This is the best post on freedom I've read on this board:
vlvtelvis said:
The conception of freedom stated here is typical of what can be called "negative freedom." This is the idea of freedom from somthing, ex "free from opression." This is commonly held to be the predomenant idea of freedom in classical liberalism, from the French revolution on. You'll see it in Voltaire, Rousau, (my kingdom for a forum with a spelling checker) Jefferson, etc.
The problem with negative freedom alone is that it leads to the idea that man would be most free if alone on a deserted island. He's free FROM damn near any outside forces, but that alone is not enough. I can think of no better example of the lacking of this worldview than Dostoevsky's _The Underground Man_. It depicts a character so intent on making sure that he is free from all things outside of himself that he is reduced to the life of a hermit. Again, how free is one on a deserted island?
"Positive freedom," on the other hand, is what one is free to do. It is the empowering freedom. This conception is much stronger in the German conception of law and freedom, as seen in Hegel, Marx, etc. Law is empowering, rising from the spirit of the people to provide freedom for them.
To be truely free, one must have both kinds of freedom. You can't be free to do somthing if it's prohibited. Being free from somthing is useless if one is not free to do anything. Either kind of freedom carried to the extreme will serve to limit the other kind, making the totality of freedom experienced less than if greater degrees of single kind of freedom were observed.
On another note, you people all realize that republicans, democrats, and yes, libertarians are all liberals, right? That is the framework established by the US constitution, and any political philosphy operent within it is going to be a variety of liberalism. If individual liberties and property rights are even an issue, it's going to be liberalism. If there is representitive government with one man getting one vote, it's liberalism.
As much as I'd really like to dive in and debate issues here, I don't see the point. Without common and shared definitions in conversation, all you have is people talking a lot without saying anything.
No, freedom is ability.
I have the freedom to walk, if I didn't have legs I wouldn't be freedom to walk, if someone tied me down to the bed I'd have the freedom to walk but not the power to.
