I think in a democratic country where majority rules, yes, your freedom ends where my morality begins…if my morality has the majority rule. But you can always protest and work on reversing that. So at some future point in time, our positions may be reversed. That’s the beauty of democracy. You can almost do anything but doing nothing would spell your doom.

So, see you at the voting polls amigo! Arriva! Lol.

I have my opinions and preferences but, I say live and let live.
Someones marriage or body choices do not effect me, but, shooting a gun on my property is infringing on my right to keep out hunters and trespassers and, in that case, yes, I’ll have you arrested.

I’ve lived in the hills for 20 years, don’t even get me going with reckless gun owners.

I watched an 8 hour class given by Libertarian Presidential Candidate, Michael Badnarik, and it was the clearest definition of rights and privileges and how the government was set up to handle these kinds of things.
It goes something like this….
All rights are derived from property rights. The first property you own, is yourself, when you are born. The only thing that limits your own rights, are someone else’s equal rights.
For example, destroying or defacing someone else’s property, whether it is their body or physical property, deserves some type of punishment.
This is where I believe there is a huge misunderstanding with the libertarian philosophy. Most people assume that because a libertarian wants to abolish beauracratic regulatory bodies, that there would be no laws to protect people and property. Instead, all regulations would be based on property rights. ie. If a company is polluting, they are violating one’s property rights.

Another important point in the video, is the explanation of the differences between rights and privileges. Rights come from our creator. Privileges come from government. Rights can not be taken away. Privileges can. Marriage is not a right. It is a privilege. It is just like a drivers license. You must ask permission of your government to get married, hence the reason gays can not get married. The “rights” granted by marriage are privileges granted to people by the government, all of which could be handled by private contracts between people.

And as for us being a democracy, we are not supposed to be a democracy. We are supposed to be a Constitutional Republic. The founding fathers felt that a democracy would lead to tyranny of the majority, which is what we have now. A constitutional republic mean that ALL laws are based on the constitution and that no laws may infringe on others rights.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as property rights anymore. People can be searched without warrant, detained indefinitely, and never given a trial. We can’t even own land or property. By that, I mean true ownership. Let’s say you paid off your mortgage, you are still forced to pay property taxes and if you don’t someone comes and takes the house from you. In other words, in America, not a single person truly owns their home.

“Ownership” the great illusion.
Politics aside, it really is laughable, as IF, we can ever, truly “own” a piece of the planet. lol

For some reason it makes sense to me not having true ownership of a property. I want that whoever inherits mine continues to pay taxes for the common wealth of the country. It’s not like the government is going to make the inheritor pay for the property all over again.

As far as “the tyranny of the majority” goes, I don’t know how any issues can be resolved ultimately without majority rule other than settling the conflict by waging a war probably. I’m no student of politics. I didn’t know about the founding fathers wanting a Constitutional Republic and not Democracy? How come I haven’t heard America as the greatest Constitutional Republic in the world?

Essentially, yes. The “what’s” and “how’s” are determined our political process.

Freedoms are absolute, in most cases. Freedom of speech, for example, may or may not include what some refer to as “hate speech,” but I am still entitled to state my position regardless of how it makes you feel. Feelings aren’t protected by the Constitution.

Your freedom ends where the law begins. Some laws are dictated by society’s morality. Your personal morality ends where the laws begin as well.

It’s the price of living in a society.

@marinelife

That goes almost without saying. The problem lies in determining where to draw the line. Often the interpretation of “lawful freedom” is in dispute. I’m reminded of Rosie O’Donnel’s opposition to the 2nd Amendment: it’s not ok for the rest of us to own guns, but perfectly ok for the corpulent Ms. O’Donnel to have armed bodyguards. See anything wrong with this picture?

@CaptainHarley

” Corpulent” LOL

Aaah, ain’t hypocrisy grand!

in our*

@marinelife But the law is mutable and constantly changing. Today, abortion is still legal; tomorrow it might not be. Does that mean it is immoral of me to feel I should have the freedom to choose? My point is more subtle than that – we all feel that what we believe defines freedom and should not be dictated by others. And the Constitution is, and should be, a document that is open to reinterpretation and change as situations that were not foreseen – such as AK-47s and abortion – by our Founders arise. My question is about how we reconcile ideas about where the government should have a say in our lives.

@mazingerz88, re “your freedom ends where my morality begins…if my morality has the majority rule”—That is (one reason) why we have a Constitution, so that the rights of the minority are protected against the tyranny of the majority.

@SquirrelEStuff, re ” Instead, all regulations would be based on property rights. ie. If a company is polluting, they are violating one’s property rights.” I like that in theory, but in practice, do you think it would really be like that? The problem I have with much of Libertarian thought is that the reality is often in stark contrast to the theory.

@CaptainHarley, re “Freedom of speech, for example, may or may not include what some refer to as “hate speech,” but I am still entitled to state my position regardless of how it makes you feel.” – Political speech is protected by the Constitution, in that “Congress shall make no law” abridging it. That doesn’t mean that all speech is protected, nor does it mean that bodies other than Congress (such as your workplace, or Fluther) can’t abridge your freedom of speech.

and finally, @janbb – That is why I count myself as a social liberal. I am unhappy making my morality the rule for someone else, as I would be unhappy letting their morality rule over me. The caveat here is that I see personal morality as overlapping, but separate from, prevalent social mores. A social more might be, “we don’t allow the abuse of children.” But what constitutes abuse? Some say spanking is abuse, some disagree. This is where people have got to have a little freedom to decide how their personal morals work in regards to their own family. It’s also why we’re pretty sure murder ought to be condemned, but there’s wiggle room in smaller things – mores are like the least common denominator. Or at least, they ought to be.

@laureth – “Democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.”

This is a view from the outside: please remember that when the U.S. gets a sniffle, the rest of us, especially in the Caribbean, get pneumonia. Right now my country is under a state of emergency: that means your person, your belongings, your house, can be searched without warrant, you can be arrested on suspicion and be held for up to 120 days. And why? because crime has gone out of control in some areas. A startling number of murders are gun related here: and too, too many firearms originate in the U.S. And that is largely because gun control is weak or non-existent in America. My country has an agreement with the U.S. that allows our police access to your gun ownership and movement databases. Some weapons seized here were found to be associated with criminal activity in the States.

If the majority of us want to live in peace, then some of us have to forgo some wants. We tend to forget that it is not an “either / or” proposition. A might support the second amendment and be gung ho for abortion rights; B might want the amendment but be prepared to murder A to save the unborn babies; and C might want gun control and religious education in all schools. You cannot please all the people all of the time. At the same time pleasing the gun lobby because they are vocal and therefore influential, is hurting a lot of people and most of them are American.

@bea2345 – That’s why some people think that all laws should come down to banning coercive and/or violent behavior (murder, assault, theft, fraud, etc.) and let people do anything they want to do that is mutually consensual and done in private.

Someone else’s morality has nothing to do with my freedom. My freedom extends to other people’s rights. Otherwise we’d ALL be subject to the most stringent “moral” code. That’s how blue laws are created.

@SquirrelEStuff Marriage is not a privilege, it is a right. But the advantages of marriage in modern American society are controlled by the government. That’s why we have a struggle right now for marriage equality.

In a Libertarian society in which “all rights derive from the concept of property”, a polluting company may not be infringing my property, but polluting the commons. The philosophy of only individual property rights are the boundary means our collective common property is not protected.

Generally speaking, there is Right and Wrong, and the freedom to do either. Freedom of choice does not mean freedom from consequences. Morality is a tool for separating the Right from the Wrong so that one may more readily choose it.

@Nullo I suspect many of your rights are my wrongs and vice versa. The world is not divided so conveniently into black and white as you seem to believe. Otherwise, there would be a lot more agreement in the world than there is.

@Nullo – I think that few people would deny that bad choices result in bad consequences. But freedom means that government won’t bar you from making those choices.

Only where “my morality” is tangential to, coincides, or intersects with the laws of the jurisdiction where you live, and vice versa.

E.g., I believe that it’s wrong for outside parties to publicize the personal information of doctors who provide abortions. If the laws where you live reflect that, then nobody in your area has the freedom to do that.

However, if one lives in say, Kansas, then I suspect that part of my morality ends at their state border. ;-)

@bea2345

Please remember that the US is still suppose to be guided by its Constitution, which guarantees the right of gun ownership. And it is hardly ever a legally owned weapon that is used in the commission of a crime.

@janbb There is an absolute standard for your decision-making pleasure. You may not think I’m right, and I may think you’re wrong, but that does not change what is right and wrong. It is our desire to have things our way (including thinking of things that are Wrong as though they were Right, because you like the outcome) that prevents that agreement that you speak of.

@HungryGuy The function of government here is to reduce the impact of the negative consequences of someone’s actions on otherwise uninvolved people. That means shooting or else prosecuting criminals, and the like.

@CaptainHarley – I have not forgotten that (Please remember that the US is still suppose to be guided by its Constitution…) but the fact remains that the relative ease with which residents and citizens can obtain firearms in the U.S. is creating problems for your neighbours.

@bea2345

Some proof would be nice.

@bea2345 If we were to institute some sort of border control (or if not for Gunwalker), that wouldn’t be such a problem. But no no, can’t have something so anti-social as that. Better to punish the perfectly peaceful people who like guns. :\

@CaptainHarley – I bring this to your attention: check para. 9.10. Another item describes the e-Trace agreement.

@Nullo – Gunrunning and piracy have infested the region since the coming of the Spaniards. We here in the W.I. have to do our part. My beef is not with the law abiding; it is with the bandit who got his weapon in Brooklyn or Boston, and brought it back to the West Indies to terrorise some wretched victim.

@bea2345

The results of the e-Trace agreement should prove to be interesting.

@HungryGuy – “Democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.” – In a democratic state, we sheep don’t do too badly; have you ever seen a flock of sheep form up in a defensive bunch, the ram at their head? it is pretty alarming and effective too.

@bea2345 – Right. But we sheep are losing ground to the wolves with each passing decade. Have you seen the recent statistics that show the growing disparity between the amount of wealth owned by the top few percent and everyone else?

@HungryGuy : well, yes, these disparities are almost the sole topic of conversation in Trinidad and Tobago. Recently our Minister of Finance, fresh from defending next year’s budget in Parliament, berated the business sector for its failure to restart the economy. The government can only do so much, he said. In the meantime, we are also wondering when the American Press will begin to cover the Wall Street protest and stop pretending that it is not happening. The international press is full of it.

What happens in the end if the disparities you see continue? Do the business sector tyrants kill each other off like gladiators until there is only one tycoon standing. That could be the next Donald Trump reality show. You’re fired.

@bea2345 – I know. I can’t imagine why. Some people say that the American press has a liberal bias, so I’d think they want to report it. But then, some people say that the American press has a conservative bias. Maybe they’re right. Who knows!

@HungryGuy

Calling the press conservative or liberal is just a way to keep us divided and arguing about things that aren’t really important. Liberals call the media conservative. Conservatives call the media liberal. Break them all down, and you see that they are all corporate press, with nothing but their parent companies and shareholders in mind.

@SquirrelEStuff – I don’t disagree. Regardless of any perceived bias, it’s all about the very rich using the media that they own to control the minds of the masses.

@HungryGuy , you may find this interesting. I seem to recall that the civil rights movement began in pretty much the same way. The main difference is that today’s protesters are mainly middleclass, white and educated; and have access to electronic communications (eat your heart out, George Padmore!). The movement should be taken seriously, if only because it represents a substantial body of opinion.

@bea2345 – Thanks! Excellent article!