Comment by shaftoe
6 years ago
The idea that restrictions in human liberty are subject to when "a national community agrees on something" is laughable at best and evil at worst.
6 years ago
The idea that restrictions in human liberty are subject to when "a national community agrees on something" is laughable at best and evil at worst.
> laughable at best and evil at worst.
Forgive me for not just taking your word for it. Citation needed.
Even your freedom of speech is subject to certain restrictions in the US – you can't make violent verbal threats to people, to name one example.
The problem with Law is that laymen opinions seem to matter even less than in other domains.
I think it had to do with how other domains often have new words for things specific to it, but law, in addition to that, frequently redefines existing words and phrases to mean extremely specific things in particular legal contexts. These redefinitions often are not intuitive to the everyday user of the word or phrase. IMO, this is a big reason why lay opinions seem to matter less. That is, they are often commenting on a message that differs from the actual content of the legal text to such a degree as to be "not even wrong", as it were.
Does that also pertain to drug regulations? Because the US certainly restricts a whole hell of a lot of people based on that.
But what is human liberty?
The problem here (as I see it) is that the definition of liberty is very subjective, and yet people make arguments like yours based on the premise that their personal definition of liberty is an objective truth.
But who draws the "human liberty" line? Where and how does "human liberty" and "individual liberty" intersect? Is the Non Aggression Principle the doctrine on this? Or something more progressive that helps ensure minority rights? Some other option entirely?
Liberty and humanism are topics built on millennia of context and nuance. Blanket statements like yours, while passionate, risk being so reductionist that they distract from the important substance of the conversation.
It's for the same reasons that amending constitutions require more buy-in than just changing laws.
You can establish things that you think are "very important" in a society, and make it much harder to change than other things.
Of course, if everyone thinks you're the king of France, you're the king of France. But establishing rules to counterbalance the state's monopoly on violence and making those be pretty strong protections within the framework of laws helps establish the norms!
Everything has an asterisk in these kinds of conversation. I think most people can understand the relative difference in values between "people should have a right to assemble and speak their mind" and "people should be able to park on the left side of this street on weekends"
The idea of someone drawing lines is positivist bullshit. The Declaration of Independence was grounded on the bedrock of Natural law, and the bedrock of the Constitution was the common law. The context for both was American but the principles therein are Universal.
Liberty is the natural order, but liberties can be tempered by morals and laws. If they existed not in nature, but as a set of approved rights granted to you by secular authorities, then your liberty is not your liberty, but your license.
Well, slavery was abolished after the civil war some hundred years after the constitution. So much for human liberty.
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I don't think liberty is the natural order, but something we have to fight to keep, each generation has to carry that fight. Once it is gone it will be a lot harder to regain.
Another thing is that liberty is very difficult to define, and anything from a libertarian paradise to a socialist one (as in Scandinavia) can be the most liberty for different people.
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