Thread: Of Liberty

This thread seeks to answer what is liberty, why is it important to protect, and how should it be protected - questions very relevant to US politics.
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The Natural State of Man

Any analysis of political philosophy must begin with the most fundamental unit of analysis - namely, the human as a complete individual. Yet, there was only one time when there was a single human, and thus a complete individual, therefore it was at this time before there was a collection of individuals, or civil society, where we find man in his natural state. This was how man was created, how man came to exist, and in this state we find man as truly nothing other than man. Here, a man has complete freedom to act as he will, that he relies on no one for anythng and is, in the truest sense of the word, an individual. Therefore, man is in a state of liberty when he emulates his natural state.

There arises a problem when the first man produces offspring in such numbers, that there is no longer room for them to live in complete freedom without infringing upon someone elses freedom. I go to kill an ox, and someone else wants to kill that ox, and unless there is enough meat for the both of us, one of us is going to go hungry unless there is a way that we could settle our solutions and make a compromise. It is at this point that we see the foundations of civil society, of government, of order and civilization.

Of The Rise Of Civil Society

Now, why did civil society first develop? It developed, because there were numbers of people who each felt their natural calling for liberty, but then realized that without such a civil society, their liberty would be infringed by someone else - that someone would kill their family, or their animals, or their crops; in general, someone would kill the fruit of their labor, their labor, and ultimately they would be unable to live in liberty. It is in this need that government first arose, for man as an individual predates government - to make sure that all the people in a given area are able to live in liberty.

Of The Aims of Civil Society

Civil Society arose to protect the liberties of the people that formed it - for it did not form in a vaccum. In its most basic nature, government takes liberties away from those that are able to secure the liberties themselves, and in turn, protects the liberties of those that are not able to protect themselves. A very basic example is shown here; the fundamental law of not murdering people, if phrased in terms of liberty, is that those that have the ability to kill other people within that society, if they choose to act on that liberty, will lose their liberty by being placed in jail. Those that steal, will lose their liberty if they choose to actually steal. It is in this, that governments seeks to ascend over the people in body and in thought, for it is only in this ascension can it truly realize its goal of protecting the liberties of the people.

Of The Natural Clash

Then there will always be the clash of the desires of the people to remain free, and the desires of the government to ascend over the body and thought of the people. A government will always look out for the best interest and the liberty of the people, as it percieves it - however, this perception may not be concurrent with that of the natural state of man. Because a government is necessary in order to maintain society and protect the liberties of the people, the American Revolution was fought to realize, as much as possible, that government could be allied with this natural liberty as defined by people. If the people realize their true nature, it will always serve as a natural check upon the ascendancy of any government in their lives in body and thought. If the government realizes their role, it will always serve as a check upon the people using their liberties.

The Irony

Since we are no longer in a natural state of man, many people have forgotten their true nature and, instead become people subsumed in the many of the people. People become not what they are intrinsically, as they would be in the natural state of man, but what they try to be, or what they should do. It is in this point, where people worry about being percieved as 'cool' or 'good' that they lose their true selves, as they would find it in the natural state of man.

The Problem as a result of this

If people lose their true selves, the check upon the governments ascension will ultimately be lost. It is in this state that the government can define further and further what it is meant by 'liberty', and ultimately, will gain great control over the realm of things.

How to always protect liberty

The only sure way to always have liberty protected, is if the people who make up a society are always willing to take up arms to defend their freedom, or to defend their own liberty. IF they have power to defend their liberty, and the will to do so, it will be defended and secured. If they don't, it won't.

Finally, why is liberty important, and how should people be made to treasure their liberty?

Liberty is important, because for people, it is what we do in our natural state. In our natural state, we live freely - the ultimate individual, is one who is in their natural state. It is the state that we as a people in our true nature, strive for.

As to the how question....I do not know what would work. Any thoughts? Any thoughts about anything I have said?

Liberty! We don't need no stinking "liberty"!

We are the United States and terrorists just hate us for our freedoms anyway. Time to turn those "liberties" in at your local office. That is the only way we can be safe!

:sarcasm:

Good article bear.

I don't understand what 'the individual' is. Is there an opposite of that?
I still don't understand what 'liberty' is supposed to mean. For example, there are differences between political liberty and physical liberty.

Originally Posted by Elvis

I don't understand what 'the individual' is. Is there an opposite of that?
I still don't understand what 'liberty' is supposed to mean. For example, there are differences between political liberty and physical liberty.

Do you mean the individual and liberty that I refer to?

Originally Posted by Elvis

I don't understand what 'the individual' is. Is there an opposite of that?
I still don't understand what 'liberty' is supposed to mean. For example, there are differences between political liberty and physical liberty.

Lol whatever, I'll answer your questions anyway, assuming that you are asking about what I wrote about.

Integral to any definition of the terms 'individual' and 'liberty' is the way that humanity started. It is this, because when we talk about individual and liberty, we are talking about humanity's individuality and human liberty. So it is necessary to understand how man was first created.
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Back before civilization, there was some ideal time where we as a people lived in a state of nature. In this time, there were relatively few people in the world, and everyone did everything themselves or with people that were very close to them. If you needed to eat, you hunted. If you needed clothing, you picked the cotton and made it yourself. Of course there was some leeway here, but ultimately, in this ideal time, people lived by their means and their means alone.

---> In this ideal time, people lived by their own means. Nothing was provided for them. There was no security, unless they secured themselves. They was no food, unless they got it themselves. There was no clothings, unless they made it themselves. If people wanted to do something, they did it. There was no law against doing anything, because there was no government to make laws. People did things that were part of their nature.

Ultimately, in this ideal time, people were free to come and go as they pleased, to do this and that, without fear of any consequences from other people. There was no laws governing social interaction (a la sex and the city), there was just social interaction that was what it was. This is the individual that I refer to, and this is the liberty I referance.

If you take away all of society, if you take away TV, radio, money, (hell religion), or any so called 'influence' that is present today, you will be left with some ideal where I am the sole decision maker in my life, and where I am free to make any decisions that I would like. This is what I refer to when I say 'individual' and 'liberty'.
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As per the second part:

Yes. There is the opposite of 'individual'. It is 'collective', or more generally, organized states, nations, religions, in general - civil society. It is where the collective people come together to decide what is best.

An example: there are many different theories of what should have happened with that immigration policy. However, the people rose up and said 'no, we don't want amnesty for illegals'. That was collective decision making, where the collective rejected that immigration proposal.

Another example: The Papacy decrees that abortion is against the law of God. People believe that abortion is against the law of God because the pope said so. Because I am substituting his reasoning for my own in that case, I am no longer an individual.
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Third question:

There is no difference between liberty. Liberty is liberty. Political liberty is physical liberty. If you call something else liberty, that is not really liberty, its not really liberty.

I know I repeated myself, but I can't think of a better way to explain it.

Well you cover some interesting ground in your posts. I'm glad you haven't arrived at any "final" definitions of liberty, because liberty is an abstract concept. The meaning of liberty varies according to context, and its meaningfulness or impact is largely derived from personal experience (including socialization). Liberty is least abstract when it includes or coincides with something that is personally relevant, that people can relate to.

The "Natural State" is not liberty.

I argue that if there is a "Natural State", it always exists, and always will.

Originally Posted by Feslin

The "Natural State" is not liberty.

I argue that if there is a "Natural State", it always exists, and always will.

The natural state is complete freedom to do as you wish without the consequence of retribution by society. Read Locke's treatises for a further explanation.

Originally Posted by Ausinus

The natural state is complete freedom to do as you wish without the consequence of retribution by society. Read Locke's treatises for a further explanation.

lol

Society will always be in this "natural state".

You can use the "without retribution from society" bullshit all you want, though we all know it's entirely irrational.