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Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: Rastaman Vibration on July 03, 2013, 07:25 am

Title: Freedom
Post by: Rastaman Vibration on July 03, 2013, 07:25 am
In honor of the upcoming Independance Day, I'd like to start a new topic for discussion: Freedom.

Its the principle America was founded on. But today's America would be virtually unrecognizable to the founding fathers. Today's America is anything but a free country.  Freedom, as a concept, has lost its meaning. Today, freedom is just a rallying cry politicians use to actually strip you of your rights (think Patriot Act).

What are your thoughts?
Title: Re: Freedom
Post by: fuckmadagascar on July 03, 2013, 08:13 am
A good topic to discuss, thanks for posting.

Freedom is being allowed to be afraid, to face our fears, to be in danger, completely at our will.

Conversely, rules and laws are designed to protect us from ourselves, each other, and external threats. (It's the same idea of the "social contract" from political philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.)

Going off of your statement, the mention of Hobbes and Locke is actually quite relevant to this discussion. You mentioned that the government/country has taken away many of our rights. This is true of every government, under the view of the social contract. As a refresher: Hobbes and Locke shared common views that people form society and community based on the need for protection and security, ultimately from one another's callous self-interest. Therefore, we enter into a social contract, where we agree to have a governing authority to protect us with laws and enforcement, but at the price of losing some freedoms. (For example: Without government, there are no laws that discourage you from killing your neighbour to take their farmhouse.)

Governments are designed intrinsically to take away rights - but they also give you the benefit of defending and protecting your rights with those very same laws. To reference Jamie Whyte (a more contemporary philosophical thinker and writer), having a "right" to something implies a duty to upholding it. We have a right to life, meaning that the government and those around us have a duty to uphold the right to your life (i.e. they have laws and police and healthcare workers to ensure you do not lose your life to another person). So the rights we have are defended by the government and by law enforcement. To hold rights, in this view, is to have an entity defending and upholding those rights. (This is one perspective of many, of course.)
Title: Re: Freedom
Post by: SealTeam6 on July 03, 2013, 07:46 pm
Yes nice topic


IMO freedom is a state of mind. At the very least it begins as a state of mind.  When I hear of freedom I always think of Malcolm X, in his biography he speaks of his time in prison.  He described it as a time in his life that he was most free.  He achieved this by consuming knowledge during his incarceration, soaking it up from everything he read.  He achieved freedom in his mind, no jail cell can lock up the human mind.  This has always stuck out for me and I have found it to be absolute truth in my own life.
Title: Re: Freedom
Post by: fuckmadagascar on July 03, 2013, 07:47 pm
No one else discussing freedom?
Title: Re: Freedom
Post by: tedrux on July 05, 2013, 11:18 am
Stone walls to not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage
minds quiet and innocent take thus as peaceful hermatage
for if in my heart is love and my mind is free
only angels fly above know such liberty

I memorized this in jail. poetic, no?

Are you free from gravity? politics is simply policy is simply rules. are you free from rules? are you free from rules 'of man' may be the better question. but what is 'of man'? some say that all you experience originates from your mind . some would call this ultimate freedom and yet would it not be as being a slave to ones self? is it free of rules? even defining the word 'freedom' puts forth rules that contradict the word. I say your freedom is: that which is never given or taken  ,which cannot be given or taken, which is united with realization of self. 
since I know I am a hypocrit and since conflicting lines of logic may be accepted simoultaneously though , I also say your never free for as long as there is definition you are eslaved to it.
in generalized terms though our governments do lie to us and manipulate us without any effort of creating equality. the founding fathers were slave owner eletists so their thoughts on 'freedom' are sort of moot. they just wanted to be free of the bigger slave owning eletests. law of the jungle always applies even when the paradigm shifts from bicepts to hippocampus. in the end a ray gun makes it all pointless except for 'can you pull the trigger'.  I try not to care about politics. im not a very compassionate person and thats not my ideal state of being. but theres nothing I can do about the propoganda machine because im not armed with the truth , man power or assets to accomplish my own anarchist nation nor do I have the know how of opperating a nation anyways. its better to be free but for those without the guts its better to be fat dumb and stupid. for any one in the middle its best to be dead.
Title: Re: Freedom
Post by: weok83r8fd on July 06, 2013, 05:01 am
freedom is just a motive now to push political agenda.  at the absolute very best/naive level of thinking freedom these days is a tool that promotes people to be more productive through the use of creative thinking which just benefits their country and political agenda anyway in that respect.

real freedom will also continue to be eroded with time as technology progresses and there is nearly no way to stop that imo.
Title: Re: Freedom
Post by: fuckmadagascar on July 06, 2013, 06:29 am
freedom is just a motive now to push political agenda.  at the absolute very best/naive level of thinking freedom these days is a tool that promotes people to be more productive through the use of creative thinking which just benefits their country and political agenda anyway in that respect.

real freedom will also continue to be eroded with time as technology progresses and there is nearly no way to stop that imo.
What kind of freedom is "real freedom?" Social, political, emotional, environmental, spiritual, cosmetic, mental, literary, lingual, etc.?
Title: Re: Freedom
Post by: Lucius Luv on July 06, 2013, 07:08 pm
freedom as it's touted in today's mainstream..  is really slavery. 

but the caged bird does still sing, does it not?
Title: Re: Freedom
Post by: fuckmadagascar on July 06, 2013, 08:02 pm
freedom as it's touted in today's mainstream..  is really slavery. 

but the caged bird does still sing, does it not?

The slave is free who loves his chains.
The slave is free who loves his master.

Either is true. And of course slaves often have their songs - sometimes using them as means of communicating ideas in secret form so that the masters and overseers wouldn't understand their plans. ;)
Title: Re: Freedom
Post by: weok83r8fd on July 06, 2013, 10:46 pm
freedom is just a motive now to push political agenda.  at the absolute very best/naive level of thinking freedom these days is a tool that promotes people to be more productive through the use of creative thinking which just benefits their country and political agenda anyway in that respect.

real freedom will also continue to be eroded with time as technology progresses and there is nearly no way to stop that imo.
What kind of freedom is "real freedom?" Social, political, emotional, environmental, spiritual, cosmetic, mental, literary, lingual, etc.?

That's up to everyone's own interpretation because almost everything is built upon shades of grey.  In my eyes real freedom can't exist with this large of a population and this level of technology available today.  Certainly people could be more free than they currently are but that's not the way things are trending or will ever trend in any foreseeable future

Real freedom would be the pursuit to do, think, act (etc) as you please bounded by the constraint that you must effectively do so in a way that promotes your own and others net survival.  I don't think the freedom to kill people makes sense or the freedom to throw sticks in a river indefinitely makes sense either.  From here you end up with laws and bullshit that follows.  Freedom may very well be capped as an inverse function of population size so you can achieve maximum levels of theoretical freedom within a given scenario although other scenarios would provide more freedom.

Its too complex for me to keep talking about it and not worth my breath but I think that's a good basic gist of what I think.
Title: Re: Freedom
Post by: joywind on July 06, 2013, 10:53 pm
freedom is just a motive now to push political agenda.  at the absolute very best/naive level of thinking freedom these days is a tool that promotes people to be more productive through the use of creative thinking which just benefits their country and political agenda anyway in that respect.

real freedom will also continue to be eroded with time as technology progresses and there is nearly no way to stop that imo.
What kind of freedom is "real freedom?" Social, political, emotional, environmental, spiritual, cosmetic, mental, literary, lingual, etc.?
The only freedom that isnt illusory is spiritual and divine freedom.