[handrous]

> 1) Your degree of freedom is strictly a relationship between you and those who are able to legitimately use violence against you. Legitimate here meaning you have no means of recourse besides violence of your own.

I strongly disagree with this. "Strictly?" Oh my, no. There's so much more that goes into one's practical ability to exercise freedom. It's why a rich person—even if they were treated identically by the state—is far freer than a poor person. It's why removing hypothetical but mostly useless freedoms (say, the "freedom" to choose my health insurer) can in some cases truly increase how free I actually am (no longer have to spend all that time screwing around with health insurers; no longer as dependent on employment for healthcare, et c).

[thegrimmest]

Well, then we clearly just disagree on what the definition of "freedom" is. Mine is aligned basically with the idea as it was first laid down during the French revolution. From the Declaration of the Rights of Man:

> Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights

One of us should in good faith acquiesce from the term, to avoid overloading it, no? I propose that the existing definition remain, and the practical ability to do stuff be given a new one, say "capability". In other words, the incapable are just as free as the capable.

[handrous]

If your definition calls the pauper in a society with no rules whatsoever freer than the billionaire in a society with exactly one government-enforced rule, which prohibits unsolicited sales calls after 6:00 PM on Sundays, then it's a broken definition.

[thegrimmest]

Whether it's broken or not is up to you, but that's what freedom means. All I'm suggesting is that people acknowledge that they are indeed attempting curtail our freedoms (ie. enslave us) even to a minutely limited degree, in order to accomplish their vision of good.

This moves the conversation forward, because the next question is how do we know your vision of good is the right one, worthy of the requisite sacrifice of our liberty? Is it really worthwhile to enslave the competent and the fortunate in order to maintain the incapable and unfortunate?

[handrous]

> Whether it's broken or not is up to you, but that's what freedom means.

You are not the arbiter of this, however much you insist on it, and all four relevant definitions in Webster's 1913—a great source if you're looking for conservative and time-tested definitions of US English usage—disagree with you, if we're really going to quibble over that. "Liberty" is, as in your quoted translation from the French, much closer, but you are still insisting on a much narrower interpretation than is common. You're also reading your source as an exclusive definition, when it doesn't, per se, claim anything of the sort. You're using it in a jargony sense from a particular political philosophy—the promoters of which find their job much easier when they get to define words in particular, not-quite-normal ways, then use those convenient definitions as a sandy foundation for various shaky logical towers—which does not mean the general definition must conform to yours.

> This moves the conversation forward, because the next question is how do we know your vision of good is the right one, worthy of the requisite sacrifice to our liberty? Is it really worthwhile to enslave the competent and the fortunate in order to maintain the incapable and unfortunate?

It's tough and messy and absolutely ends up being largely arbitrary, because moral and political philosophy aren't math and never will be. We don't "know". We can't. Trying to "know" will quickly send you into "not even wrong" territory.

> (ie. enslave us)

> Is it really worthwhile to enslave the competent and the fortunate in order to maintain the incapable and unfortunate?

LOL, OK. I've glanced at your post history. This ain't going anywhere productive. Hope you find your way out of this some day. Doesn't look like any previous posters have done any good no matter how gentle (or harsh) they've been, so I'll leave off there.

[thegrimmest]

> It's tough and messy and absolutely ends up being largely arbitrary

This is precisely why no one has the right to force their vision of the good on others. Doing so is indistinguishable from tyranny.

If you can tell my why people are owed the cooperation of others I'm glad to change my mind. But kindly don't patronize me.