Freedom vs. Liberty: How Subtle Differences Between These Two Big Ideas Changed Our World

Ammo.com ^ | 10/7/2020 | Brian Miller

[ammodotcom]

The terms "freedom" and "liberty" have become clichés in modern political parlance. Because these words are invoked so much by politicians and their ilk, their meanings are almost synonymous and used interchangeably. That's confusing – and can be dangerous – because their definitions are actually quite different.

"Freedom" is predominantly an internal construct. Viktor Frankl, the legendary Holocaust survivor who wrote Man's Search For Meaning, said it well: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way (in how he approaches his circumstances).”

In other words, to be free is to take ownership of what goes on between your ears, to be autonomous in thoughts first and actions second. Your freedom to act a certain way can be taken away from you – but your attitude about your circumstances cannot – making one's freedom predominantly an internal construct.

[nathanbedford]

Joe Biden travels to Gettysburg to deliver his seminal speech exhorting Americans to "come together." Applying this to the article in question, one sees that in "coming together" he means creating the "general will" postulated by Rousseau.

Once fixed, the general will has plenary, unchecked power and inevitably becomes autocratic and the enemy of individual freedom.

Of course, the general will, in concept a mass of humanity, is in reality under the Biden/leftist construct the false front of a governing elite-an elite which has formed and seized power under every Rousseau/Marx style of ruling that is ever existed.

But the sales job in getting to this utopian vision is particularly powerful and as dangerous as it is seductive. Joe Biden defiling holy ground at Gettysburg exhorted us to come together to cure the cleft in our body politic that has been almost exclusively created by his leftists. The cry to come together is the rankist sophistry. Once we do "come together" under a progressive regime, our life will be one of universal submission or at first passive and then active resistance.

[caww]

Good post! Thanks...

[Badboo]

Excellent article. Must read for everyone. Send it to your children.

[sport]

The mood of the population has changed. It has changed from desiring maximum and independence from the Government to demanding that the Government control every aspect of their lives. Mandatory mask wearing laws, free medicare for all, green energy programs what ever the hell that is, the elimination or racism whatever that is, elimination of White privilege whatever that is. The self imposition of Socialism. I know what that is. And the young and old will vote Socialism on themselves within the next three, at the most Presidential cycles. Then they will open wide the flood gates for the muslims and every other unsavory group to come in. After about 6 months at the most the muslims should be chopping off heads and raping with gusto.

[Alberta's Child]

You’re not wrong, but if you think this is a recent phenomenon you’re delusional. Americans have been ceding control of their lives to the government for multiple generations now.

Look at education, for example, in the context of our founding documents. The men who founded this country would have considered the whole idea of “public education” to be utterly repulsive.

[impactplayer]

Freedom comes from government - liberty from God. When the slaves were “freed” it was an act of government and this word took the place of liberty in common usage. Now government decides what we are free to do or not to do - liberty is left to the individual to work out. This change in terminology - change in focus - is at the root of many of today’s problems.

[rlmorel]

Yes...good post. Hope all is well with you.

I had honestly never thought much about the difference between “Freedom” and “Liberty”, but given that words do have meaning, it would be wasteful to have two that mean exactly the same thing.

While it is not uncommon for two words to mean the same thing, to have two words in such an important, narrow and important confine does seem odd. Funny that it never occurred to me before.

What I take from this observation is that nobody can take freedom from you, you can only take it from yourself.

But...you can, and if you are not vigilant, will have your liberty taken from you.

Interesting. Went my whole life pondering these things and this never entered my mind.

[nathanbedford]

I'm getting older but I'm still getting over, I mean getting by.

Thanks for asking.

[nathanbedford]

Whether we put the label "freedom" or "liberty" on the subject we can clearly perceive the loss of these essential gifts of God all about us in our political world today.

Of course there are the restrictions arbitrarily imposed by statewide executive fait and justified by Corona 19. Equally threatening in my judgment are the restrictions coming from our digital masters on our sovereign power of speech.

We see the Rousseau concepts serving up justification to Google or Twitter for their denial of free speech. By the time these rationalizations are finished the believers are convinced that they are actually preventing harm to humanity even as they choke off the very speech that is the only thing that can save us. Once one identifies himself as the implementer of the "general will" any other opinion is, of course, a threat to humanity. Love of humanity, even Decency, require it be "canceled"-or in the digital world simply banished into the ether.

[rlmorel]

Aren’t we all...aren’t we all, FRiend...:)

[rlmorel]

Interesting that you would say it that way in your last paragraph of that post. I think we see along the same lines. I just wrote this in another thread on the concept of Coronavirus "Herd Immunity":

---

The resistance of many to embracing the concept of “herd immunity” is not surprising. It isn’t just the conflict between a non-battlefield medical point of view that means everyone must be saved all the time everywhere and an executive view that choices must be made (more of a battlefield triage) and that the choice between destroying an economy and/or industry and creating misery on a large scale due to poverty and hunger outweighs the number of lives that might be saved by draconian measures.

I have been writing lately of the unpleasant tendency in our society (fostered almost entirely by the Left) to REQUIRE all people be “safe” all the time, in everything.

• What you eat.
  • You can’t eat things that are bad from you. Outlaw sugary drinks. Tax alcohol and tobacco. Mandate nutrition information.
  
  
  
• What you see.
  • You can’t see a statue. You can’t see a flag. You can’t watch a video someone else doesn’t agree with. You can’t view a sign that offends someone.
  
  
  
• What you hear.
  • Hearing hateful or stupid people is discouraged and outlawed. De-platform those whose opinions are thought to be bad. Shut down campus discourse at a lecture. People cannot have their feelings hurt, no matter if what hurts them is the truth.
  
  
  
• What you do.
  • Don’t drive without a seatbelt. Wear a helmet. Ban monkey bars. Make safety regulations so onerous that products become so expensive people won’t buy or use them.

It is all interrelated.

But most of all, it becomes a Manichean choice between accepting that WE as humans control EVERYTHING that happens to us, and accepting that Nature (God) has a hand it it.

This is a most difficult conflict for Leftists who believe Man is God, and that everything can be controlled by our hand.

[Joe 6-pack]

The author deals with the concepts of negative and positive liberties, which are difficult concepts to explain to those who don't want to deal with anything but quick and easy concepts. The second they hear the words, "Positive," or, "Negative," they automatically associate them with "good," or, "bad."

I've found it sometimes useful in illustrating the point with the concept of positive and negative space in art and sculpture.

Simply put, the "negative," space is everything that is not filled by the positive. When it comes to liberties, positive are restrictions, barriers, boundaries or channels that shape the negative. More "negative" means fewer restrictions.

[nathanbedford]

This is a most difficult conflict for Leftists who believe Man is God, and that everything can be controlled by our hand.

The revolution Rousseau inspired was murderously anticlerical as was the Spanish revolution of the 1930s, the Bolshevik revolution, Castro's revolution, and Pol Pot's.

Why so? The answer can be found in a cursory reading (although it deserves lifetime study) of the book of Genesis which tells us that the nature of man is eternally at war with God because man would be God.

Conservatism in its most basic and elemental state does not share leftist belief in the perfectibility of man, rather, Christian conservatives believe that man is not in need of collective guidance in his habits because he will somehow be transformed if he stops drinking sugar drinks, rather, because he is essentially a flawed sinner he is in need of salvation or redemption rather than education. Education is all well and good but the needs of moral man, the needs of the soul which ultimately rule politics, is spiritual and humbling.

Incidentally, the Judeo-Christian belief system, especially the Christian side of it, holds that man is saved retail on an individual basis. It is significant that there is no mass salvation, there is no "general will" to repent that only comes, often painfully, to the individual in an interaction between man and God.

It was a gift of God that our forefathers held the Judeo-Christian view of the fallen state of man and were soberly aware of his imperfectibility. Hence they framed a government to deal with man's imperfectibility both when he attempts to rule as a mob or when he attempts to rule as an elite.

[sport]

I am under no illusions. We were once an island of hope in a sea of confusion and despair. People the World over came to our shores seeking to be a part of that hope and enjoy the freedom that abounded here. We were richly blessed by God. Then as he did in the Garden of Eden, Satan reared his ugly head. First he created a political Party he named the Democrats. Then working through the members of the Democrat Party, next, working through his discipled, the members of the Democrat Party , using his tools of lies, deceit, treachery, and when necessary murder he set about destroying and undoing every good thing God had done. Over the years, he has turned Man's heart and mind from the worship of God to the worship of himself.

[ammodotcom]

As well put as something could be put. I hope you already publish your writing.

[ammodotcom]

Thank you kindly!