Is "freedom" a useful word anymore?

[furface]

It's amazing how words like "freedom" and "liberty" are used nowadays. George Orwell was a political genius when he coined the term "freedom is slavery." I still don't quite understand how such words are used to mean the exact opposite of what they really mean.



DOUGLAS SHULMAN (Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service):

I think the American people have a healthy respect for the tax system. They understand that this country has an incredible amount of benefits, ranging from freedom to a great defense system

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124980742

[BuddyRey]

This is a very fascinating subject, because I happen to believe that the political class, as in Orwell's book, has deliberately warped and skewed the meaning of certain words. I think that, with "freedom", it really started with FDR. He was the first American politician to pose the absurdly contradictory ideas of "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear."

Of course, both of these ideas entail not only a complete lack of freedom for others (since they are now conscripted, against their will, for the sake of protecting you from foreign enemies and giving you sustenance), but also a lack of true freedom for you, because you'll eventually be compelled to provide the same "freedoms" to others. It's a predatory feedback loop!

[furface]

The feedback loop thing is an interesting way of looking at it. That's one or the reasons I think the right of consensual government is unalienable. It can't be taken away by any sort of vote, democratic or not. We should be able to choose what freedoms we want to relinquish for the sake of the community. If one community doesn't suit our needs, we move to another.

[BuddyRey]

The feedback loop thing is an interesting way of looking at it. That's one or the reasons I think the right of consensual government is unalienable. It can't be taken away by any sort of vote, democratic or not. We should be able to choose what freedoms we want to relinquish for the sake of the community. If one community doesn't suit our needs, we move to another.

Exactamundo! To lift and reconstruct another favorite term of the progressives, the principle you just mentioned is the only real form of "social justice" there is - the justice inherent in the concept of letting each and every individual do his or her own thing, provided nobody else's liberties are affected. :)