Historic Quotations Post II:

[underlankers]

In terms of a defense of democracy and its virtues, I can think of no greater summation than the Four Freedoms speech made by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in January of 1941:

Comments

[sandwichwarrior]

Roosevelt's "4 freedoms" always made me uncomfortable for some reason. Something about them struck me as looking and sounding moral/correct and yet somehow profoundly wrong. An intellectual analog to "the uncanny valley" if you will.

I stumbled across this blog post durring the most recent gun control push and it perfectly articulates the objection that I have always felt, but never quite been able to put my finger on.

The only real place where Roosevelt's four freedoms are relaibly met is prison.

[oslo]

Or, conversely, I have entertained it and found it wanting.

Do you mean anything by these kinds of responses besides, "I'm right, you're wrong, nanner-nanner?" Anyway, found what wanting?

In any discussion such as this, we can't hope to engage in a meaningful exchange unless we can achieve a kind of analytical distance from what we ourselves believe to be the case. This is precisely what you haven't done, when considering my statements about what the experience of "freedom" is like. As I schematically demonstrated, above, your analysis of my statements already assumes that your conclusion about what "freedom" is is itself correct. As such, it's no surprise when you come out the other side finding my account "wanting." This is what I mean when I say you're not "seriously entertaining" any alternative; you've already assumed I'm wrong, if I disagree with you.

As for other possible accounts - not presented by me - I simply have no basis for believing you've done the analytical work you're apparently claiming to have done.

Except

[oslo]

Given that the idea that I could be correct, or that I have looked at the situation and come to a conclusion, doesn't seem to come up...

It doesn't come up because you haven't ventured to defend your views save in the most conclusory fashion. I'd much rather prefer to address the argument you're holding in reserve, but I can't do that if all you say is, "Well, maybe one reason that I don't accept your account is that you're wrong..."

In that I have examined, and come to a conclusion? Accurate. In that I've "already assumed you're wrong?" No. You've made an argument, one that doesn't match up with what's understood. You don't like the answer, so we're back to armchair psychology.This particular comment relates to a schematic of an argument that appears to be implicit in the way you've read and responded to a remark I've made upthread. I think it would be more productive to address the accuracy of that schematic rather than to accuse me here of engaging in "armchair psychology." There's really nothing here that qualifies as anything

[kylinrouge]

The problem is you're arguing on his terms, which is 'having the most freedom is ideal', when presupposes that absolute freedom as an end goal is beneficial to a society. This is clearly not the case, sometimes we must put the public welfare in front of their freedom in certain aspects in order to mitigate externalities. This is why we have laws and regulations.

[oslo]

The problem, really, is that Jeff has two terms. He defines "freedom" one way, but relies on the weight of common usage for its value, even though the common usage would define "freedom" differently. This is what I'm trying to help him to see.

[kylinrouge]

How would the common usage define freedom, anyway? It's such a vague word that it seems like a cop-out in an argument, like Constitutionality arguments for massive 10,000 page bills based on a single phrase in the Constitution.

[oslo]

You're right, of course. When you get more precise about what's meant by the term, you begin to see why it's not automatically self-justifying.

[kylinrouge]

Historically speaking, most societies that have done this are still around.

[kylinrouge]

It means we can empirically measure if limiting freedom to mitigate externalities are worth it on a cost/benefit analysis...

[oslo]

It's occurred to me that you might latch onto the apparently voluntary nature of the deal I've described in the first full paragraph of the above comment; if so, disregard that aspect of it and assume that the "deal" is imposed. Reading it as an exchange might tend to muddy the waters on the true point.

[sandwichwarrior]

And who's forcing you to be included? Again your notion of freedom seems to rule out the possibility of political society. If what you're saying is that your freedom is more important than the will of the governed - how would you justify this extraordinary view?

The Idea that I believe Jeff is trying to get across is that coercion, even if it's legal, is in and of it's self is wrong.

If people want to be members of a political society his concept does not preclude them from doing so. The conflict comes when one person demands that another person play by a set of rules that they have not agreed to.

an old Heinlein quote comes to mind.

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am responsible for everything I do.

[oslo]

If people want to be members of a political society his concept does not preclude them from doing so. The conflict comes when one person demands that another person play by a set of rules that they have not agreed to.

Well, if that's all the political philosophy that you feel we need, that's fantastic. Unfortunately it describes no real-world government of any size that I can think of. Are they all immoral?