Freedom

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Originally Posted by grotto

Not to be a nit pick beroq, but in conclusion, I don’t think it can be easily said that freedom is the sum of anything. You have made some very valid points along with others, but to define freedom as an idea already takes away from it. You are not free from your ideal nor the thought that has attached importance to it.

There are physical, social and individual limits to freedom. You are free to do as you please, however, there are consequences for those freedoms you employ. I am free to jump off a bridge, get drunk, punch my neighbor or to do nothing with my life. I am free to respond to this thread, but I am not free of the thought of this thread. Exerting my freedom immediately sets a boundary that I have to continually push against; I am no longer free of the idea. We are doomed to be free, freedom is a never ending cycle pitted against it’s opposite. Every time you act out a freedom, it immediately presents you with it’s opposite, and so the cycle continues.

To say freedom, you have to ask, freedom from what? Or else the term means nothing. Freedom is a never ending, unreachable goal, an endless chasing of an illusion. One can never be free of the notion of freedom when the chase starts. It will continually be compartmentalized along the way.

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When I summed up the idea of freedom, I did not imply that freedom as a concept is immune from certain limitations. I agree with you on the idea that once the actualization of freedom takes place, social, religious, communial etc. boundaries manifest themselves automatically so as to maintain the equilibrium between freedom and responsibility.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I agree when this applies to what society asigns as criminal activity. Indiscriminant freedoms that harm others is a lack of freedom on those being harmed. But no one seems to draw a line as to economic freedom. At what point is man no longer free? If he can't spend his earnings as he sees fit, when does one transition from freedom to slave? When the government takes 40% of his earnings? 50%? 75%? 100%?

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The answer to this question is self-explanatory: man is no longer free when he is incapable of leaving the country with extortionate taxes, if he thinks the tax rates are not a fair representation of the public goods and services he receives, then he should just go somewhere else. Basic taxes are more of an enhancement of freedoms in that they afford the citizen with the security and protection that he requires to make decent money. If you made loads of money in an anarchist state, chances are you wouldn't have that money for very long.

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Originally Posted by blazeofglory

Freedom from what?

It is hard to get freedom in essence. Freedom from hunger, thirst, suppression, hegemony, economic dominance, slavery. It is really hard.

We are free in theory not in practice.

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Hi blazeofglory you took the word of me.
I was just about to post freedom from what?
I think the only time one talks of freedom is when one is incarcerated.