Ron Paul

Brain of J Ament

"Simply put, freedom is the absence of government coercion." -Ron Paul

I.. Love Ron Paul

discuss

OutOfBreath

Defining freedom as absense of government is a very poor and narrow definition in my view. You dont value freedom much if you shorten it up like that.

I would define freedom as the ability to do more or less what you want, live life like you want to, while having enough security involved that you can be allowed to fail and recover a couple of times. Freedom is not the anarchic "I can do what I damn well please, and noone should ever counter me", but rather to be free enough to make all major decisions after one's own will, and having enough security materially to be free from indirect economic coercion. Ultimate freedom will never be possible since we have society and social structuring in all human societies, so no matter what, some people, or even all, will have limits on their freedom imposed by internalized norms, expectations, loved ones and so on. Government is just another restraint for the overalll functioning of society, and is no particular culprit in principle in limiting freedom.

I don't see government/taxation etc as any limitation of freedom by default or by definition. (Although in several cases it can be, of course) But I dont love Ron Paul much either. Conservative nostalgic hardasses rarely get my love, politically, even if they may be "straight-talking".

Peace
Dan

88keys

OutOfBreath wrote:

Defining freedom as absense of government is a very poor and narrow definition in my view. You dont value freedom much if you shorten it up like that.

I think you missunderstood the quote. Ron Paul did not define freedom as absence of government, he defined it as absence of govenrment COERCION. Big difference.

unsung

He is still getting my vote. I will be able to look at myself in the mirror each morning knowing I did not vote for the two clowns.

baraka

88keys wrote:

I think you missunderstood the quote. Ron Paul did not define freedom as absence of government, he defined it as absence of govenrment COERCION. Big difference.

But, even in a Libertarian society there is 'initiation of force' or gov't coercion. I mean, even libertarians believe this is necessary when it comes to defense of personal property.

OutOfBreath

88keys wrote:

I think you missunderstood the quote. Ron Paul did not define freedom as absence of government, he defined it as absence of govenrment COERCION. Big difference.

I may have gone a bit beyond that quote in my post. There is a difference between government and government coercion.

However, my criticism of the definition of freedom stands. As it stands it implies that coercion isn't necessarily a hindrance for freedom, only if it's the government doing the coercion. To have a more sound definition he could have said that freedom is the absense of coercion. I see no need for the "government" in there. This is debating the philosophical implications of freedom of course, while he was probably making a smart political remark.

But if we're going to define freedomn through absense of coercion, then it becomes very interesting to define coercion. Where does the line go between coercion and merely persuading for instance? Is coercion any external factor that infringes on your mind's idea what it wants to do? In that case freedom becomes a moot concept as it doesnt exist.

My point is that
1. Defining a philosophical free-ranging concept as freedom with reference to a current institution is a very narrow view of the concept, hence stripping it of much of it's intuitive, powerful meaning.
2. Government is just another external factor limiting your real choices. Family, friends, economic circumstances, upbringing, behaviour patterns, thought patterns and so on also limits your real choices.

Not that I like government coercion, but defining freedom by it belittles the concept. And, as outlined, what constitutes "coercion" can be pretty subjective and very hard to define in real terms.

Peace
Dan