[angaq0k]

Beyond all the philosophers, dogmas and doctrines and constitutions, what does "to be free" mean exactly to you and how does it translate in your daily lives? How do you make that state of being free?

Of course, if I post this in the political forum, it is with the perspective that we are sensitive to what happens to other people in their own country.

[voodoo]

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. - Frank Herbert

[Millennium]

Bad things happen to you sometimes. To be truly free, however, is when you get to decide what it all means for your life, when you decide your own destiny and are allowed to follow through with that decision.

All things, of course, are balanced. The only fair counterbalance to freedom is consequence, that is, while you and only you may decide what you will do, you and only you are responsible for the consequences of your actions, for good or for ill.

[TheWorldIsFlat]

For politicians it means for them to do what they want and to screw everyone

For special interest groups it means for them to do what they want and to screw everyone

For many individuals it means for them to do what they want and to screw everyone

For enlightened people freedom comes with greater responsibility to your fellow humans, animals and nature.

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by TheWorldIsFlat:
For politicians it means for them to do what they want and to screw everyone

For special interest groups it means for them to do what they want and to screw everyone

For many individuals it means for them to do what they want and to screw everyone

For enlightened people freedom comes with greater responsibility to your fellow humans, animals and nature.

fixed.

[phoenixboy]

there are two doors in life, one marked "security" and the other marked "freedom." if you choose the first, you lose both.

[Sven G]

A possible definition of freedom, among the many available: spontaneous order.

[Xeo]

Freedom is not bounding your world view by the writings in an old book.

[TheWorldIsFlat]

Freedom is redefined every five minutes by people worldwide posting on internet forums.

[Logic]

Relationships of all kinds are like sand held in your hand. Held loosely, with an open hand, the sand remains where it is. The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on, the sand trickles through your fingers. You may hold onto some of it, but most will be spilled. A relationship is like that. Held loosely, with respect and freedom for the other person, it is likely to remain intact. But hold too tightly, too possessively, and the relationship slips away and is lost.
--Kaleel Jamison

The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters
--Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master This expresses my idea of democracy.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth
--Muhammad Ali

[Orion27]

Protecting the rights of others

[NosniboR80]

Originally posted by Logic:


As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master This expresses my idea of democracy.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Democracy and liberty have absolutely nothing to do with one another. You can have a democracy with no rights (Saddam's Iraq, the early stages of many of the attempts at communism, etc), and you can have liberty with no democracy (like in many of the benevolent dictatorships throughout the world). This is why we couple the terms freedom and democracy into the term liberal democracy. That's what Churchill was talking about when he said that it was "the worst of all possible goverments, except for all the others."

[SimeyTheLimey]

Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness seems to be a pretty good working definition. Although Locke's original version was probably easier to put into practice. His words were Life, Liberty, and Property. I'd go along with that.

[angaq0k]

My idea of being free is that it is impossible.

There is no such thing as being free, unless we stop caring for others, because our freedom stops where the freedom of others stops.

There is the illusion of freedom, which is probably limited by our awareness of the present, and the limitations of our memory.

There is always a possibility of choosing, but the choice is limited, therefore, no freedom.

This morning, a colleague from work told me of a speech her daughter told her about her fear of becoming adult.

Could this have been the fear of becoming aware of the limitations of her own freedom?

I do not believe we can free others; they have to own the process of their freedom. But it is still illusory because of all these limitations we are confronted.

I think that to be free, we would become nothing but Gods, and maybe a lonely one at that, since other Gods would mean to start to respect the others, therefore, limiting ourselves.

Maybe turning our backs on some things simulates freedom as well, for being confronted to our responsabilities binds us to some form of duty... or its avoidance.

May be it is a good thing that we are not free.

I guess I suppose so for I assume human beings are capable of pretty much anything, limited as they are by their imagination...

Thank you for sharing so much.

Feel free to continue...

;o)

[Sven G]

Originally posted by angaq0k:
My idea of being free is that it is impossible. [...] Feel free to continue...

Maybe you would like some Bakunin quotes...? He was a real 19th century genius, IMHO...

Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.

I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.

We are convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.

The liberty of man consists solely in this: that he obeys natural laws because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been externally imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatever, divine or human, collective or individual.

They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship - their dictatorship, of course - can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up.

It clearly follows that to make men moral it is necessary to make their social environment moral. And that can be done in only one way; by assuring the triumph of justice, that is, the complete liberty of everyone in the most perfect equality for all.

Being free for man means being acknowledged, considered and treated as such by another man, and by all the men around him. Liberty is therefore a feature not of isolation but of interaction, not of exclusion but rather of connection... I myself am human and free only to the extent that I acknowledge the humanity and liberty of all my fellows... I am properly free when all the men and women about me are equally free. Far from being a limitation or a denial of my liberty, the liberty of another is its necessary condition and confirmation.

If people really had a feeling for freedom like this, we would reach the stars!

P.S.: Is it so strange that a young woman (see your post) is "afraid" of "becoming adult", BTW?!? If becoming adult means inserting oneself acritically in a dog-eat-dog world, I bet she feels afraid - and she should indeed try to rebel, together with her friends, as soon as possible, to really become a responsible adult (i.e., while positively integrating all her previous stages of consciousness, instead of removing them!), and not some form of servile neo-infant, as today's society maybe would like to reduce her!