Philosophical question: If you can't do whatever you want, does that take away your rights/freedoms?

[DetlefK]

If you are not allowed to discriminate against gays, that violates your religious freedom.

If you are so much as slightly inconvenienced in your desire to own a lethal weapon, that violates your freedom to own a lethal weapon.
(I was once told that even people living under other constitutions somehow have this inalienable right to own guns, even though this right is only mentioned in the US Constitution.)

If somebody doesn't tolerate your intolerance, then they're intolerant and that makes THEM the bad guys.

If men are forced to adapt to changing cultural standards where men can no longer behave however they want towards women, that is a "war on men".
https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2017/10/22/meet-press-guest-says-calling-out-sexual-harassment-part-war-men/218292




It's weird.

I'm not from the US and the US has this weird obsession with "freedom" (whatever that word may mean).
It seems to me that "freedom" as understood in the US mainly concerns protecting the needs of the individual from the needs of the community.

But on the other hand, US culture lacks a philosophical component that emphasizes the need to put the needs of the community above the needs of the individual. (Such as mandatory health-insurance for all... Or workers-rights for all...)

In the US, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.

A few years ago I mentioned the "social contract" on DU: That you implicitly waive some of your natural rights merely by agreeing to live in a society with other people. I was rebuffed by one guy who wrote that he had not signed such a contract...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

[Thomas Hurt]

1. It seems, very often, that when a conservative talks of freedom....

it often means the freedom take it from someone else.

exploit, con, use, bully, persecute, fleece, oppress, discriminate against, etc.

[defacto7]

2. No, it enhances them.

By protecting our collective rights as an individual within a society, our freedoms and our democracy are more secure. The alternative: unchecked individual rights set above society which results in anarchy, the degrading of democracy and the rise of totalitarianism.

[ProudLib72]

12. True, but the list of examples in the OP

seem to me like individual rights (or a minority community rights) masquerading as collective rights. This is something we have seen these last nine months. The larger community rejects these "rights" as absurd, but the far right now has the power and authority to implement them. There is a clear danger of manipulating the phrasing of these "rights" to suit the minority (or the individual). I feel like this is what the OP is discussing. For instance, if you are intolerant of my intolerant speech, then you are violating my first amendment rights. We should ask why this was not a problem two years ago. Where were all the white nationalist demonstrators then? What has changed, in my mind, is the subtle twisting of the narrative to lend these individuals at least the semblance of "collective" rights the same as everyone else. In other words, the way in which these rights are presently phrased allows for white nationalists to push their way into the mainstream community.

[defacto7]

19. Masquerading is the operative word....

They have an interperatation that doesn't fit reality or democracy. The wording itself has mostly been navigable up until false information, technology and ideologies became political weapons and the "ends justify the means" became the philosophy of the unreasonable. The farther we have to go to fill in the gaps and loopholes the less interpretation may be necessary but who decides what the filler is determines the future of freedom and we can assure ourselves that the RW have figured this out and want to make sure the interpretations fit their costume narative.

[TexasProgresive]

3. Freedom versus license

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In moral and legal philosophy, there exists a distinction between the concepts of freedom and license. The former deals with the rights of the individual; the latter covers the expressed permission (or lack thereof) for more than one individual to engage in an activity.

As a result, freedoms usually include rights which are usually recognized (often, not always, in an unconditional manner) by the government (and access to which is theoretically enforced against any and all interferences). Licenses, on the other hand, are distributed to individuals who make use of a specific item, expressing the permission to use the item or service under specified, conditional terms and boundaries of usage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_versus_license

[defacto7]

6. There seems to me to be a couple of loose ends

in the wiki. One is.. "licence.... for more than one individual to engage in..." opposed to an individual.
The other is the difference between licence and a licence eg. "He thinks he has licence to do what he wants." Opposed to, "He just applied for a licence". I think the concept of freedom would be closer to he first of those two so the exerpt from the wiki seems ambiguous to me.

[treestar]

4. I recall an idiot who said that

there was no such thing as "society." He was a lawyer, too, which profession deals entirely in the rules agreed to by society.

[Orrex]

8. In a world of few verifiable truths, here is an absolute certainty:

There is no Libertarian who is not an asshole. There is no exception. Not one.


Some will object that "I'm a left libertarian," to which I say "Then you should pick a new label with which to self-identify, because there is no Libertarian who is not an asshole. There is no exception. Not one."

[Downtown Hound]

13. No such thing as a left libertarian anyways

If support income taxes to pay for things like police, fire departments, roads, education, you're not a libertarian. If you support any kind of gun control, however modest, you're not a libertarian. If you support any kind of pollution regulations, you're not a libertarian.

It's that simple.

[Orrex]

15. You're preaching to the choir, believe me

But when I cite the irrefutable truth that "all Libertarians are assholes" here on DU, someone almost always jumps in to say "Then you never met me. I am a left-libertarian."

I believe that they're not assholes, truly I do, but I simply can't comprehend why they'd embrace the label that's been utterly co-opted by assholes.

[Downtown Hound]

17. Sometimes people think it's cool to be one of the "fringe" groups. n/t

[Orrex]

18. Yeah, that's my sense as well (nt)

[defacto7]

9. Argument of omission.

In this case if there's a word or concept that spoils your opinion, omit it. A common logical fallacy.

[Yupster]

5. You pretty much ask the philosophical question of government

How much rights should the individual give up for the collective good?

It splits the two parties dramatically.

When Republicans talk of rights, they mean the right of the individual to do what they want without government interference. The Bill of Rights is a list of rights the individual has that the government cannot take away. You'll hear a Republican say, no one has the right to my labor for instance. If I don't want to do a job for that guy, it's none of the government's business. No one can tell me I must buy a product I don't want, whether it be red socks or health insurance.

The Democratic view is more of rights that every person has like the right to food, safe housing, health insurance, education. Of course to provide those things it must take money from others. If you own a bakery, you must be forced to provide your labor to people you don't want to or you are discriminating against certain groups, often special category groups. The Republican view would be to repel from the very notion of special category groups. The Democratic view is the government must protect vulnerable groups from such discrimination.

It's quite the philosophical chest you open. It's not helped that the US was formed by states who were very suspicious of government and set up the Constitution specifically to hamstring the federal government with many checks and balances.

Good question though.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. To start-- freedom is never simple license. For every freedom, there is a responsibility...

Now, just what is "freedom"? There are basic human rights, as in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is itself a distillation of thousands of years of thought. Good discussion of human rights at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights

The truth is that every time we talk of "rights" we forget that these rights are negotiable. Demanding a right at the expense of another's never gets you anywhere-- you bargain for your rights, and if you can't agree then a judge decides.

Are there rights that can't be bargained away? Sure, and they're up there in that Declaration. No one ever seriously argues for slavery or thievery, but they sure do argue over dogs barking or gay marriages. It's when it gets personal when things get difficult.

For a number of reasons we don't have such a large sense of the common good in this country. It usually tends to take an emergency of some sort to get us focused.

And then there's non-human rights. What rights do bears have to wander through the woods? Tigers? Mosquitoes? Do rivers have a right to run free of pollution?

[defacto7]

11. That pretty much covers it.

Then society needs to settle the issues based on reality and/or build tolerance, both of which seem obscure right now. Everything always seems to boil down to education based of facts and reason. sigh...

[JHB]

10. Looking at it from a different angle may be useful here...

I’ve noticed that the people who are the fastest and loudest (or deepest-pocketed) to decry “government tyranny” are usually objecting to something that puts limits on their own ability to be a tyrant themselves.

Oh, they might magnanimously not act like it 24/7, but they’re adamant they have every right to be one.

[Downtown Hound]

14. If you view harming others and the environment as rights and freedoms

that we should all have, then yes, your rights are being restricted. Boo hoo.

If however, you are not a selfish asshole and recognize that you share the planet with other people and beings, and that they have rights that you are not allowed to take away then, no, you're not being oppressed. So grow up and stop whining is what I always say to people who complain about such things.

[WinkyDink]

16. Our laws are generally to protect the few, the Minority, from the TYRANNY of the

Majority.

I don't see how that can be negatively construed as a guiding principle.

The DISTORTION comes when law-makers act to allow the religious beliefs of EITHER group to supersede secular law.

[DetlefK]

20. That's not true. Example:

It's illegal to kill somebody. This law has the purpose to protect the majority (non-murderers) from the minority (murderers).