What unites many of the groups influenced by Waco is a belief that the federal government is tyrannical and willing to attack citizens while depriving them of liberty, freedom and firearms.
Leaving apart the fact that the sentence sounds farcically monthy-pythonesque in my European ears it seems to me that when translating it into German I would have to write
> […] die Bundesregierung ist tyrannisch und bereit, die Bürger anzugreifen und ihnen Freiheit, Freiheit und Schusswaffen zu entziehen
and into Spanish it would read […] el gobierno federal es tiránico y está dispuesto a atacar a los ciudadanos privándoles de libertad, de libertad y de armas de fuego
So is there a difference between liberty and freedom? And if so, what is it? Reminds me of safety and security, which are not easy to translate either, though seguridad and protección sometimes fit the bill.
I think there are really good definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary. I dont have a subscription for it. I think it would say what Elmer Fudd said there but am not sure.
One could probably use the two words to illustrate the same thing, they seem to be fundamentally interchangeable when it gets down to it. Independence would be something different.
I’m thinking that the brilliant minds who proudly vote for expanded 2A “freedoms” to defend against ‘tyranny’ while simultaneously voting for an $800 billion military which would be used to tyrannize them may not be too clear on what is meant by either “liberty” or “freedom”.
As others have said, the two terms are generally equivalent in meaning. In situations where they are used together and it’s implied they mean two different things, my understanding is that freedom is something an individual has and liberty is something a society has.
So you ideally want to live in a society that promotes liberty so the people living in that society have freedom.
Here’s one a lot of people have heard of: flotsam and jetsam. They mean things floating in the water after coming off a ship.
And there actually is a technical distinction between the two. Jetsam is something which was intentionally thrown off a ship. Flotsam is something which fell off a ship due to weather or by accident. Depending on local law, the original owner may have a claim to flotsam but not to jetsam.
There’s also lagan, which is something that was intentionally thrown off a ship but was marked in some way that it would be recoverable. Again, the ability to claim ownership of lagan may vary from flotsam or jetsam.
I did wonder if the writer of the original article realized they were using a retorical device when they wrote that.
I’d argue that doesn’t count then as “flotsam and jetsam” is actually different to just flotsam or jetsam (and they arent from different latin/Germanic roots). Liberty and Freedom (and aid and abet, let or hindrance, will and testament, etc) is deliberately using two synonyms, either of which could be used in place of the other without losing information, purely for effect.
The origin of the couplets wasn’t just for effect, though. The practice started in Law French, where an English word and a French word would be used to assist in comprehension, where some people only spoke English and some only spoke French.
I think the denotations in modern English are identical or virtually identical. In modern political discourse in (at least) the United States, “liberty” is more often utilized by the conservative crowd and (to my ears at least) has thus taken on the connotation of an unfettered business endeavor, whereas “freedom” is more fondly embraced by the leftish folks and (again, to my ears if not necessarily to yours) is flavored with emancipation from oppression and exploitation.
Perhaps they have confused the words of Patrick Henry to be “Give me liberty and give me death!”. Those founding fathers are so misunderstood, lets just twist their words to say what we think they meant.
There are senses in which they’re different. “To take liberties” means to act as if you’re free to do something that you shouldn’t be doing because it improperly infringes on somebody else.
That’s kind of an oldfashioned phrase, though. I think that in current use they do tend to mean the same thing, and it’s a rhetorical flourish.
I find it hard to distinguish them. In my mind, they both mean a situation in which no-one else has the power to compel me to do something I don’t want to, or forbid me to do something I do want to.
But of course since we all live in a complex society, it’s an extremely grey area.
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