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Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if you are arrested after making one of these illegal choices, are you still free?
If you plunge a sword into your chest, you also can't make choices later on. Does that mean it's impossible to choose to plunge a sword into your chest?
Some things can't be "solved", you constantly have to do the work. Democracy, relationships, tolerance, etc and I guess freedom, but that's similar to democracy.
There's no end goal to them. You can lose them if you don't work at preserving them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if you are arrested after making one of these illegal choices, are you still free?
If you plunge a sword into your chest, you also can't make choices later on. Does that mean it's impossible to choose to plunge a sword into your chest?
The only way to not have freedom is for others to remove it from you by force or threat of it. The threat of it is what causes us to self limit our own freedoms. (sometimes for a greater good, sometimes not)
I can understand how it could be considered that in a very non-free society, but no. Freedom exists only as an equilibrium between your freedom and that of others, between paralyzing order and utter chaos.
Some freedoms are trade-offs with other people's freedoms, e.g. freedom of movement vs freedom to not get covid. That's where your perspective fits. But other freedoms are more win-win or win-neutral situations and don't require trade-offs. But I agree that the ratio between the former and the latter tends to increase as society becomes more developed and free. There's also an important difference between negative an…
I think it’s more to do with how interconnected we all are now. A few centuries ago the ripple effects of your decision might impact a hundred people. Now it might reach thousands. Or more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can still do that in any society. Even though it's illegal, you can run a red light or cheat on your taxes. The notion that you somehow can't is just mauvaise foi. Of course you can. You're choosing not to. Seems like you are describing freedom from consequences, not the ability to make choices, because that's available now and to the barbarian. I'm not sure which society has no consequences.
>You can still do that in any society. Even though it's illegal, you can run a red light or cheat on your taxes By that logic, there is no such thing as restriction of freedom, as it assumes even someone's ability to jail you does not restrict your freedom in any way. People in jail are free as a corollary. How is this not absurd? It only makes sense if you hate freedom and want to argue against it to people low on r…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was thinking, I can currently go from NA to Europe today if I wanted to. But that level of technology and orchestration would not be possible in a lawless and barbaric society (at least I don't think so). This possibility offers me a lot of freedom (traveling around the world) and in exchange, I had to follow rules and work. I gave some freedom and got more in exchange. The same thing applies for many other things…
It certainly would be possible in anarcho-capitalist society. In fact, US in the 19th century was much closer to laissez-faire ideals than today and went through a surge of private road and water channel construction (I could also mention railroads here, but if I'm not mistaken, they relied on government intervention to get the land). I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work for air travel just as well.
A lot of canals and turnpikes were also built by the government--the Erie Canal and the National Road being preeminent examples. Contemporary railroads, such as the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad were usually private. Land grants for railroads were largely limited to the western railroads and for a surprisingly short period of time--only about 1850-1871 were major land grants being used for railroads.
Overall, railroads got roughly the same amount of government support as did canals and roads, maybe even somewhat less. Although this should generally be understood as all infrastructure more or less requiring generous amounts of government support.
I spent a lot of time reading political philosophy books from smart people with big reputations and the definition and dynamics of liberty was definitely an overriding theme. My takeaway many years later is that it's a very complex topic and many people, all with contradictory positions, have a lot of confidence in their take on it. I trump them all by having no confidence in my take!
So now that Im a permanent resident in Hong Kong, joking with everyone next step is Chinese citizenship, I'm a bit at a loss when it comes to freedom. Not corruption, efficiency, representativity, predictable justice or even fairness, where clearly I cant argue against France and for China/HK. But just freedom itself, I feel it goes so much beyond the ability to vote and complain publicly. I cant define it just like you, but when I look around me in the middle of a street in Hong Kong, even now, I feel so much freer that in Paris... it's weird.