Liberty Frightens People

Liberty is the individual's authority over and responsibility for them self. Liberty frightens many people. Liberty not only frightens people because they must take responsibility for them self. Liberty also frightens people because they cannot tolerate what others do, or don't do, with their liberty.

Any infringement upon liberty, other than the liberty of others, is an unjust infringement upon liberty. Accept no limit upon your liberty except the liberty of others.

We each have a personal responsibility to pick and choose which laws we obey because compliance with law is no excuse for the usurpation of liberty, one's own or another's.

 

Just when I thought it could not get any nuttier...a new champion comes along.

So...we each have a personal responsibility to pick and choose which laws we obey?

Ya cannot make this crap up!

 

See Nuremburg

 

Liberty is great, but most people become beast when they are frightened. Freedom can't exist in a country where everybody starve or have their children threatened by gangs. Freedom is necessary for developped countries, but it can only work because most of us have our bellies full and our children alive.

 

Yes, you have a moral responsibility to pick and choose which laws to obey.

hint: This isn't a new idea.

 

And if you CHOOSE to ignore laws regarding traffic signals and speed limits and one way streets and whether one can kill someone else for an insult...

...that would be okay with you?

Hint: The only way society functions...is by having laws which are binding on all.

 

as another posted pointed out .... only because some bellies remain empty and some lives uncertain. shutting the gate after the horse has bolted, basically. still, it's better than the alternative.

 

Of course it frightens people. Liberty re

So then you choose to follow traffic laws. The problem is that it does not follow that since traffic laws are moral, then all laws are moral.

What if, say... there was a tax that you, as an adult male, had to pay. The money collected from this tax is used to pay immigration officers to hunt down and repatriate undocumented aliens to their own countries. Maybe they've been in the country for decades, are otherwise good and moral people who are a benefit to the community and the country.

Will you pay this tax because it is the law? Or will you refuse and go to prison for not paying your taxes?

 

Can you do me a favor and read the literature our founding fathers read when designing our constitution-Aristotle, John Locke, etc-before you go and make wild accusations that we have the liberty to pick and choose what laws we follow. I'll give you the short version. We agree to follow ALL the laws of the government in return for the governments help and protection. If we break any of those laws we are punished by the government. True saying the government punishes us for being bad sounds really bad. But the government is really our peers, not some unicorn that rules our lives. Therefor, one must follow the rules set forth and agreed upon by his peers, or else lose the protection of his peers. So sure be a tyrant, but you will be exiled.

 

I'm not so sure that Locke had much to say about blind subservience to the power of the state. He saw the authority of the state as different from the authority of a father, and the power of the almighty. The state derives its power by the authority of the governed.

As for Aristotle, he saw the state as a vessel of the people to do good. It has, at its core, a responsibility to the community so that good can be achieved. It establishes relationships, be they between husband and wife, or master and slave. It is a natural relationship which derives its authority from the society it governs.

How does any of this translate to blind subservience to the government?

 

Neither one recommended blind subservience. However, we should follow the laws as written. If we don't like them, then we elect/run for government positions to change the laws. We don't get to simply "pick and choose" because we like this one or don't like that one.

 

You just jumped the shark, my man.

 

Anarchy is not the solution to anything.

 

It certainly helped the peasants during the French revolution.

 

Hence the reason the USA is (without a doubt) the best Country on the planet! We Americans should never take that for granted.

 

The right has a list of buzzwords. At the top of the list is "freedom". They use it like a club and a drug. But they never ask themselves "freedom from what?". "Liberty" is its brother.

 

You point out the disconnect liberals have understanding personal liberty. With liberty comes personal duty. You think personal liberty includes what you think personal liberty is and that is doing anything that comes to mind. That is probably why we see so much law breaking, violence, and destruction of property from liberals when they don't get what they want.

 

You - as usual - totally miss the context. The context is balancing laws with liberty, weighing the Constitutionality of laws and opposing laws that are unconstitutional. The issue is not disregarding laws just because you feel like it.

 

Think of it as a value judgement.

How do you say "A is better than B"?

Let's say that you are sitting at home watching the view, when suddenly ten guys break into your house and start taking whatever they want. As soon as your TV is unplugged and Whoopie is mercifully gone, do you look at all of your belongings and think "the good of the many outweighs the good of the one" and then hope they leave you a comic book to read once the many have taken what they want?

If you, as an individual, can make a value judgement concerning ownership of your property in comparison to those ten (the majority) who decided that they could make better use of your TV than you can (you were watching the view, so they might have a point), then you have painted yourself into a corner filled with right wing buzzwords, clubs, and drugs.

Freedom from what? Freedom from the mob of guys who just took your TV! The freedom to make that value judgement that your property really is your property, and it's better that you have it than those ten guys who disagree with you.

 

LOL!!! Bricklayer is not a liberal! LOL!!!

Oh, and yearright, only righties understand liberty even though individual liberty is the basis of liberalism! LOL!!!

 

Is this one of your irrational days?

 

Certainly the opposite of today's liberal. The liberalism you are talking about is classical liberalism which is more inline with todays libertarianism.

 

Liberty ONLY frightens slaves and their masters.

 

LOL!! You righties are the ones who redefined "liberal".

 

Think of it as one of those days when I'm flying at an altitude a big higher than the main flock of chickens.

cluck cluck cluck