What exactly is incorrect about my idea of freedom.

Tnu1138

so he needs to be given "freedom" to take things from others? Ok let's say you have a pie and I take some because I don't have any. Wait I'm not taking it from you. I'm giving it to me! Isn't that wonderfull??!

Beholderess

Strawman, and you know  it.  Then again, you subscribe to the idea that taxation is a theft, as far as I  understand.

But tell me, is it terribly important for a man dying on the street that if he had  a pie, he could keep it all for himself?

Crimson

Who said anything about taking property? Or regulate people "to the ground"? There is a middle ground between complete unrestricted freedom and oppression, as it's probably been said many times.

For someone who immediately shoots down arguments based on logical fallacies, you seem to like False Dichotomies.

Tnu1138

I'm not syaing you shouldn't share your pie all i'm saying is that you shouldn't be forced to "share" your pie. there's a differenc ebetween "government intervention" and "voluntary sharing". Still I don't have pie so i'm taking some from you and giving it to me. is that fair to you?

Beholderess

And if noone  around  is inclined to share? Sharing is wonderful, but can't be relied upon. Humans are bastards, after all.

And yes, I pay my taxes. Which means  that someone could have a (pre-set, clearly defined in advance, most certainly not  unrestricted) piece of my pie. And  may have  someone else's when I need  it.

As fr the regulations you  seem to hate so much - without them what's stopping business from crewing over people even more than they already do? 20-hours working shifts, dangerous working conditions, unsafe medicine and wage enough for  bread and water?

Crimson

See that's the thing, when there isn't any sort of limiting factor
making people share some of their pie. A lot of people will never share
any of their pie, and will steal other people's pies if they could. Too
much limitation and who ever made those limitations, say the government,
will be the ones doing the taking.

While I disagree that Humans are Bastards, relying on good will to accomplish anything meaningful is basically gambling.

Tnu1138

because frankly it's unrealistic. Now you're strawmanning businesses need to do what they can to get customers and employeels. labor is essential to the market and without it the ebul business people are completely fucked.. So there is as much a demand for labor as there is for anything else. This makes the worker able to negotiate terms with the employee for the threat of going to work somewhere else.

Nova

^

Tnu1138

Cygan if you have nothing worthwhile to say get out.

Nova

There is more supply (labourers) than there is demand (skilled/unskilled work). Thusly, the demand has the advantage over the supply.

The labourers can say "Increase this and that or we'll look elsewhere for work."

The job holders can say "Go look elsewhere then. There's more where you came from."

Tnu1138

this is why crowding in large cities is a bad idea. There has to be a non governmental solution otherwise it just seems sort of pointless to bother l living. Better to die on your feet then live on your knees.

Nova

-sigh-

Your definition of "On your knees" is pretty stupid, Tnu. It has to be said.

It's not really all that pointless. It's not harming us.

The government is not a parasite, sitting on us and sucking out our blood for no return. It's a symbiote; it takes our money, and in turn funds hospitals, funds research into medicines, builds roads, pays for low-income people to go to colleges, builds homeless shelters, builds housing for people to live in, pays for schools to exist and does a hell of a lot more.

I suggest you take a look at the way things were before there was a democratic government, Tnu, and ask yourself if you want to live in a world with no funded hospitals, no regulations to stop workplace harassment, no legalized police force to stop you being murdered in your bed, no health care and no free education.

Tnu1138

nothing is free thats the thing in order to get htis you have to forcibly take money that isn't yours.  Seems a tad unethical to me. Also see The Paradox of Positive Liberty

Vorpy

Tnu's idea of freedom < Water

Nova

It's large-scale economics, Tnu. That's how it works.

People can't do it on their own simply because they cannot pool their resources together effectively.

Which is basically what the government is; a regulatory body that pools together resources on a large scale to do things effectively that you could not alone.

As to the link you provided:

Theorists disagree, however, about the importance of the notion of overall freedom. For some libertarian and liberal egalitarian theorists, freedom is valuable as such. This suggests that more freedom is better than less (at least ceteris paribus), and that freedom is one of those goods that a liberal society ought to distribute in a certain way among individuals. For other liberal theorists, like Ronald Dworkin (1977) and the later Rawls (1991), freedom is not valuable as such, and all claims about maximal or equal freedom ought to be interpreted not as literal references to a quantitative good called ‘liberty’ but as elliptical references to the adequacy of lists of certain particular liberties, or types of liberties, selected on the basis of values other than liberty itself. Generally speaking, only the first group of theorists finds the notion of overall freedom interesting.

Tnu1138

Vorpy has a point. I'm first camep. You're second camp. as far as I can tell the second are collectivist/statist and are of the notion that the government gives us our rights. Perople can pool their resources if they want but people shouldn't have to pool their resources. It's their shit.  You can live in a voluntary socialist system, you can live in any number of systems on a small scale. Just don't force everyone in to your system.

Bob

Je suis désorientée.

vacasama

You're aren't the only one.

Nova

The government does not give us our rights. It enforces our ability to have those rights and punishes those who take them away.

Tnu1138

You can't take them away you can only violate them. rights are inherent. They are not things that can be provided. Also I see it less as a parasite and more likwe a mace bludgeoning me in the head. or Someone with a Cattle prod.  I don't see any possibility of a symbiotic relationship.

Nova

I have a right to live. Who can you violate that without taking it away?

And you see it as that. Fine. Whatever. Lave and go somewhere else more suited to your tastes.

Don't dare to suggest that the government needs to be done differently if that is not what the public at large wants, though. You're free to think what you want, but you are not free to take it away from other people.

FrodoGoofballCoTV

It sounds to me like the issue is really positive freedoms (e.g., "you have a right not to be murdered because murder is a crime") vs negative freedoms (e.g., "congress shall make no law").

Tnu1138

That's tdemocracy foryou it's really just a prettier looking version of Oligarchy. If you dare to question the majority you're an outcast or ah eathen.

Nova

No, it's selfishness. You don't like the way things are going, so you try to change it to the way you want it to be run without considering others might prefer it the way it is.

Tnu1138

everyone has a prefrence  am I selfish for not wanting a system that gives the state more power? Before you claim i'm hopeless I want you to say exactly what i t is you're trying to accomplish Cygan. What are you trying to convince me of?

FrodoGoofballCoTV

^x3 Or, as Tocqueville put it, the Tyranny of the Majority. But that is not always a necessity. Forcing everyone to go along with the majority is better than traditional tyranny, but why not take a third option and give the indiviual more choice?

I had a crazy idea for a dual society where there were two classes of citizens, one had more positive freedoms, and the other more negative ones.  It might work if the populations were segregated geographically, but otherwise it probably wouldn't.

Nova

I apologize. My above comment was out of line and I should not have said it.

Tnu1138

Where di d that coem from Cygan? Also somthing that may help udnerstanding is to define specifically what your goal is here. Are you trying to convince me of somthing? If so i'd like to know exactly what. Are you just stating disagreement? If so there's no problem we just disagree. but either way you're puttign a lot of effort in to it.

Nova

I'm trying to show you that authority is not an inherently bad thing.

It's much like riding a horse. The horse chafes at the bit, but a skilled handler will lead them to where they can rest and feed easier with a minimum of pain.

Tnu1138

I don't trust a handler also you forget that regulation does not negetive3ly effect major companies at all. They just outsource. Its futile really. The horse also opens the door for it to be locked up, beaten, enslaved, and qany other number of abuses.