Aswad
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Joined: 4/4/2007
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ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess
I see freedom and liberty as indistinguishable constructs in the context of this discussion.
Therein lies the problem, then.
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And I see freedom and power as two sides of the same coin.
On this point, we agree. I actually wrote something about that in the Tractatulus thread in the Gorean section recently.
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And as an American, I prefer the construct of freedom because that is how we tend to think of things here.
I've never been quite able to grasp what the consensus definition of that is in the US these days; it seems a bit nebulous and tied up with national pride.
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My point in using the term freedom is that if you maximize individual freedom you also maximize an individual's freedom to die in poverty.
Which is not a problem, unless you also essentially force an individual to die in poverty.
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Conservatives will frame it in this way.
I don't frame it quite the same.
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That if a few gain and many lose - that is okay because everyone has personal freedom.
Are you talking about relative gains and losses (i.e. gaining more and gaining less), or absolute gains and losses?
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But, what does it mean to have the "freedom to die".
Everything. It means you own your own yourself, own your body, own your life.
At least one of those, I think, should have some instinctive importance to you.
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Maximizing individual freedom does NOT result in everyone being better off.
Not inherently, no, at least not in a material sense (and fewer people realize freedom in materially poor conditions).
That said, it's a goal that's perfectly compatible with most people being better off, as people being better off is both a boon to freedom (e.g. it becomes more important to people when other concerns are dealt with) and the most effective way to do things, etc.; for instance, I argue in favor of things like universalized healthcare, universal education and a decent healthcare system to reduce the need for intrusive laws and policing measures, as well as the overall reduction in crime that allows that reduction (which carries with it improved quality of life for everyone).
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This isn't a power issue per se. It is about having the freedom to live a decent life.
That's a power issue, indeed per se: the power to live a decent life, with power defined as the ability to do something.
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The important thing even if you want to use power (although I don't know "power to die" doesn't work for me as an analogous statement) that there be balance.
I'm simply pointing out that you used freedom when you spoke of power, as well as when you spoke of freedom.
What terms we use is irrelevant to me, so long as we're clear about which concepts and constructs we mean by them.
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And while I agree with you that balance is an old concept - the fact remains that what passes for balance in the U.S. is significantly different from what passes for balance in the other countries (as you have pointed out to Yachtie).
Certainly. There's no element of enlightened self interest in American domestic policy, as far as I can tell, unless you agree with the notion of corporate personhood, in which case it's still not particularly enlightened, but better, at least, though only for the corporations. I reject corporate personhood, so I fail to see enlightened self interest in American domestic policy altogether.
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I am simply asking if there is a normative balance.
Define normative?
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And that is NOT something that has been worked out with any certainty. So I think the question is still - what is the balance?
Certainly. And a balance between power- as in ability to do- is important.
The correct balance is, in my view, a synthesis. The US has departed from a lot of its ideas on freedom and the like, but if you regress on this point, restore some of your past freedoms, and incorporate the socioeconomically sensible measures from the Scandinavian countries and use the Swiss/Portugese drug model, along with abandoning the notion of corporate personhood, and ideally taking an incentivizing opt-in approach to as much as possible of this, you'll be closer to my idea of the ideal than any nation I've ever seen.
Personally, I love to play ball, and choose to play ball so long as that choice is recognized as mine to make. When it's not considered to be my choice, I abandon the notion of cooperation and fight it instead. This, as far as I can tell, is the case for most of the people I know that have a lot to contribute to society, the people you want and need to maximize wealth and power for everyone and to drive forward social progress and so forth.
That should give some ideas on how to strike a balance.
IWYW,
— Aswad.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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RE: REAL FREEDOM - 
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