Thread: Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

How is that thought to work? How can everyone have more freedom than complete freedom (assuming you don't infringe on other people's freedoms), as is being advocated here?

The attempts to equalize seem to work pretty well in the short-term, but they end up lowering everybody's well-being in the long run, and I'm not sure where the connection to more freedom fits in.

Who are you kidding? You don't have complete freedom in a capitalist society. There may or may not be any better system that gives us more freedom, but to say that anyone in any capitalist machine has complete freedom is a joke.

EDIT: In the spirit of your last edit, it occurs to me I'm coming off really pretty hostile itt, when you are being nothing but good-spirited. My bad.

Originally Posted by gwahir

Who are you kidding? You don't have complete freedom in a capitalist society. There may or may not be any better system that gives us more freedom, but to say that anyone in any capitalist machine has complete freedom is a joke.

EDIT: In the spirit of your last edit, it occurs to me I'm coming off really pretty hostile itt, when you are being nothing but good-spirited. My bad.

What do you mean by not having complete freedom in a capitalist society? What would be some examples of liberty that nobody would have? Or perhaps you mean only certain people are deprived of certain liberties, in which case who are they and what freedoms would they potentially be deprived of?

Originally Posted by Dr. Baltar

In order to answer you need to define complete freedom.
Does America have complete freedom at the moment with the Patriot Act?
Is complete freedom something taken directly from Mad Max?

No, America does not have complete freedom at the moment with or without the patriot act (we'd certainly be freer without it). There are so many regulations right now, all of which (or at least most of which) are intended to do good, that impede freedoms. Even worse is that they often hurt more people than they help, and they are unseen victims. It's harder for news reporters to interview someone who decided not to start a business because they didn't have the resources to comply with some of the unnecessary regulations designed to protect consumers. So the point is that America certainly does not have complete freedom anywhere near where it used to, and with current ideologies I don't expect it to return anytime soon, especially since both democrats and republicans keep expanding the scope of government consistently regardless of any promises made.

As far as Mad Max, I haven't seen the movie so I can't comment. My original post summed up what government would do in a society with complete freedom pretty well: "... see [government] for its true intended purpose of protecting our liberties, confined to certain minimal functions that revolve around keeping the peace, maximizing everyone's opportunities and otherwise leaving us alone."

Basically people should be free to do what they want as long as they aren't harming others or stealing from them. So someone should be able to put whatever they want into their body, and do whatever else they'd like with it. When government tries to protect people from themselves (as in, protecting people from inflicting self-harm) then it's already too big and is outside of its original intended scope.