Friday, August 7, 2009
+ one man's freedom ends where another's begins
You either do not understand the meaning of freedom, or simply don't believe in it. I have a feeling your idea of personal freedom includes the right to control my actions and thoughts through the democratic prerogative. As I tried to explain before, freedom must be understood from the point of view of negative liberty: the rights ordained by the inherent nature of man as a reasoning being. You have every right to do as you wish with YOUR life, liberty and property.. but not to control how I use mine. You have every right to act as YOU believe is ethical, but not to limit my actions to the criteria you choose. You have every right to buy healthcare for Yourself, or donate money for scientific research, but not to tell me how I spend MY resources. You have every right not to use drugs, or alcohol, but NO natural right to tell me what I do with my body. Freedom cannot be defined as the will of a society, because a society is not of uniform mind and therefore unable to make ethical decisions. Freedom can only defined as the will of the individual, within the constraints of the freedom of other individuals. I have no freedom to murder or steal, because those actions impinge on the rights of the victims. Another way of looking at it is that an individual has infinite natural rights to rule himself, and absolutely zero rights to rule another human being. I agree that a system which effects these beliefs is impractical. For this reason, I am willing to accept a minimalist government that sticks to the role I defined.
