Poll: Equality vs Freedom

[JMeganSnow]

You don't hear that sort of talk in Liberia.

Isn't it funny how the safest and securest places are the ones with the closest adherence to the principles of liberty? And it's the places where individual rights are ignored in favor of the tribe, the warlord, the Fatherland, Society, whatever, where they actually have no security and no ability to plan for the future?

Funny how that works, isn't it?

 

[InfiniteSingularity]

They are not at all mutually exclusive. In fact I say one can not properly exist with out the other.

Not really; you can make certain people as free as one another and not others - inequality and equality existing within an environment of freedom.

I'd say equality, because its actually beneficial. I often get the feeling people just have this 'freedom = good' mentality, without thinking any further. Freedom for the sake of freedom achieves nothing. Equality on the other hand has a direct impact on how people can live their lives.

And if we are all equally enslaved? Equally tortured? Equally without rights?

I'd take my own freedom over equality for that very reason - equality isn't inherently good.

Who is enslaving you? Who is depriving you of your rights?

If it is true equality, these people have no power over you to enslave you or deprive you of your rights. Because they are equal to you. If they are enslaving you, it's not equality

You can be equal in right and still enslaved by a stronger force.

Freedom, however, by definition means being free.

But this stronger force is equal to you, by definition of equality - if they are equal to you, they have no power over you.

Consider the alternative - Freedom, no equality. You start off with everyone being free, however, some people are worth more than others, or above others in the social hierarchy. These people above have freedom to exploit those below, and those below have to comply because, well, they're below. That's how hierarchies work. So those below have less freedom - thus, you just lost the freedom you were fighting for

 

[maninahat]

You don't hear that sort of talk in Liberia.

Isn't it funny how the safest and securest places are the ones with the closest adherence to the principles of liberty? And it's the places where individual rights are ignored in favor of the tribe, the warlord, the Fatherland, Society, whatever, where they actually have no security and no ability to plan for the future?

Funny how that works, isn't it?

Are you supporting or refuting my argument?

 

[jackpipsam]

I myself have freedom, I just want Equality

 

[Atmos Duality]

Absolute freedom cannot allow for equality unless everyone is the same to begin with.

So what do you prefer: Security, or Empowerment?

 

[JMeganSnow]

And in (almost*) ANY circumstance, ending someone's life is wrong, because it their life.

(*I don't believe in absolutes, but I am yet to find a situation where someone deserves to die. I am not one to rule it out though)

When the only way to stop someone from doing immediate and grave harm to an individual or individuals is to use lethal force.

I have always considered that this is more about what those who have NOT initiated violence against others deserve, not what the criminal may or may not deserve. When someone has shown themselves to be so immoral that they would attack and kill another person, do the innocent deserve to live in a world free of their viciousness?

Yes.

Granted I'm not in favor of the death sentence for first offenses. Jurisprudence is extremely important. But certain terms of confinement and certain security measures are inhumane. When it comes the time when you start to need extraordinary measures to sequester a dangerous individual from the rest of the world, it's time to pull the plug.

 

[agnosticOCD]

Freedom. With equality, there comes the need to expect more out of people who lack an ability, and pull down those with more potential than others. Equal opportunity is freedom, but will not necessarily lead to equality. What we should aim for is a fair society, it doesn't necessarily have to be equal to be fair, and one way of achieving that is giving people every opportunity to use their capabilities to their advantage, to what they see is fit without causing harm or any detriment to another individual or group.

To quote Murray N. Rothbard:

"At the root of all forms of communism, compulsory or voluntary, lies a profound hatred of individual excellence, a denial of the natural or intellectual superiority of some men over others, and a desire to tear down every individual to the level of a communal ant-heap. In the name of a phony "humanism," an irrational and profoundly anti-human egalitarianism is to rob every individual of his specific and precious humanity."

Socialism is anti-social and although I have my own problems with the democratic system, that's at least better than forcing people to be equal instead of giving everyone a chance to do their thing.

I think there's a reason why two of the best things to choose for your country in Civ5 is Freedom and Rationalism.

 

[JMeganSnow]

You don't hear that sort of talk in Liberia.

Isn't it funny how the safest and securest places are the ones with the closest adherence to the principles of liberty? And it's the places where individual rights are ignored in favor of the tribe, the warlord, the Fatherland, Society, whatever, where they actually have no security and no ability to plan for the future?

Funny how that works, isn't it?

Are you supporting or refuting my argument?

Your argument refutes itself. I'm just pointing this out. People in free nations generally prefer freedom because they know it is, in fact, the only way to ever attain any kind of security. People still living in or surrounded by primordial savagery generally haven't had the time or energy to discover this, yet.

You might as well point out that children who don't know any better will often express a preference for impossible contradictions.

 

[KushinLos]

I could mention my political affiliation here, but instead I shall tell you my answer and a brief reason. I choose 'freedom' (used commonly as a synonym for liberty). My reason is that while freedom is no guarantee on equality, the easiest way to ensure that everyone is equal is to find the individual who is worse off and reduce everyone to his/her level.

 

[JMeganSnow]

.

I'm not talking about criminals. I'm talking about someone running at you with a weapon.

Which would be assault with a deadly weapon. Which is a crime.

Would you say then that a person who is attacked but does NOT, for whatever reason, slay their attacker should be relegated to spending the rest of their life living in fear because they have no right to do anything except at that very moment of violent action? No? That is ultimately the purpose of law--to remove such violent persons so that the non-violent may go about their lives in peace.

Prison suffices for some. The confined, structured life keeps them in check. For others, this may not be enough, so other measures are introduced. Solitary confinement (which is extremely inhumane). Permanent sedation? I'd call that inhumane. Lobotomy? Unspeakable. If a person is so violent that they are a danger to other prisoners, then the proper means of securing our freedom from them is to remove them from existence.

 

[Kilyle]

I'd love to chime in on the affirmative action argument (position: against), but that's a whole 'nother thread, so I'll hold my tongue.

As always, this type of issue gets muddied down by "definition of terms" (look at the way different people are defining "equality" on this thread) and "extremes."

Rather than choose one extreme or the other, I'd say we're voting on which way to err. And I say Freedom all the way.

Any sort of enforced equality (by government or other means) has always gone poorly. It's still going poorly in America.

As far as equal rights, didn't that get set up with, I dunno, the founding documents of our entire nation? Off the top of my head:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (meaning: people, human beings) are created equal, and are endowed by their creator (as opposed to "granted by the State") with certain inalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." (I hear one of the Founding Fathers wanted to put "property" in there, but it got relegated to the Fourth Amendment instead.)

Any right to be handed things you haven't earned? No. A right to be protected from the ups and downs of life? No. A right to have the same swag as your neighbor? No.

Freedom necessarily leads to inequality, based on effort. And that's a good thing, one that society should encourage.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

Freedom and Equality can both be gained through a tolerant society, with a pragmatic ideologies. To have rules and laws based around what is is good for the majority, initialises what is required for equality without infringing on the freedom of others.

Freedom is a right in a tolerant society, which should only be infringed upon if the freedom of another is being disrupted through intolerant behaviour (assault, murder, rape, etc).

However to have a society based solely on peoples ideas of freedom would stunt productivity. For example if you where completely free to do what you want to do, would you do what you are doing now? Furthermore freedom would no longer exist in such society for freedom requires choice (and therefore rules to make this choice with).

Tolerance goes hand in hand with equality as decisions would be made with the idea of fairness rather than segregation and censorship. In principle we all have the same rights, we all have the right to be rich and the right to be poor (no matter what our background is), this makes us all equal.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

Socialism is anti-social and although I have my own problems with the democratic system, that's at least better than forcing people to be equal instead of giving everyone a chance to do their thing.

I think there's a reason why two of the best things to choose for your country in Civ5 is Freedom and Rationalism.

Socialism works in theory and theory alone. Simply because few socialists really agree with how socialism should work and more often than not ends up being some sort of dictatorship.

I believe that a Socialist-Democracy would work with tolerant (and thus equal and free) society. This in turn would only work with an economical system that supports this structure, and there lies the problem.

 

[postblitz]

equality, because it is the governing principle of life and all things - reciprocity. freedom within the constraint of reciprocity is as much as should be given to any individual

 

[JMeganSnow]

-

You don't seem to be understanding my point.

The original post I quoted said they couldn't think of a situation wherein ending a life is justifiable. I asserted that using lethal force to stop someone from causing you grave and immediate harm is justifiable - to myself and in to the law.

I'm not sure why you are bring criminals into this and talking of capital punishment. My comment was aimed to disprove someone and has nothing to do with any of the aforementioned.

Yes, because the rationale for why killing someone in self-defense is "justifiable" totally exists in a vacuum that is completely unrelated to anything else in the entire universe.

/sarcasm

If you don't know how self-defense and capital punishment relate, how exactly do you justify self-defense? How do you fit it into a larger framework that takes into account not just this second but last year and next year and ten years from now?

I'm sorry if my elaboration confused you. Perhaps we can have an actual discussion someday when you're able to hold more than one thought in your head at the same time.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Freedom of course. Equality can never be reached, but if we lose freedom we, as individuals, never have a chance of trying to overcome the obstacles laid before us.

 

[SpecklePattern]

Versus threads are always hard, even without being this abstract.

Freedom without equality is freedom for some tyranny for the rest.

Yeah, this is what I mean. It really depends how fundamentalist one wants to be in this matter, because I can think this directly opposite and it is no less true; equality without freedom is a tyranny for everybody... Pure freedom can be considered as anarchy and so on...

If two things even slightly depend on each other, it is really hard pick better, like in this case where both things are ethically "good" and very abstract. There is no way to "pick better" here, but don't get me wrong, I like this philosophy here

Freedom is better, because with that human usually starts to think and invent. However this freedom usually leeds to people killing each other (unfortunately even nowadays). Equality is the basis for well developed societys when every man has equal rights and equal responsibilities (laws) to act upon. However the equality in certain parts of society just will not work, i.e. pure communism as such is unthinkable when one wants to make a society. Even in communism some people are more equal than others .

Equal rights and responsibilities are good thing about equality, but without freedom one can not be human in my mind. If human kind would have never had freedom to think and to act, we would still throw stick and stones to each others.

 

[Mechanical Cat Fish]

I chose other 'cause I though Justice would be most important, and that kind of implies both equality and freedom so... I think I might've broken your poll...

Sorry.

 

[Kakujin]

Even though I think those two go hand in hand and one cannot be achieved without the other, if I had to pick one, I would choose equality.

This since if all people are viewed as equal, the will be no boundaries to what can be attempted. This is what I define as freedom, the option to attempt whatever you choose.

And if all other factors are viewed as null, what will get someone ahead is their merits and what they can actually do, which is something I would view as a gigantic step in the right direction.

 

[SkellgrimOrDave]

Equality by what standards? Communism doesn't work with state infringements not because it's communism, but because it enforces equality in every sense. There is no benefit to trying, because all must be equal, no matter the effort put in or the righteousness of cause.

My ideal is that freedom should be the idea, and fairness and equality (mostly) come with it. In a truly free world, we are only bound or held down by our own ability, and nobody or nothing else. The man who can build a plane within a day using wood and cowhide can, someone who is too stupid to do so cannot.

Inequality is entirely natural, but fair inequality is different from unfair inequality. Some people can't lift as heavy weights as others, and this is inequality, but it is inequality by virtue of effort, the man who has trained for ages to become stronger is now inequal to one who hasn't. But this is natural and right inequality, because someone has put in more effort than another. Mandated inequality would put him right back down to the other level, ergo no point in trying.