Jujupilote wrote:
At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.
Or in more straight forward talk:
I reject your reality and substitute my own
Mooney Driver wrote:
One more thought about this would be that many who put “freedom” high on their flag often are ready to defend their personal freedom to a point where it curtails the freedom of others. I think there is a very important distinction in this: Liberty is a universal right, while Freedom by the very definition depends on interaction with the freedom of others.
+1
Negative interactions between individuals conducting free lives are less of a problem than the reduction in positive interactions created by the ‘guidance’ of artificial and unnecessary restrictions on individual freedom. The view of free individuals as children who are unable to cooperate and resolve issues between themselves without stifling supervision of their lives is generally a red herring, things more often work out when you give people a chance and tolerate them doing so in their own way.
Fear is the core issue, and the reason that e.g. “land of the free” and “home of the brave” are linked as they are in US political doctrine.
gallois wrote:
Mooney you hit the nail on the head with the background of the originator.
LOL, you rise my curiosity even further.
Very true for Adam – but only before Eve appeared.
At he heart of survival is the willingness to restrict ones freedom sufficiently to not anger others into action.
Liberty is a universal right, while Freedom by the very definition depends on interaction with the freedom of others.
Indeed, but liberty is generally purchased with the blood of others, and needs constant vigilance thereafter to maintain it.
As Denning said: there are no rights; only privileges.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I am looking at this in the context of many recent debates or even conflicts, where very often, people will look at the opposing side and come to the conclusion that they “live in an alternate universe”, as their beliefs and opinions differ so radically that they can’t find common ground anymore. Recognizing each other’s right to define one’s own concept of all those things would be one way out of the currently very split society, where exactly this is under threat by the continuous strive to suppress concepts which do not correlate with one’s own.
The problem today is not with beliefs and opinions or even concepts but that people can’t agree on very basic facts. That is quite a different matter and very worrying.
Peter wrote:
liberty is generally purchased with the blood of others,
It thought the saying was that it was purchased with your own blood…
Hopefully not; that is why your country has armed forces. Of course the recent tradition in Europe has been to expect the US to perform that function.
The problem today is not with beliefs and opinions or even concepts but that people can’t agree on very basic facts. That is quite a different matter and very worrying.
I would rather say disagreement on facts is the very base for liberty. We agree (and respect) that we all have different versions of reality.
The only thing that counts is law and states that are willing and powerful enough to protect the law, from all attacks, inside and outside (preferably without going rogue in the process). This is what Ukraine is all about, and the common enemy is Putin. In all honesty I would never believe Putin would do this. And if he did, I would never believe that the Norwegian government would step up the way they have done. Actually walking the walk (together with the US, UK, Poland, the Baltic states) 
We can say lots of thing about the US of A. But their willingness and ability to do what it takes to preserve our way of life is undisputable. For all practical purposes, this is the very essence of liberty, the corner stone.
