at liberty? Which do you believe: the legal freedom, or an attitude of liberty made the Klan run wild for over 100 years? The law sure didn't give them the freedom whether or not law enforcement felt at liberty to look the other way.

Nothing changed until others in society felt at liberty to resist and finally prevail.

Liberty and freedom are neutral as principles. Its the people involved that give it an ethic.

Liberty to me are basic rights. Rights are subjective, but certainly to me this means.

- Free Speech, Freedom of religion. Freedom of expression.
- Freedom to marry whom you choose or not to marry.
- Freedom for two or more consenting adults (or I suppose one consenting adult by himself) to express their sexuality in any way they choose.

I would include the right to buy and sell sex, but not the right to have sex with children. I suppose it includes gun rights (but I don't really care).

I am OK with liberty being subjective... but it has to mean that people have the ability to do more things or express themselves in more ways with fewer legal or social restrictions.