Talk:Freedom (political)

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I know you will grant me freedom to apologise for the three "e" article! I had followed a wrong link without noting it, of course Wikipedia had an article on freedom :-) --Gianfranco


Contents

[edit] Freedom from vs. Freedom to

It seems to me that this paragraph at the top of the section on Forms of Freedom...

Another common distinction made between kinds of freedom is the difference between "freedom from" social and political ills (which, some argue, is really more accurately described as safety or security), and "freedom to" do what one wants (for which some consider the term "liberty" more precise).

...has either inverted the common conceptual meaning of "freedom from" and "freedom to", or is just unclear. When I think of "freedom from" (liberty) I think of a lack of restraint allowing one to pursue what one wishes, while "freedom to" means having one's way regardless of circumstances. It's the difference between no one physically stopping you from trying to obtain a Ferarri vs. transcending or overturning all natural limitations on obtaining one. I think the original paragraph could be rewritten for clarity because as it stands it seems to say the reverse. What does anyone else think? Ubernetizen 21:42, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(The concepts "freedom from" and "freedom to" were first articulated by Isaiah Berlin (Two Concepts of Liberty: Inaugural Lecture Oxford University 1958 & Clarendon Press 1958))

[edit] Freedom and the West

The article says: "In most Western democratic societies, key freedoms legally protected by the government include:" With the only list of freedoms directly under this sentence and no notion of liberties in the rest of the world, it is implied that the right of freedom is something typicly western, and that things are different in the rest of the world. This is politicly highly incorrect, and should certainly be changed.

Although "politically highly incorrect" appears to be a value judgement – and thus intrinsically non-neutral – I believe
you have a point here. As a matter of pure fact, things relating to freedom may or may not be thought of and acted
upon differently at different points in time and space. This seems to suggest that one should attempt a description
of the topic via a historical approach, starting from known beginnings. This should help to keep things in perspective,
showing actual differences and changes without falling into ideological traps.
As far as I know, the notion of political freedom became important for the first time among the Hellenes around the
time of the Persian wars (at the very beginning of the fifth century b.C.). It was then a development of the very simple
and practical idea of personal freedom, which was just the state (worth even fighting for) of those who were not the
slaves of some other person. I believe that all the subsequent relevant facts can be described as the long and varied
history of this basic Hellenic notion: how it periodically desappeared and was then rediscovered, changed and applied
to political institutions in various parts of the world.
The lack of such perspective – and the consequent paucity of references – is what makes me very unhappy about the
article. Although I am no specialist in the field, I might consider an attempt to start writing a new one along the lines
hinted above. Comments welcome. Mario 17:32, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Freedom and Christianity

Trying to get the ball rolling on this article. Here's one man's observation: "Christian liberty is not the freedom to do what we want, but the freedom to do what we ought." – Martin Luther (See [1] for a citation.) <>< tbc


[edit] Why liberalism?

This article looks OK to me. My only concern is that it is listed under liberalism. There are other broad political trends that uphold freedom of one or another sort. Shorne 20:27, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Liberalism

I do not see any problem to list this article under other ideologies too, but one cannot deny that freedom is an essential element of liberal philosophy. --Gangulf 20:45, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

So are lots of other things that are not listed. The problem is that the list gives the impression that liberalism holds a special claim to freedom that other ideologies do not. Shorne 20:58, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Good point, the fascists, for example, have always laid special claim to it. . . that and 'employment'. To be fair to them, we should link it to that ideology. IIRC, the Communists did too. . . That being the case, to be NPOV, we should just link it all around to every ideology so that everyone can be 'free' to share the joy (and dispute the neutrality of the article). . . Sigma-6 19:01, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone explain the difference between freedom and liberalism? That should be put on the article. --TakuyaMurata

[edit] Not neutral (IMO)

in particular, capitalists place a high value on freedom from government interference in the economy. This kind of freedom may be referred to as a kind of negative liberty.

Hmm... Yeah... sounds POV. I'm not sure how to reword. --coblin 06:37, July 12, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Agreed...

I have tried to make this a bit more neutral. I removed those external links on democracy as they make the implicit assumption that democracy = freedom, obviously not a neutral point of view. They belong on the democracy article. I changed "freedom from discrimination" to "freedom from government sanctioned discrimination"; the latter everyone can agree on while the former is very contentious, and many would agree it tramples the right of association. I removed the Lincoln external link because it was very controversial; at least some would agree that a president who suspended habeus corpus, closed hundreds of newspapers, warred on half the country and attempted to arrest the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is probably not a good example of political freedom. Also removed "right-wing" libertarianism because it's not NPOV; libertarians don't think of themselves that way or advertise themselves that way. Paul Bonneau 23:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Brave new world predicted

Wikipedia is Big Brother, you sit there editing the past to conform to what is commonly assumed to be correct, you've started the end of human civilisation and freedom! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.31.9.88 (talk • contribs) 07:12, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

LOL. Exactly. Wikipedia is Big Brother. No kinda doubt! Dude Aronomy 18:09, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Positive and negative liberty???

Give me a break. The description of positive and negative liberty circles around to pose that capitalism is a negative liberty and then described as coercion in wiki under positive liberty as:

"Coercion is the practice of compelling a person to involuntarily behave in a certain way (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation"

First of all capitalism is a function and mult-definable one at that. And as such, it cannot be labeled as a negative or a positive liberty. Nor can capitalism be considered coercion as capitalism occurs when any two people "willingly" sell or trade to each other "with or without" the interference of government; this is why capitalism is occurring in the US and in communist China.

Positive liberty is mislabeled here as by offering services like heath care and other mention services. This is as, by definition of Negative liberty defined on wiki, negative liberty as people are through government coercion, forced to pay other peoples benefits through unwilling taxation.

Neither can be defined correctly as the 17th Grievance of the Declaration of Independence defines any taxation without ones "willing consent" is "Tyranny". Tyranny in any form has nothing to do with any definition freedom or liberty. This needs to be rewritten by factual definitions as it is at present slanted and incorrectly defined. Contributed by Richard Taylor APP, American Patriot Party.

[edit] Libertarian definition of freedom

The article defines freedom from a libertarian point of view in the following way: "In libertarianism, freedom is defined in terms of lack of government interference in the individual pursuit of happiness, as long as others' freedom is not thereby harmed". I believe this definition is awfully wrong, since the word freedom is used again in the definition of word freedom itself. This is a kind of circular reference that does not explain the term properly. Can anybody find a way to improve it? I haven't found a valid definition similar to this one in the Internet either :(

>I think it might read better as " .... others' rights are not violated". But this is a missunderstanding of Liberatarian political party stance as because the liberatarian party believes one has the right to do anything with his or her body; This is an incorrect statement in that accepting someone elses willfull relinquishment of natural rights is in fact slavery.

John Adams presents that one cannot freely give up any essential natural right or else this is "willful slavery": "If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave." John Adams, Rights of the Colonists, 1772.

Slavery not being part of freedom presents there are limits to freedom as defined, more particularly when another person and essential natural right are involved. Liberatarian view: (http://www.lp.org/issues/platform_all.shtml#sexgend) American Patriot View: (http://www.pacificwestcom.com/morality) Hope this helps. User: Richard Taylor APP>

Insert: Also, it's silly to jump into the Libertarian definition of freedom in an article on freedom -- it's not an article on Libertarians.

[edit] Human Rights and Freedom

To my mind, the sentence about human rights and freedom does not sound quite right (even though that may be on account of my immersion in a German-language environment). Most elemtents of the expression "freedom", e.g. freedom of speach, freedom of thought and freedom of action (the latter with the restrictions named by John Stuart Mill) are indeed unremovable cornerstones of "human rights." The expression "human rights", includes, however, also some rights which have nothing do with freedom, e.g. the right to sufficient food, good healtcare, education etc. pp-- even though some of them may be indispensable, if a person wants to enjoy his freedom (as Rawls points out). The clash exists thus, as far as I understand it, not between freedom and human rights (as conservative politicians would have it), but between human rights and freedom on the one hand and economic, political and social lawlessness (e.g. by non- or pseudo-democratic organisations like the WTO or mulinational corporations who stand above any country's law) und enslavement on the other side. Maybe this should be included in the article. User:Josef Eichhorn

[edit] Navigation infobox

I added template {{ideologies}} to this page. When using the navigation boxes on Conservatism, Liberalism, Libertarianism, etc., they all have this page as one of the links. I found it inapprpriate to add the navigation box from every ideology that linked here, so I just put the main ideology box on here. Feel free to discuss.--207.230.48.22 01:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] thought and conscience

Freedom of thought is not synonmous with freedom of conscience. For instance I have freedom of thought as my thoughts are private and belong to me. I don't, however, have freedom of conscience. If I followed my conscience I would be fined or imprisoned as I don't agree with many of the laws of my country. Therefore I removed the word 'conscience'. Doctors without suspenders 22:10, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RTKBA

Perhaps we need to discuss this, I argue that the global Wikipedia is not the forum to discuss the local, USA, gun political issue of a right to keep and bear arms (RTKBA). Arms are for many uses sufficiently covered in other types of freedom. Also, editor 70.57.84.156 appears to not make a distinction between freedom in Civil Law and freedom in Common Law or Religious Law BruceHallman 16:36, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

Nikodemos, can you provide some sources for claim that socialism and communism in general support political freedom? -- Vision Thing -- 22:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Certainly. "A socialist society that has been established from a capitalist society will strengthen 'negative freedoms', while ushering in real 'positive freedoms' across the board, ensuring equal and free access to social services by all." [2] -- Nikodemos 22:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Are you proposing that we should guide ourselves by principle of self-identification in deciding what belongs in certain category? -- Vision Thing -- 18:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
No. I do see the problem with such a principle. However, by the same token, we cannot include links and categories related to libertarianism just because libertarians self-identify as supporters of political freedom. If a non-Marxist source is required for the assertion that Marxism supports political freedom, then a non-libertarian source should be required for the assertion that libertarianism supports political freedom. -- Nikodemos 21:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Anarchism, Classical liberalism, Liberalism and Libertarianism to me seem like obvious proponents of political freedom. Are you disputing such qualification? -- Vision Thing -- 21:30, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
One of my great obsessions is the application of universal standards, Vision Thing. I suppose you could say that I believe one's editing should follow the categorical imperative. So, yes, I dispute the qualification of those ideologies as advocates of political freedom because you said that self-identification is not enough and because I want to apply your principle universally and consistently. You will find that I will often accept any kind of principle as long as it is employed universally. -- Nikodemos 21:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
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