[PanolX]

History teaches us about the past evils and oppressor. today's world is filled with phony propaganda ,sex, and a skewed media that seems to define what liberty is in contemporary society. many people seem to have given up freedom for security, and accepted tyranny in our lives(yes also us), well.... the majority anyhow.

SO my question to everyone is....how do you define liberty? also, how are you so sure that you live in liberty?

 

[illicit iridescence]

SO my question to everyone is....how do you define liberty? also, how are you so sure that you live in liberty?

Your freedom stops where another one's freedom begins.

Also, sarcastically, there is no liberty: you cannot die and live, nor live and be dead. Neither can you be free of the freedom to choose.

Funny thing, liberty. ^^;

 

[Cheezdude]

liberty for me - all the time i could want to listen to music, play games, read books, talk to friends, and be alone with my thoughts without any interference.

In that sense, I'm not yet liberated.

 

[Listener]

There is both internal and external liberty. The two are related but they are not the same.

Internal liberty is a state of mind where thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are chosen freely. Theoretically this liberty always exists, but very few exercise or actualize this type of liberty. It is rare that one is not influenced internally by external events.

External liberty I would define as a state where actions and speech are done freely and voluntarily. This does not exist anywhere in the world as far as I am aware. While some societies have more liberty than others, all engage in considerable amounts of various forms of coercion. I support the Zeitgeist movement as I believe the society it proposes would create the greatest amount of external liberty.

 

[Somniorum]

I define "liberty" as "freedom from" - this is being unrestrained from action, and could be negative or positive... you may be "liberated" to acquire new knowledge, express yourself, help other people, or also "liberated" to kill, enslave... ie, destroy the liberty of others. Liberty is, ultimately, individualistic.

"Equality", on the other hand, is "freedom to" - a levelling-out of things within a society. This may, again, involve both positives and negatives - positives such as reducing or eliminating wealth disparities, restricting people from killing one another, creating social programmes... negatives such as reducing free speech, possible insensitivity towards individual thought/action/cultural differences, etc... equality is collective in nature.

In my view, an equal balance of Liberty and Equality results in Freedom.