An atheist libertarian could easily come to the conclusion that a fetus is a life, and hence has rights. There’s a large overlap on religious issues here, but they’re not necesary. It’s a tricky judgement call that ultimately is subjective, on which I think reasonable people can disagree. I’ve already taken this hijack further than I meant to … but I still think you entirely mischaracterize the argument. Your other points are closer to a realistic view of the viewpoint you’re trying to understand.
As Brit living in the states, I’d really say Britain is certainly not “less free” than the US. Obviously if you think the be-all and end-all of freedom is the right to have guns, and low taxes, then yeah the US is more free. But in most every-day ways, its clearly not.
I can’t count the ways, some trivial, some less so, that impinge my life and freedoms, far more than the ability to but a firearm, or a few percentage points of tax (and it is only a few percentage points, though I do live in CA) and that wouldn’t happen in the UK. A few obvious ones…
The freedom for a 20 year old adult (not that I am) to have a beer.
The ability to buy cold medicine without handing over my driving license (and having the details recorded)
The freedom to buy fireworks (not that seems to stop anyone around my neighbor, oh yeah sticking it to The Man:) ).
The freedom to have a beer while riding in the passenger seat of a car
And several that effect me less day-to-day, but on a philosophical level are pretty serious if you think about it:
The state has the right to seize my property if I am SUSPECTED of a drug crime.
I can be prosecuted for DISCUSSING the circumvention of copy-protection schemes
If I have legitimate prescription to a medicine the state deems to enjoyable i can’t get it without sending TWO copies of EVERY prescription to the relevant government bodies so they can keep track of what medicine I’m taking.
Some state laws EASILY trump anything the UK has to offer when it comes to restricting freedoms, these don’t effect me all that much, but are a pretty big deal for a country claiming to be the “free-est”. (Anti-sodomy, anti-sex toy, and anti second hand game).
Not there aren’t some pretty good things about the US vs Britain. As I said in the Sakozy vs Burqa thread the idea of a small set of rights that are unalienable, and enshrined in a written constitution is a really good one (and it continues to amaze me who some of the things above got past it). And the UK libel laws are a disgrace.
I don’t want to get into an abortion hijack, especially since I’m pro-choice anyway, but this is again an instance where you and the theoretical (or perhaps real) ‘conservative’ are talking past each other. Basically, someone who is pro-life is of the opinion that a fetus is a human being…so, the ‘right’ here would be to protect that human life. Now, you may disagree with that (myself, I’m ambiguous on the whole ‘when does life begin’ question), but it’s a debatable point, and one that I don’t think shows the hypocrisy you seem to think it does on the part of the nominal ‘conservative’.
Again, you are talking past those trying to make the point here. Basically, what you are saying is that you are willing to give up the freedom of having more money in your pocket for a greater good…paying for roads or a national health care system or whatever. That’s great…but, you don’t seem to understand that you are less ‘free’ (though perhaps more secure, depending on your situation) if the government is deciding how best to spend the money you earn. The rub here is that European’s acknowledge this (when they think about it)…and they prefer the tangible security over the dubious ‘freedom’. You seem to agree. It’s still an example where you are less ‘free’, however…since others are deciding what to do with your money, and ultimately what’s best for you.
I don’t generally frequent right-wing type boards, but I’ve certainly heard stuff like you are describing before. It all hinges on what you think ‘freedom’ is, and where you set the priorities for what is important to you. Also, in general, you can find instances that could go either way…like your Cuba example. Personally I think it’s moot, since the US seems to be moving slowly to a more European like (and THERE is a generality for you) system. Ironically, I think Europe in the last 20 odd years has moved more towards and American type system, but that’s neither here nor there. Ultimately though we will never be just like they are…and they will never be just like we are. Too many people in the US are opposed to the regimented system that the Euro’s seem to prefer, while ‘Europe’ is a pretty diverse place…but by and large, depending on where you are looking, they seem to like things the way they are there. They are willing to give up certain freedoms that we aren’t…and vice versa.
Just FTR, I think trying to play the ‘who is most free’ game is a no win situation.
Examples I’d use would be things like freedom of speech (there are some fairly serious restrictions on what you can and can’t publish, or even talk about, depending on where in ‘Europe’ one is checking), search and seizure type laws (again, depending on which country we are talking about…and it’s just different, not really a case of which is better), taxes and social programs type issues, and just the general regimentation (mostly not even enforced from the government side…just social customs and mores of the people there). Just a quick example (though I don’t know if it’s still true), when I was in Germany, I was told you could get a traffic ticket for being rude (or making a rude gesture or even a face) to another motorist. This is something the German’s just seem to take in stride…but something that folks in the US would probably balk at if it was actually enforced. Sure, you might say that the ‘freedom’ to flip someone off is not really important…but it shows a level of daily regementation that would be unacceptable to many American’s. And there are such seemingly small examples in several European countries that add up ‘less free’, depending on how you look at it.
You said it all right there. We give up freedoms for the greater good. European’s give up some things American’s consider ‘freedoms’ because they feel it makes them more secure, it’s for the greater good, it simplifies their lives…or, because that’s the way they have always done things. We make similar calculations here…such as the gun issue you didn’t want to bring up. Capital punishment would be another example, I suppose…here the state can, in theory at least, take your life. European’s, depending on which country you are talking about, have a ‘freedom’ from the state being able to do this.
So, when you talk to your conservative friend and s/he says that Europe is ‘less free’ than the US, instead of debating the point, simply say something along the lines of ‘life is full of trade offs’, and point out that most European’s are quite happy with the way things are…the one’s who were unhappy probably moved to the US already. 
Being less or more free really has nothing to do with whether or not there is room for improvement. Certainly there is room for improvement in the US (and I, for one, welcome our Cuban overlords…if they bring me boxes of fine Cuban cigars). There is a hell of a lot of room for improvement in Europe too…things only LOOK all rosy and great there (to some lefties). In fact, arguably ‘Europe’ has MORE problems than the US does…and ironically, there are a lot of European’s (and what passes for the right-wing there) who wish they were more like the US. At any rate, the grass only LOOKS greener, depending on which side of the fence you are on, and who’s doing the looking. And who has to cut the grass.
-XT
Just to throw in my two cents as an American expat in Europe, I think it’s safe to say that the US places a higher premium ideologically on individual freedom, although that doesn’t always translate to its actual practices, particularly where sexuality is concerned. And there are little things like the Patriot Act that make Europeans laugh out loud when Americans start going on about how free their country is. griffin1977 nailed a few others.
This also comes down in a lot of ways to how you define “freedom”. In the US it seems to be wrapped up in laissez-faire economics (and, for some, guns). That’s just not the be-all and end-all of what Europeans see as freedom.
And to NOT “be free from hunger” means you are the slave of anyone who will feed you. This sort of argument is just another attempt to pretend that government , and the government alone takes freedom away. While other institutions or people are given a pass.
Having all your decisions mandated by necessity isn’t free. Having someone abuse you or run your life because you work for them and can’t quit without starving isn’t freedom. Dying because you don’t have enough money isn’t free.
Only if he’s a woman hater. The anti-abortion movement is about the hatred of women, and little else. That definition of a fetus as a being deserving rights equal or superior to the mother is a twisted one that contradicts reality, and the rest of our laws and definitions of what a person is; it is a tailor made definition that has no purpose but the infliction of harm upon women. And no, it’s not intended to protect the fetus; the anti-abortionists have never should any actual concern for children, born or unborn. Just in punishing women.
And how many people who don’t believe in abortion are there who celebrate the life of their child from the moment it was conceived? They are called “Birthdays” for a reason, ya know! [/hijack over]
Freedom of expression in America: up to a point.
You are free to express your opinions as long as they do not conflict with those of the US government, in which case you are off to jail.
No, it doesn’t. It means that you get to choose who will feed you, provided that you can and do have the funds to pay for their goods and services.
“But what if you don’t have the funds?” one might reply. That’s a difficult situation that I think we can all sympathize with. It also explains why the government should facilitate the development of jobs and a strong economy. Whatever the case though, the government does not (and should not!) guarantee financial security for every individual. To do so would be to curtail the individual freedoms of those who earn money through honest hard work and/or accumulate it through cautious spending and sound investment strategies. It would also be completely impractical and would open up the floodgates for abuse.
Of course. Birthdays mark the day of one’s birth. They are not intended to demarcate the beginning of one’s life.
Which means that this objection/hijack is irrelevant to the question of one’s personal liberties.
urgh Just woke up. Not awake enough to continue right now.
I’ll be posting less during the week because of my schedule, but I appreciate the responses so far.
Yes, of course. That’s how it works. Thanks for educating me.
An enterprising individual thinks ‘Hmmm. I’d like to start a bank, employ some people, and inject a little competition into a moribund, inefficient system dominated by 4 large players and government-run Cajas (savings banks). Billions of dollars will just, you know, sort of appear on my doorstep… because those customers will somehow have their money magically ported over and entrusted to me.’ (Entrusted by whom is unclear from your post)
Then the government says, ‘No, you have to fill out some forms first’.
And then the enterprising individual says ‘Oh rats. That’s too much work. Forget it’.
Thanks for the primer. I was totally mistaken.
A bit of a hijack, but why is this debate limited to Europe vs the USA? Is it automatically assumed that every place besides Europe or the USA enjoys less ‘freedom’?
If you feel so, I’m almost certainly sure you’re wrong.
I can’t recall ever seeing a jar of Baconaise in a Canadian supermarket.
Ironically, at this exact moment I’m watching a documentary (well, a self-congratulatory puff piece) called Escape to Canada, which at first glance I thought was about the underground railroad but is actually about looser rules on marijuana in Canada, AWOL soldiers from the U.S. military fleeing to Canada, and gay Americans getting married in Canada… sooner or later they’ll probably talk about health care in Canada, or maybe they did already and I missed it.
And Canada. I intended to mention it but forgot to.
I wanted to avoid people pointing to, for example, North Korea and Myanmar.
Pleasure to be of service.
Look, if you want to make a real argument for why regulated banking is a more serious restriction on personal freedom than drug prohibition, go right ahead. But saying, “I don’t get caught when I get high,” just doesn’t cut it. It doesn’t explain how bank regulations, which are in place to protect the public from the theft and malfeasance of gargantuan proportions that are possible in the banking industry, significantly restrict personal freedom. And it doesn’t explain the many thousands of inmates in prison for drug-related offenses.
Something that must be understood is different societies value things differently. I think that “on the whole” Western Europe and the United States are about as free as we can reasonably expect a modern country to be, more or less. Different societies are going to value some freedoms and not value others, that is inevitable and it’s foolish to act as though there wouldn’t be areas where “Europe is less free” than the United States just as it is foolish to act as though there are areas where “America is less free than Europe.”
As others have mentioned in this thread, Europe tends to be less free in terms of free speech of a political nature. In America there is really no sort of political speech, no matter how odious, that can be legally prohibited. If you want to run a Neo-Nazi Magazine that blasts the Jews, calls for their enslavement, and denies the Holocaust on a bi-monthly basis you can do that in the United States. You’ll be very unpopular and possibly gain the attention of the FBI. However you won’t be arrested and you won’t go to prison if all you are doing is printing it.
America also seems to be freer in terms of depicting violence in video games. I know that in several European countries there is prohibition on the amount of blood and gore that can be in a video game. I’m not sure if it is on the level of statutory prohibitions or if it is just a side effect of a sort of voluntary regulatory body that companies need to appease out of business concerns.
On the flip side America is less free in terms of depicting sex and nudity on screen and in video games than most of the other countries in the modern Western world.
A few things people often forget about European countries is that many of them have monarchs as their ceremonial Head of State. In the United States we get to choose our Head of State in an election, in say, Norway or the United Kingdom it is based on hereditary lineage. This is not a big “freedom” that Norwegians or Brits have given up, because their respective monarchs have no “real” power. However in the U.S. we do get to choose our Head of State (who also happens to wield both the ceremonial duties as well as the actual power of a Head of Government.)
Several European states also have official state churches, which receive funding from the government to the exclusion of other churches. This is strictly forbidden in the United States. Again, this isn’t as big a deal as it might sound on a day to day basis but there’s no way you can really argue it isn’t an example of a European country being “less free” on a certain area.
There is a flip side to it though, in at least several European countries with official state churches those churches have to provide services to people. The official state church of Denmark for example, (at least if my memory serves) can’t deny performing a marriage ceremony for a couple on any grounds.
I think most people that aren’t looking to try and “disprove” annoying chain letters they get from conservative friends would definitely agree that less control over your personal income is less freedom.
Just as an example, let’s take the case of a sixteen year old.
If a sixteen year old works part time at a grocery store bagging groceries that teenager’s parents can actually mandate how he does or does not spend his money. They can say “you need to put half of your paycheck in savings each week” while the teen may want to spend it all on video games.
Now, just because the parents are probably wiser, just because they do probably know best, and just because their rules are actually “better” for the child doesn’t mean the child hasn’t lost some freedom.
One of the big differences between being a child and being an adult is as an adult you have much more freedom to run your life as you see fit–and this includes running into the ground and falling flat on your face.
Social services, even if they are a good idea both economically and in terms of policy are still essentially supplanting one’s parents with the government and making children of the population. I have no problem with some degree of this, I have a problem with certain degrees of this, and I think Europeans are the same way. Europeans are just open to more of a nanny state and Americans open to less, but we’re on the same “spectrum” just different parts of it, it isn’t like we’re on totally different wavelengths in this regard.
Freedom doesn’t = “good.” Absolute freedom is absolute hell, essentially. Government exists precisely because of the fact that some of man’s freedom must be restricted and limited. When we were hunter gatherers there was little need for such institutional rules, if a member of a hunter gathering group was particularly harmful to the group as a whole he could just be driven out. When we live in settled and densely populated societies there has to be rules, and rules mean less freedom. That doesn’t mean rules aren’t good.
I do feel that there is no such thing as a true freedom unless you’re “born” with it. I don’t feel there is any philosophical validity to the concept of “freedom from hunger” or “freedom to change jobs while keeping medical insurance coverage.”
I think in a lot of ways you can look back to hunter-gatherer man and get at what “the true natural” freedoms are. Our ancestors had no such “freedom from hunger.” They had the wits they were born with and the skills they were trained to acquire food, they had no right to it and they had no guarantee of it. They had no guarantee of anything like that other than what they went out and earned themselves.
Hunter gatherer man could say what he wanted and think what he wanted, he could go where he wanted and do what he wanted. However, back then and just like today every action has consequences.
I think you’re definitely born with a freedom to do stupid things, and that freedom is one of the most important freedoms in terms of the advancement of the human race and the advancement of the individual. A parent can tell you a hundred times not to touch a hot stove but one time touching it will teach you better than all the verbal warnings combined.
To go back to the example of medical care. In a state controlled medical system I have no choice in whether or not I “pay in” but the government gets a great deal of control over how I draw my benefits. If I want to seek treatment from a witch doctor who charges $10,000/visit I doubt very many state-run health care programs would allow this. What if I think a witch doctor is what will cure me? I’d be stupid and wrong, but when government gets to decide for me what stupid things I can do and what stupid things I can’t do (with my own money) it is taking a freedom away from me. This isn’t something I have a huge problem with because freedoms must be abandoned to make society work.
Hold the phone, there. Yes, there are significant cultural differences between the various European countries. The differences between, say, New England and Alabama are just as large, except for the fact that people in both areas speak (mostly) the same language.
I just posted a cite upthread which proves otherwise. I have cited this several times on this board and it is always totally ignored.
The fact is than in America you are not going to get anywhere good if you have anything positive to say about America’s enemies. Nazis today are not American enemies. But try publishing anything which says anything positive of America’s enemies and you’ll be accused of aiding terrorists.
‘Freedom’ is not a difficult concept. The reason we’re arguing over the meaning is that there are too many people on the left who are attempting to hijack the word and the concept to avoid being seen as wanting to restrict freedom.
‘Freedom from hunger’ as a concept for real freedom is an almost Orwellian twisting of words.
Tell you what: Let’s call Guantanamo Bay a ‘Freedom Colony’. After all, the people there are free to live without having to work, they have freedom from hunger, freedom from having to find shelter, freedom to lounge around their ‘freedom rooms’ without having to think about how to sustain themselves. Why, it’s a veritable libertarian paradise!