NationStates Jolt Archive

Can taking away anyone's Liberty, for any reason or under any context, be justified?

If so, how?

Who has a 'right,' by any means or reason, to take away another person's right to live as they please?

How can someone establish, as their 'right,' the definition of the Liberty that everyone has? Is doing this not contrary to the meaning of Liberty in the simplest way?

How can someone - by their own ideal standards - decide, enforced by threat of punishment, how someone must live their life?

No.

Can taking away anyone's Liberty, for any reason or under any context, be justified?

If so, how?

Who has a 'right,' by any means or reason, to take away another person's right to live as they please?

How can someone establish, as their 'right,' the definition of the Liberty that everyone has? Is doing this not contrary to the meaning of Liberty in the simplest way?

How can someone - by their own ideal standards - decide, enforced by threat of punishment, how someone must live their life?

When you break the law, society dictates that your liberty is taken away.

When you break the law, society dictates that your liberty is taken away.

You're missing the point.

They were questions about the law, not the consequences of it.

You're missing the point.

They were questions about the law, not the consequences of it.

and I said... "Society Dictates"...

Society creates the laws by which it's members will live by.

If the society you're living in now dictates that Jaywalking is now punishable by $100 fine. you can choose to loose the liberty of walking across the street where you want to, or move to a society that will allow you to keep that particular Liberty.

and I said... "Society Dictates"...

Society creates the laws by which it's members will live by.

So you are saying it is OK to limit Liberty based on ideal? That it is OK to decide for someone else how they must live, rather than living by the principle that all should have a freedom to do as they please, as long as their actions do not interfere with another's right to do the same?

Laws are created not to hinder one's liberty, but protect others'. For instance, I am not free to murder people. I do not have that liberty. However, everyone else is free to live their life un-murdered. They have that liberty.

Can taking away anyone's Liberty, for any reason or under any context, be justified?

If so, how?

Who has a 'right,' by any means or reason, to take away another person's right to live as they please?

How can someone establish, as their 'right,' the definition of the Liberty that everyone has? Is doing this not contrary to the meaning of Liberty in the simplest way?

How can someone - by their own ideal standards - decide, enforced by threat of punishment, how someone must live their life?

ONE someone can't. That would be kidnapping. SOCIETY can, that is called law.

The point at which it is proper for society to restrict an individual's liberty is the point at which that individual is harming someone else. Society decides what the definition of harm is, and what the level of restriction should be.

If we are to live together, such rules and definitions AS CREATED BY THE SOCIETY AS A WHOLE are required. By the very nature of rules themselves, they will certainly restrict some people's "right to live as they please" because there will be those whose chosen lifestyles would be harmful to others. If the individuals thus restricted cannot stand these rules, they should choose not to live in that society.

When one chooses to become a member of a particular community, one agrees to live by the rules of that group. One can make such a choice deliberately (by moving to a particular country, for instance) or by default (by choosing not to leave the country of one's birth) but in either case, if one lives within a particular society, one lives by its rules and accepts the restrictions thus placed on ones liberty, or else one works to change those laws to laws which are more acceptable.

Of course it's not only necessary but proper fro society to restrict freedoms in exchange for security. We do that all the time.

You do not have the freedom to walk across the street at any time you wish. You do not have the freedom to have sex with whomever you want. You do not have the freedom to place hazardous waste in playgrounds. You do not have the freedom to drive on the left side of the road.

You do not have the freedom to do a whole shit load of things. Society exists for the sole purpose of giving security at the exchange of liberty. To say that government should not take away liberty would effectivly create anarchy.

Governments take away liberty and give us security, that's what it does. How much liberty it should take away is however another question.

Who has a 'right,' by any means or reason, to take away another person's right to live as they please?If no one has the right to take away another person's right to live as they please; then people can please to take away people's right to live as they want.
i.e this conception of freedom is self-defeating.
One person's rights will have to stop where another person's rights begin; so people can't all just do whatever the hell they please. A typical solution is an implicit or explicit 'social contract' to assure the extent of people's freedoms, and anyone that breaks this 'contract' gets punished (e.g. send to prison, which is robbing him/her of a great many freedoms)

*snip*

I don't really agree - I have the freedom to do all these things if I want.

The consequences of exercising those freedoms may result in a loss of liberty for me but laws can only ever be retroactive in curtailing freedom.

It's something I have trouble with because, for me, the only problem becomes getting caught, which does result in ordered society but doesn't really resolve the initial problem.

I, to some extent, sometimes wonder whether no laws at all would eventually result in a more humane society though I'm not sure how I'm working that out exactly.

Some might say that no laws would result in chaos but I'm not sure that's true in the long run. Societal retribution would still have effect and we'd learn the real immediate consequence of actions rather than having the curtain of a law to hide behind where what's happening around me becomes 'not my problem'.

I don't really agree - I have the freedom to do all these things if I want.

The consequences of exercising those freedoms may result in a loss of liberty for me but laws can only ever be retroactive in curtailing freedom.

Well this lies in a problem with the definition of "liberty". Truly Payne was not saying "give me the ability to move my body in a way that I choose" definition of liberty. He meant "give me the ability to act in my own way without fear of punishment" definition of liberty.

Sure, we all have freedom, complete and total freedom. But by your definition, even in the most totalitarian and repressive regime, we all have absolute freedom, we can all do what we want. Even in a society where I am shot in the face if seen dropping a piece of paper on the floor, I am still free, by which I mean able, to drop the piece of paper on the floor.

The fact that I will then get shot in the face does not stop my ability to physicially do such. So I think the definition of freedom as you use it doesn't really have much use in this discussion. A person on the streets of china would have the same freedom as a person on the streets of america, which renders the notion of "freedom" rather useless for this discussion

Well this lies in a problem with the definition of "liberty". Truly Payne was not saying "give me the ability to move my body in a way that I choose" definition of liberty. He meant "give me the ability to act in my own way without fear of punishment" definition of liberty.

Sure, we all have freedom, complete and total freedom. But by your definition, even in the most totalitarian and repressive regime, we all have absolute freedom, we can all do what we want. Even in a society where I am shot in the face if seen dropping a piece of paper on the floor, I am still free, by which I mean able, to drop the piece of paper on the floor.

The fact that I will then get shot in the face does not stop my ability to physicially do such. So I think the definition of freedom as you use it doesn't really have much use in this discussion. A person on the streets of china would have the same freedom as a person on the streets of america, which renders the notion of "freedom" rather useless for this discussion

Quite true, don't mind me :)

Can taking away anyone's Liberty, for any reason or under any context, be justified?

If so, how?

Easily: putting a criminal who can't stop killing behind bars.

OP: " Can taking away anyone's Liberty, for any reason or under any context, be justified? "

Yes, of course. By 'any reason' or 'any context' .. I take that to mean covering everything.

I'm a staunch supporter of liberty.. but that doesn't mean anyone gets do to whatever they want, no matter what .. no matter how.

Can taking away anyone's Liberty, for any reason or under any context, be justified?Yes, under certain contexts.

If so, how?

Who has a 'right,' by any means or reason, to take away another person's right to live as they please?Rights are subjective, and created via social contracts. Therefore, the social contract has this right.

How can someone establish, as their 'right,' the definition of the Liberty that everyone has? Is doing this not contrary to the meaning of Liberty in the simplest way?When people agree to social contracts, they agree to the definition of liberty that they have, as well as everyone else within that contract.

How can someone - by their own ideal standards - decide, enforced by threat of punishment, how someone must live their life?By helping to create a social contract that does so.

You do not have the freedom to drive on the left side of the road.

I have that freedom... So long as I have my learner plates up and a person with a full liscence is with me...

killing and dieing to line someone else's pockets isn't giving anyone "liberty" in any rational sense of the word.

the probability of doing so for any other reason isn't all that great either.

if i was in some big hurry to get myself dead, a lot of other people not having to worry about survival or the quality of their lives, would be a cause worth dieing for.

i'm just not convenced killing and dieing is a very likely way to achieve this. largely because people have been killing and dieing, supposedly of it, for millinium on end, and i ain't seen it happen yet.

i would, certainly though, prefer to live in a world not dominated by the tyranny of the dominance of the aggressiveness of gratuitous pseudo-conventionality.

=^^=
.../\...

Yes it can. If an individual violates the social contract sufficiently grievously (crime!) then there is no problem with taking away their liberty.

Yes. The Liberty referred to by the OP is a subjective construct every inch as grounded in western culture as the law from which he seeks to dissassociate it.

Under a democratic state, when you break the law you break the social contract. When you break the contract, your liberties are changed.