British Expatriate Network

Is freedom really free and what is freedom.

The fact there are laws etc, would indicate that there is no freedom

What law, is a law that has gone to far in taking away freedoms.

Yea another deep and meaningful question lol

It's a good point and people make it seem rather black and white. For example, we are free and Iran is not free. That's just daft because freedom must be in more of a grey area because of laws. In terms of government not messing in our lives we are relatively free, for now, but I'm sure there are areas where we are hugely lacking.

I think the word freedom has lost its meaning here and people just regurgitate it. They think its such a great thing that they can drive where they want, when they want and do think too deeply further than that. There are places with different freedoms and different laws, some better and some worse. I think that there are more freedoms in most of western Europe than here.....for example, in Germany you can go around nude, here you'd get put in the slammer. We are all aware of the very liberal laws in the Netherlands concerning narcotics and prostitution. Wouldn't that indicate a pretty high level of freedom.

On the other side of that, these Western European countries, I would guess, have far more government regulations in an economic sense. Thinking of it that way, Americans are more free in terms of making and keeping their own money, exploiting others etc.

I feel more free here in Canada than I suspect I would in the United States, precisely because there are laws here that take away the sorts of rights labelled as "freedom" in the U.S.

The most obvious of these are things like gun control, but there are other more subtle examples too. For instance, unlike the U.S. and more like Britain, it is believed that as far as possible it should be the jury that should be the first to hear the evidence in a trial, not the media. Therefore freedom of information, an absolute right in the U.S is not an automatic right here and can be subject to publication bans. Than in itself can be extremely controversial and open to scrutiny and can certainly be abused. But the principle remains that sometimes you have to judiciously take away some peoples' so-called "freedoms" for collective good.

As a specific example, a man in British Columbia has been charged with multiple murders and if found guilty will be Canada's worst mass murderer in history. It is alleged that he murdered Vancouver prostitutes on his farm and buried their remains. But actually, that's about all we officially know right now. The media is not allowed to refer to specific evidence until the trial opens. The media has talked to some victims' familes but it must be careful not to imply the man - Robert Pickford - is guilty or they can be sued.

When the trial opens, it will not be televised. Jurors will not be identified and even if they step down or are dismissed they cannot talk to the media (unless they fancy going to jail). Canada (and Britain) believes that this is the way of insuring the accused's right, or freedom, to have a fair trial.

In the U.S there would already be five or six 20/20 style exposès and CNN would be working itself into a frenzy etc. The public has the right to know in the U.S - that is a freedom - but at what cost? Could anyone even begin to describe the trial of OJ Simpson, an extrordinary media circus, fair?

There are hundreds of examples of this. I've just chosen one example to illustrate that one person - or country's - freedom can be another's poison.

Very good and interesting example.

"Freedom isn't free" is just one of those inane and meaningless rhetorical devices beloved of the Right. what they mean is - "we should be free to force our culture, economic priorities and dubious theocracy upon the unbelievers".

In truth 'freedom' is a balancing act Your right to sing as loud as you like (free expression) must be balance with my right not to have to listen to you (privacy). Sometime we may be seeking the same righ - for example the right to life - but that right might be mutually exclusive. e.g. If the pregnant woman is denied as abortion she will die. Freedom is about tolerance - how ironic that it should be brought down to the level of a political slogan for the supremely intolerant.

In a civil society we cannot have unfettered freedom - to do so would only lead to a reduction in freedom for some - usually the weak, or minorities - to the advantage of the majority or the strong (not always the same group).

That of course is why we have the rule of law (and thus lawyers D ).

However this 'rule of law' can only work if those in the acendency abide by it. At this time in history, in the US and to a lesser degree in Britain and elsewhere, that agreement is being breached and the rule of law is breaking down.

Claiming extingent circumstances; the executive here has decided that the rule of law does not apply - they claim a higher right to curtail the freedoms of others according to abitary and prejudiced criteria. They claim a right to detain people without trial, to torture them, even to kill them - all in the name of freedom.

And, for the most part we let them. For some pathetic illusion of security - we allow our leaders to take the freedom of others and destroy the very things they purport to defend.

Indeed freedom is not free. But if it is not defended and nurtured, it is worthless anyway.

Defending and nurturing involves more than possession of a bumper sticker.

Well Lee, I know why.
If CNN concentrates on high profile cases for weeks on end, it means the government's deeds, receive as little publicity as possible. And after 2 years of an unjustified war, Abu Ghraib, incacerating people on a whim in Gitmo - who wouldn't want that.

checks and balances my arse.

But I though CNN was all liberals? If CNN covers up for Bush, just imagine what Fox gets up to - freedom to tell wild and malicious lies without fear of challenge. :o
Gawd Bless Amurica :roll:

Yes, let us not forget it was the decision of a brave old-fashioned courageous 1960s-style journalist at the New Yorker to release the Abu Graib evidence that finally forced CBS and the rest of the media to follow suit. CBS had the photos but were sitting on them quaking in fear. Even if one is prepared to believe that the media was not exactly covering up for Bush, the White House press corps and much of the U.S media has become a bunch of gullible, subservient, unthinking cowards.

I mean back to the topic of freedom, what sort of freedom is it when the President can manage to stage-manage every event he participates in, keeps journalistic questions to the minimum, is in a political system where he rarely gets directly grilled by opposing politicians and where journalists are in awe of him and the institution he represents? And if they ask the wrong sort of questions, they're out of the inner loop for the next four years.

I am truly grateful that I live in a British-style system where the Prime Minister is regarded by the populace as the merely the best pick of a the bunch of bums, that he gets grilled and savaged every day by the opposition in Question Period where he has to subject himself to chaotic highly critical journalistic scrums every time he walks out of a room.

Freedom can be restricted on other levels as well - take bureaucracies for example.

I'm following a case where a legal gun manufacturer (small business) has basically been threatened with ruin by the Burea of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms because he videotaped (there are currently no laws forbidding this) a meeting where he took apart the BATFE agents who were trying to prove that a legal, semi-automatic rifle was a machine gun. His skill and knowledge are clearly shown to be vastly superior to the so-called experts that decide what is and is not legal and they do not like the fact that he is standing up to them - a generally feared department of the Federal Government.

Now, they are rejecting all of his creations, that a manufacturer must legally send to the BATFE for classification, claiming they are all illegal machine guns, which is nonsense to anyone who knows the differences. In addition, they approved basically the same mechanisms for the guy just a few years previously so it is definitely a case of victimisation.

Seems they chose the wrong man to piss off though as he's fighting them tooth and nail and will no doubt get much pulicity, contributions from NRA/other small manufacturers towards his legal fund (the Feds are of course suing him - the ultimate weapon in the US Government's arsenal).

All this in a supposedly 'gun-friendly' Republican government too which is puzzling unless these departments have agendas of their own - surely not? wink

8) Its a great debate, but think how the press would have played all this before 9/11.

If George had information that a bunch of nutters were going to do what they done and imposed the security restrictions that there is at Airports now. The conservatives would have been all over it. Saying things like "you can not do that, its my right"etc etc

But now its happened they are happy to waive that right. Plastic Knifes and forks and the like. Funny thing about it all EL AL still use metal knifes and forks.

because the Israeli's look for terrorists, not for weapons