Category Archives: Freedom

But in the lockdown, everything is relative, and complaining was not only boring, it was self-indulgent.

There was always someone worse off, and it was during the lockdown we realised how very bad worse off could be.

Illustration: Dionne GainCredit:

There were friends with dying parents interstate. There were friends with cancer. There were friends with special needs kids at home. There were friends with marriages that teetered then crashed.

And that was just in the inner circle. No need, then, to watch the news to hear of wider human misery. I started switching off any time a ventilator was shown on screen. I muted anyone in scrubs. I didnt want to hear about it. A loss of empathy or a survival mechanism? At times the two things became the same thing.

Looking at Melbourne, we New South Welshmen knew we should be thankful for our playgrounds, ziplines and all.

In the southern capital, a place with worse weather and worse case numbers, they had closed the playgrounds, a miserable act with obscure health benefits.

They taped them up like crime scenes, a visual representation of the public health message we were all forced to swallow: the things that used to give you pleasure, are now dangerous.

Other people were risky. You must draw away from them, fearing what they might give you, or what you might give them.

Playing, gathering, hugging, eating, dancing or singing together - all of it could be deadly.

What could be more cruel than telling human beings - who have evolved as the planets superior life form due to our ability to co-operate - to avoid each other?

Maybe the lockdown was good times for introverts, but still, all the introverts I know were online a hell of a lot.

The online thing seemed to expand and squeeze our solitude at the same time.

We couldnt see other people or talk to them properly, with conversational pauses, body language and smiles doing the work of words.

Instead, we were in constant touch with a large array of people, some of them strangers, through WhatsApp group chats, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

This was exhausting in its own way, because while we were always communicating, we had no room to commune.

Now we are allowed to see each other again, many of us find it tiring, like walking under a harsh sun after months in a basement. It hurts the eyes. There is an adjustment.

The homeschoolers had it hard. It seemed like a giant cosmic chuckle to expect parents to take on the work of supervising their childrens education while also doing salaried work as usual.

At my house, it was the craft projects that broke mummy.

For women, who bore the brunt of the remote learning, and whose household work (studies showed) increased at a greater proportion than mens, it was a joke. They were the punchline.

Which of the politicians canting about sacrifice and togetherness has ever overseen the construction of a diorama on a desolate Tuesday afternoon, or attempted to navigate Google classroom?

At my house, it was the craft projects that broke mummy.

Again, the reminder that we had it good. What about the kids who had no parent willing to be brought to tears by craft?

Notifications to authorities of suspected child abuse fell during lockdown. What about all those kids who needed to get out of the house to be safe? Their predicament was the opposite of others. We didnt hear about them. Thats the whole point.

The empty streets were eerie, but also a symbol of how successful we were at our project. For those of us who liked to walk the spooky streets, it was lonely but also interesting. It felt a little like the world was yours, if only for a little while, and that wasnt all bad.

In my neighbourhood, we talked over our back fences and in our front yards, sometimes with a glass in hand, in ways that flirted with the idea of gathering.

But there was always a wall between us, literally.

Now the world is thronging up again. A recent trip to the shopping mall reminded me how awful shopping malls are. Why did we ever do this? Surely it makes no sense to ever buy anything you cant buy online. Not anymore.

The queues outside Kmart at midnight the day before restrictions were lifted, tell another story, however.

Now that we can shop, gather and travel again, will we snap back? Or have we been bent so out of shape that is impossible?

Public transport is busy again, but business districts and the CBD are still on the ghostly side. There are fewer options for lunch! you think, and then you remember thats because there are so many small businesses that didnt survive.

Empty streets: business districts and the CBD are still on the ghostly side. Credit:Peter Rae

What has happened to all those people? Where are they now?

Children are back at school, but the school gate chat is masked and socially distant, and lots of children and teenagers are having difficulties readjusting, as though they have forgotten how to be.

The school communities, like the church, club and sporting communities, had to go online and are now desiccated; Humpty Dumpty-like and hard to put back together.

For those of us who missed the theatre, live shows, the joy of being entertained in a crowd, those pleasures are creeping back.

God knows we need them to return. The arts sector was decimated and then largely forgotten by a government that laments the loss of a single fossil-fuel job but seemed impervious to actors, musicians, or lighting technicians being laid off.

But how will the performers feel when they look out onto a masked audience? How will they know we are smiling? There will be no full houses because most theatres are not going back to full capacity, and no box offices because its all contactless now.

Going back to the pub, the bar, the restaurant, feels exciting. Everyone is a chatterbox. Its as though we have forgotten the rules of engagement and want to blurt out our excitement at just being together. After whiling away so many formless hours, we have no time to waste!

It is thrilling to pay a bill, it is thrilling to order another round, it is thrilling to gulp in the stories of your friends and leave no topic uncovered.

Friends share a drink and a laugh at the Kings Cross Hotel.Credit:Rhett Wyman

But still, the streets are not quite the same.

People are still not out in the numbers they were, and plans are still on hold. Many plans have been given up altogether.

They say the Spanish flu pandemic brought on the abandon of the Roaring Twenties. Give us some of that abandon, I say.

Did the lockdown transform us? Certainly, we cant go back to how we were.

Together with climate change and Chinese expansionism, it feels like the pandemic is just one of the cluster of real, grown-up problems humanity now faces. They are all such blastedly existential threats!

Yes, the Cold War was bad, but it was a more controllable risk than the ferocity of nature, and, importantly, nuclear war never broke out.

An article in The Atlantic this week noted that Americans, ahead of us in terms of pandemic stages, are still suffering anxiety and depression at high rates, despite the easing of lockdown and restrictions.

One expert quoted talked about the burden of accumulated adversity which acts like an ankle weight on the human psyche, geared though we are for resilience and adaptation.

I dont know if anything has been learned through the lockdowns, or if we have changed fundamentally. I think we have an awareness of fragility that we didnt before.

This shows up in spikiness and insecurity in public discourse.

Its as though we now have a sense of unease, borne from the knowledge of how quickly things can be taken from us.

A particular pre-pandemic memory I returned to during lockdown was a dance floor, early in the morning after a 2019 Christmas party. Dancing. Sweating, hugging, sharing drinks.

Jumping around in a crowded, subterranean space, thinking I should really go home (responsibility always knocking in the back of the mother-brain) but resisting the thought.

So many times since, I have thanked my past self for not going home at a sensible hour that night.

It made me feel so much better about pushing my daughter on the zipline for the umpteenth time, an activity I continue to do, and one which now, strangely, I enjoy, for the simple reason that it makes her happy.

Twitter: @JacquelineMaley

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From lockdown to freedom: remembering the rules of engagement - Sydney Morning Herald

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Letter to the editor: Pass the Freedom to Vote Act - Huntington Herald Dispatch

Lets talk about freedom. First, we must visit Websters Dictionary. There are multiple definitions for most words. These are but a few:

These powerful words are used a great deal lately and frequently inappropriately.

Just because I have the freedom to yell fire in a crowded hall doesnt mean it is morally right. Having the freedom to say or do as I wish doesnt make me any less responsible for my actions to others and my community.

While I have the freedom to spread fanciful, unfounded opinions as if they were fact, it doesnt make me any less guilty of deceit, regardless of my station in life. Having the freedom to say whatever I wish, regardless of the facts behind what I say, is a privilege. I should consider whether this privilege will make me proud of what I said.

I would suggest that we hold our elected officials, and those who use various media outlets to sway our opinion, to a higher standard.

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Letter to the editor: The meaning of freedom, privilege, responsibility and deceit - Summit Daily News

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As the results for the Virginia governors race began to filter in this past Tuesday, it seemed clear that Republican Glenn Youngkin was going to pull off a narrow victory, defeating Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe. There are plenty of hot-button discourse topics about this race that will no doubt be rehashed endlessly, but as a librarian, I believed that I knew what had really gotten people clutching their pearls and pouring into polling places: books.

Youngkins campaign got a lot of traction from one of the oldest of techniques: scaring white suburban parents about the books their children might be reading. But no educators or librarians I know were surprised. For months now, there has been building pressure from right-wing groups like No Left Turn in Education who have been setting up adults to go after books and even displays in public and school libraries. In Utah, Utah State Board of Education member Natalie Cline received a reprimand from the board for her continued incitement of what they classified as hate speech, which only encouraged supporters to increase threats and Cline to continue posting, including going so far as to say that a local library was engaging in grooming for having a Pride display up. In Wyoming, a complaint to the sheriffs department from a local church about books with queer content prompted local prosecutors to review the case. And these are just a few examples. There are many more.

Nationwide, public and school librarians have been under constant siege

These efforts arent just limited to red states; this is a nationwide movement, and its only growing. Giant conservative think tanks like the Manhattan Institute and PragerU have toolkits and video libraries all ready to go with information about how parents can stand up to their school boards and libraries.

Nationwide, public and school librarians, along with teachers, have been under constant siege from this tide of complaints and objections, often from people who have never read the books they are upset about or who are deliberately picking out-of-context passages. Librarians and educators who have not received formal challenges are aware they could come at any time and face other kinds of indirect harassment, from angry emails to books that go missing from shelves. The fact is, its an incredibly draining and hostile time to be working in an education field and in public libraries. Teachers and librarians, exhausted from often working public-facing positions during the pandemic, have watched as backlash against sensible public health measures like masks and vaccines have mutated into full-on attacks on their professionalism and their collections, which have been curated for all children.

Let as many people know that you value a library full of material that supports diversity

Which is why now is the time that you can do something to help your local public library and schools. If they are not currently under attack and pressure from the forces I have outlined here, you can be assured that they are aware of them and might even be anxious about them. You can do something to counter this rising tide of uninformed efforts to remove materials and displays.

First, if you are not already a user of your local public library, now is the time to get yourself a card. Your public library definitely has more to offer than you remember, and staff cant wait to tell you all about it. If you already use your public library, even infrequently, your next steps should be to reach out and ask your library staff what they need, especially when it comes to pushing back on challenges. Staff might tell you that what they need most is someone to volunteer in the Friends of the Library bookstore or that, perhaps, theres a spot on the library board they need someone to run for. They might tell you that they havent had any challenges yet, but they appreciate your support and attention. You can also ask to see your librarys collection development policy. This is the document, created by library staff, that should guide their purchasing selections and tell you more about how the collection is maintained and defended from threats. This is public information, and you can become familiar with and use it to defend your librarys collection.

Once youve done this, the next thing you can do is put into writing how you support and appreciate the librarys commitments to intellectual freedom, diverse collections, and everyones right to read. Not sure who to send this letter to? You can start with the library directortheir contact information should be easy to locate on your librarys homepagebut you can go further than that. Send it to your city council, your mayor, the manager of the department that oversees the library. Let as many people in charge in your community know that you appreciate and value a library full of material and programming that support the diversity of your community and the world. Send that letter to your local news source.

The value of libraries can often feel like an intangible thing

You can do something else too. Make use of our resources: Check out the books on display; use our e-books and databases and newspaper subscriptions; come to our programs. Then, you really will be able to talk to your fellow community members and the stakeholders and funders who make your librarys operations possible about the great community benefit their work is. This use also signals that these are resources wanted, needed, and valued by the community, from queer books to inclusive programming.

The value of libraries can often feel like an intangible thing, the sort of thing people wax rhapsodic about. But what we, as librarians, need you, as community members, to name and show up for are the tangible benefits of having a library that supports queer teens and Black kids and people without enough money to have good broadband at home, and everyone else who wants and needs to use our services. We need you to say, on record, over and over, that you support libraries as vital spaces in your community worth funding and protecting from forces that would attempt to stifle our work and progress, gradual as it may sometimes be.

Its important for you to know that libraries are not perfect, beyond critique bastions of freedom for all. School and public libraries are plagued by all the same issues of white supremacy, homophobia, and other prejudices that impact any institution or system. All too often, libraries enforce and uphold systems of oppression, including against their own marginalized staff members.

I am sharing this with you so that you do not come away from this with an idealized idea of what libraries are or how simple it will be to push back against this. There is work to be done internally at libraries, and there is work to be done by you, the public, who wants to support us and ensure that we are doing the most we can for the most members of our community. Know what your library is offering in collections and programs. Show up not just for library staff but for your whole community by voicing your support. It will not always be easy work and you will not always succeed, but more than ever, it is work that needs to be done. Librarians and educators ask you now to join us.

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How To Fight for the Freedom To Read - HarpersBAZAAR.com

Blessedly there will be no requirement for double-vaxxed travellers to quarantine. That last measure, of course, came into effect in NSW and Victoria on Monday.

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Though there is a caveat. If vaccination rates are not high enough in parts of regional Western Australia, intrastate borders could be reintroduced, which seems absolute absurdity.

Never mind Josh Frydenbergs old line about being able to travel to Paris before Perth (which of course is now reality) what if you could go from Perth to Paris but not the Pilbara?

Ahead of the announcement the Premier said repeatedly that he wanted a normal Christmas but for people with family ties in Australias most populous states and overseas it will be anything but.

Businesses who compete for national and global talent, or for international students, will see those opportunities flow to freer jurisdictions.

Ninety per cent is a fantastically high hurdle that no comparable jurisdiction has used as a precondition for reopening. Can it be achieved, without a NSW-style outbreak to drive uptake?

Vaccine Commander Chris Dawson said as recently as three weeks ago that he had not insignificant concerns about the last 20 per cent.

I think there are, on our research, in the order of 4 to 5 per cent of people who have made their minds up they are not going to get it, he said. What I am chiefly concerned about is that about 55 per cent of the population are just presently hesitating or waiting until the disease arrives in the community and saying, I will do it then.

McGowan has made West Australian exceptionalism official policy, saying there is a globally unique opportunity to transition from COVID-free to open borders with very high levels of vaccination.

Thats true, but at what cost? And at what incremental benefit?

From almost as soon as they were agreed at National Cabinet, McGowan began trashing the Doherty thresholds of 70 per cent and 80 per cent of the over-16s.

These new thresholds are said to be based on WAs own modelling, which says that 313 people would die in the first year if COVID-19 arrived at 80 per cent vaccination coverage versus 117 deaths that occurred at 90 per cent vaccination coverage.

Under the 80 per cent modelled scenario, peak ICU occupancy would be 32 beds versus 8 under 90 per cent.

WA has a $5.6 billion surplus and the luxury of 18 COVID-free months to prepare.

Why WAs modelling is superior to Dohertys model, or any other COVID modelling which, no matter how expert, has been reliably too pessimistic everywhere including NSW and Victorias current outbreaks, has not been explained.

I dont want that on my conscience, the Premier said of the extra 200 deaths.

That was the most telling line, showing just how the states response is driven by fear.

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WAs path to freedom is being dictated by 250,000 people yet to get the jab - Sydney Morning Herald

I have lived many lives in video games and saved countless worlds. Of the hundreds of characters I have become, none has felt closer to my heart than Ptolemy, the gnome mage I played for years in World of Warcraft, the game that transformed my unhappy teenage years into an epic voyage of magic, empowerment and friendship. Though todays games are more compelling and artful, no other game has consumed me so completely since I left the land of Azeroth 12 years ago.

World of Warcraft (WoW) was a landmark in the genre given the unwieldy name of massively multiplayer online role-playing games or, only marginally less of a mouthful, MMORPGs. These are persistent online worlds in which players assume the role of a single character, developing their skills and experience by co-operating and competing with other players occupying the same virtual realm.

Communities and societies bloomed overnight. For the first time, game worlds felt truly alive

Its hard to over-emphasise how revolutionary it felt at first. I was used to adventuring alone in fantasy worlds that disappeared when I turned off my console, but WoWs virtual world was always on, always changing, and it heaved with other humans. Communities and societies bloomed overnight, some of them role-playing complex characters. For the first time, game worlds felt truly alive.

Yet WoW is now over 15 years old, and no other MMORPG has rivalled its success. This has led fans to question whether the genre has run out of juice. Still, this month players rushed in their droves to New World, a colonial-themed MMORPG from Amazons gaming wing. Are we on the cusp of a genre revival? Or is this its dying gasp?

The first commercial MMORPG which featured graphic art was Neverwinter Nights, hosting 50 players simultaneously when it launched in 1991 and growing to 500 by 1995. Ultima Online followed with an emphasis on building online communities before EverQuest introduced 3D graphics to become the genres first runaway success it is still updated and played today, more than two decades later.

As computer hardware and internet speeds improved, new competitors appeared: RuneScape, the basic version of which was free to play; Guild Wars, with its emphasis on player-versus-player combat; EVE Online, a remarkable space opera which permitted radical player freedom. WoW hit like a comet in 2004, absorbing all the genres ideas and refining them into a polished package that combined serious lore and challenge with a cartoony graphical style and an emphasis on fun and community.

These success stories trundled along into the 2010s, adding new content to keep players engaged. But in recent years there has been a marked absence of exciting new projects. While other genres have evolved, MMORPGs have stagnated. They got bigger, but not better. One of the most popular recent releases is World of Warcraft Classic, which restores the game back to its unadorned first iteration: many players would rather go backwards than forwards. Sometimes I wonder: did the games change? Or did we?

Just because there hasnt been another blockbuster, it doesnt mean the genre is dead. If one game can claim to have assumed WoWs mantle, it is 2013s Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, a game that was rebuilt after a failed 2010 launch and has since cultivated a dedicated community of 24m players, making the impressive claim to be the most profitable game in the Final Fantasy series. Meanwhile New World, with its 17th-century setting and focus on crafting, drummed up healthy viewing numbers on Twitch though it has recently been shedding players. We are also beginning to witness the first MMORPGs born through crowdfunding, including the new release Crowfall and the upcoming Pantheon and Ashes of Creation.

Even if theres never another WoW, MMORPGs will live on as niche interests with dedicated fanbases. In todays online gaming space they must compete with titles that are more accessible, such as sandboxes Minecraft and Roblox, battle arenas League of Legends and Pokmon Unite or shooters like Fortnite and Destiny.

Ultimately, though, none of these competitors would be what they are without the inspiration of MMORPGs. They are the children of Warcraft. They mimic the economic model which uses subscriptions, microtransactions and regular content updates. They prioritise features that encourage communities to form. They construct compelling digital worlds that players can jump into any time. They all chase MMORPGs greatest gift, the total freedom offered in their virtual worlds freedom to write your own story, whether that be to go dungeon crawling, make life-long friends, sell leather at auction houses, or simply go fishing in a quiet mountain stream.

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The legacy of World of Warcraft and its gift of total freedom - Financial Times

Liberty Leading the People, Eugene Delacroix

Freedom is a key concept in philosophy. It is defined, negatively, as the absence of constraint; positively like the state of the one who does what he wants.

Freedom is surprisingly a fairly modern concept, since the Greeks spoke little of it, considering that man should rather reflect the cosmos rather than obey his own aspirations. The Moderns, from Kierkegaard, then Heidegger and Sartre, who have made freedom a key piece of metaphysics, as evidenced by the famous quotes on freedom.

The main question is: what is exactly the freedom and to prove if we are or not, trying to justify the strong and internal feeling (Descartes) that we have of being free and which is found in every man.

To define freedom, it is sufficient to give an adequate description:

In the fullest sense, freedom is a voluntary realization, justified by the greatest number of motives. Because our action is then not only the expression of a personal choice, but of a choice capable of justifying itself rationally in the eyes of all. After Plato and Spinoza, Kant has given full scope to the rationalism of freedom: action is free when consciousness is determined against sensible desires, according to a rational principle.

Freedom is not really what we do, but how we do it. Freedom is an attitude, that of the man who recognizes himself in his life, who approves the history of the world and events. This is why freedom often consists in changing ones desires rather than the order of the world (Descartes). It is to such a conception (that of the Stoics) that the moderns (Sartre, Kierkegaard) have returned; man becomes free when he substitutes an active attitude for a situation undergone, when he takes sides with the events of his time: in short, freedom is proved by realizing oneself, when man realizes his destiny by working instead of suffering it.

When we are self-sufficient, we come to possess the inestimable good of freedom (Epicurus)

Faced with freedom, the idea of destiny, of determinism, of fatality (fatum) is opposed as synonymous with an inexorable sequence of causes and effects that can not be extracted. The illustration of this fatum: Oedipus who does not escape the oracle of Delphi: he actually killed his father and married his mother.

Originally abandoned by its biological parents to remove the ominous omen, Oedipus is raised by adoptive parents. Adult, he leaves, quarrels with a man and kills him (he does not know that he has just killed his biological father). Then Oedipus will give the right answer to the sphinx, will be received triumphantly in the city he has just liberated from the domination of the sphinx: he then becomes king by marrying the queen (unaware that the queen is his biological mother): from their union will be born Antigone Once he learns the truth, he blows his eyes and wanders begging.

Freedom: a wrenching away from fatality, a tearing away from the law of nature, a tearing away from determinism

Epictetus: You are master of my carcass; take it, you have no power over me

Descartes: The freedom of our will knows itself without proof, by the only experience we have

Paul Valry: Freedom is one of those hateful words that are worth more than meaning

Rousseau: Freedom is less about doing ones will than about being subjected to that of others; it still consists in not submitting the will of others to ours .

The notion of freedom can be understood as synonymous with a total absence of constraints, obstacles to the desires of each and their realization. Freedom would then be synonymous with license. Now, to say yes to all that one may desire also the manifestation of a lack of freedom, of alienation, to be a slave of ones passions.

Freedom presupposes constraints, limits, prohibitions because freedom is also that of others. But freedom presupposes limits, what are they?

It involves a difficult game between the singular and the individual. Does not freedom for all presuppose a limit for everyones freedom?

Is freedom an illusion?

The free will is only an illusion.Text of Spinoza, P.401: ethics

Appetites: tension towards something. Men think themselves free because they do not know the causes that determine them. They think they are free when their inclination for something remains slight. This lightness suggests that we can choose freely to follow or not to follow our impulses by counteracting them, if necessary, by another impulse. However, to observe our choices, it is clear that we sometimes do the test of remorse, regret We understand then that sometimes, knowing the best, we make the choice of the worst. So, freedom is an illusion because if the subject is conscious about his actions he remains ignorant as to the reasons that push him to act as well: I know only the effect of the appetite but I do not know the origin of this appetite. These are body affections.

Man possesses self-consciousness: he is conscious of wanting and thinks that he desires freely. He thinks that the will is free and has power over the body. But this belief is a mistake.

At Spinoza, freedom does not go without saying, it is not impossible to acquire. To access freedom, man must determine himself to act and think. To do this, he must apply to his reason, decide what is good and useful. When his reason determines his action, then submission to the passions is reduced, diminished.

If freedom is not self-evident, the fact remains that determinism is not a biological fatality from which we can not escape. If it is not original, it is that freedom is something to acquire, a state to be realized.

Kant: the critique of pure reason (full summary)

All that is produced in the world has two origins

Nature as originFreedom as originNature: the laws of nature: determinism: the causal relation: relation of cause and effect: the same causes produce the same effects. The animal is determined by its nature, it can not act otherwise than as its nature requires it.Freedom: to create something by oneself and for oneself: to be at the origin and the consequence of what is produced: therefore not to be subjected to anything but oneself.In the eighteenth century, atheism appears and develops, but if the idea of a creator God disappears, the man remains read from a concept (as can be the paper cutter). It is defined by its essence.Freedom: an idea produced by reason but to which no object exists in the experience. Freedom: it is practical, it is an action in the world. It can not be proved, it can only be proved. It implies the notions of moral responsibility, of ethics so that life in community is possible.With Sartres thought and existentialism, we remove the idea of God and that of the concept to define man. Therefore, there is 1) existence, 2) essence: man is not originally determined, there is no inevitability. He exists and exists means that he is the creator of his existence: man is and becomes what he does with him, that is to say, he becomes the acts he performs and that he he has chosen freely since he is not determined by any kind. He is absolutely free. But this freedom implies the following phenomenon: since he is free, his choices are too, so he is responsible for what he is facing himself and facing others.

Existentialism means that man is the creator of his own existence. But this freedom has a price: the responsibility: if the man is free, he is responsible for his actions, his choices. This therefore imposes the question of ethics, of duty, of the limit not to be crossed. So freedom and ethics go together: to be free is to be absolutely responsible for what we are from what we do.

Text of Kant P.405: the critique of the practical reason (summary)

Autonomy: that which depends only on oneself, by oneself. Which is subject to nothing but himself. The opposite of autonomy: heteronomy. Pure Reason, the will that determines the moral law is certainly a maxim that imposes itself on the subject but transcends the simple individuality of the self because valid for all subjects (so the law is universal).Heteronomy: that which is imposed by an external will, an external constraint. The desire is changeable, it belongs to the contingent, it is of the order of volition and not of the will. The free will: the one by which reason determines itself. And the reason is the intellectual faculty which produces the categorical imperative which itself leads to duty and morality. To be free is to act in relation to a law which one has given oneself from the use of reason, imperatively and not according to the laws of nature and its small sensibility. Freedom: the autonomy of the will and this is the moral law.If this definition of freedom as something to be conquered proceeds from an ability to be determined by the moral law, this freedom implies ethical and legal limits. Is not freedom political, civil? Civil liberty implies the loss of natural liberty by the introduction of laws, prohibitions that limit the expression of selfish, egotistical individuality in favour of a collective, civil freedom.

Political freedom: it implies the notion of laws, duty, constraints for everyone so that everyone can live with everyone.Before being a metaphysical question, freedom is above all a political question: before being individual, freedom is collective. How can we be free together?

Rousseaus text: P.408: From the social contract

Freedom consists not so much in doing ones will as in not being subjected to that of others; it still consists in not submitting the will of others to ours .

Rousseau explains the transition from natural freedom to civil liberty.

Natural freedom: that which consists in doing all that one desires (without laws, without constraints ) it is without limit: the man answers only to his instincts. We then speak of a state of nature. The state of nature is a working hypothesis for thinking man below and prior to all life in society. In this state of nature, only force is the limit, only power is authoritative. Desire, instinct, appetites guide and push man to act according to his instinct. Men are by nature slaves of their passions. Special interests make them in an incessant struggle. The only law that reigns: the law of the strongest. All is violence and chaos.Civil liberty: an ordered freedom, legislated by laws that make natural freedom that is only violence replaced by a freedom in which peace is possible between all because limited by laws. It is justice, law, and legality that define what can be done and prohibited in civil society. Man is no longer in instinct but in reason: the general interest outweighs the particular interest.The passage from 1) to 2): a loss because men can not do all they want but also a gain because they developed their intellectual faculties and mainly the reason and the law on the moral plane and on the legal plan. This passage between natural and civil liberty is done by a contract, that is to say the acceptance by all men to get rid of their unlimited and violent natural freedom for the benefit of limited civil liberty. but pacified.Only citizenship is not self-evident. In ancient Greece, women, non-Greeks, children and slaves were excluded from citizenship. By definition, the slave is one who is at the service of a master. His freedom is denied, he is only an instrument. One can therefore wonder if, in spite of everything, the fact of not being able to enjoy the civil liberty deprives of any form of freedom. Is there not a metaphysical freedom, an intellectual freedom that would allow the subject to be beyond irons, beyond the physical chaining, thus a freedom that would proceed from thought.

The slave: the slave himself is a kind of animated property and any man in the service of others is therefore an instrument that acts as an instrument.

By definition, the slave is one whose will is alienated at the will of another. Its one thing, its not considered a subject, like one capable of self-determination. It is only an instrument whose will does not have to manifest itself.

However, Aristotle also affirms the following: If nature has produced slaves because their cops are robust, it has produced men who are physically weaker but intellectually capable of realizing their spirit as free men. that: Yet the opposite frequently happens too; slaves have bodies of free men, and men free from the souls of slaves .

Could not freedom be metaphysical?To answer this, it is enough to think of Epictetus: former slave manhandled by his master. According to Epictetus, freedom is that of thought. And in front of her the tyrant is without power. But can metaphysical freedom do without expression, or atrophy if it can not be said? Can a freedom persist if it remains in silence?

Arendt explains that metaphysical freedom is not first but second. Above all, freedom is political, as in ancient Greece, freedom was political, it was defined by citizenship. Without political freedom, no freedom can be manifested, it can not be worldly, that is to say, to assert oneself in the world, to become objective, to become objectified.The objectification of freedom therefore appears necessary because what is a freedom that has no place to tell itself, no place to be realized? Does not the freedom to develop have to confront others? In contact with others, ideas clash, develop

A freedom forced to remain silent, a freedom that can not act does it end up dying? Freedom in acting effectively implies the very meaning of freedom: the responsibility of e that one faces the freedom of others, the freedom that is the other.

Whether freedom is physical or metaphysical, it appears to be more of the ideal than of the definite idea. It remains an indeterminate concept but it is necessary to presuppose to maintain the idea of responsibility. Without the concept of freedom: more to answer for oneself and determinism and fate can become excuses for what one is Rolland:

Fatality is the excuse of souls without will.

Strange thing that freedom as if its indeterminacy even made it the precious character, more than a word, freedom has become a value in itself: Paul Valry: freedom, it is one of those hateful words that have more value only meaning.

We are doomed to be free

Freedom is not a choice, it is a state of fact, a necessity: we can not not be free if any idea of responsibility disappears

I told you that the freedom of man consists in his power to act, not in the chimerical power of wanting to want (Voltaire)

Freedom consists in determining oneself (Leibniz)

Only the rational being, considered as such, is absolutely autonomous, the absolute foundation of oneself (Fichte)

Men are mistaken in their belief that they believe themselves free, and this opinion consists solely in their being conscious of their actions and ignorant of the causes by which they are determined; what constitutes their idea of freedom is that they know no cause of their actions (Spinoza)

Freedom coincides with the nothingness that is in the heart of man (Sartre in Being and Nothingness)

Continued here:

Freedom in Philosophy: Quotes, Concepts, Authors ...

I see the liberty of the individual not only as a great moral good in itself (or, with Lord Acton, as the highest political good), but also as the necessary condition for the flowering of all the other goods that mankind cherishes: moral virtue, civilization, the arts and sciences, economic prosperity. Out of liberty, then, stem the glories of civilized life. Murray Rothbard

The terms "freedom" and "liberty" have become clichs in modern political parlance. Because these words are invoked so much by politicians and their ilk, their meanings are almost synonymous and used interchangeably. That's confusing and can be dangerous because their definitions are actually quite different.

"Freedom" is predominantly an internal construct. Viktor Frankl, the legendary Holocaust survivor who wrote Man's Search For Meaning, said it well: Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose ones own way (in how he approaches his circumstances).

In other words, to be free is to take ownership of what goes on between your ears, to be autonomous in thoughts first and actions second. Your freedom to act a certain way can be taken away from you but your attitude about your circumstances cannot making one's freedom predominantly an internal construct.

Or listen on your favorite app:

On the other hand, "liberty" is predominantly an external construct. It's the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views. The ancient Stoics knew this (more on that in a minute). So did the Founding Fathers, who wisely noted the distinction between negative and positive liberties, and codified that difference in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The distinction between negative and positive liberties is particularly important, because an understanding of each helps us understand these seminal American documents (plus it explains why so many other countries have copied them). The Bill of Rights is a charter of negative liberties it says what the state cannot do to you. However, it does not say what the state must do on your behalf. This would be a positive liberty, an obligation imposed upon you by the state.

Thus in keeping with what the late Murray Rothbard said above, the liberty of the individual is the necessary condition for the flowering of all the other "goods" that mankind cherishes. Living in liberty allows each of us to fully enjoy our freedoms. And how these two terms developed and complement one another is important for anyone desiring to better understand what it means to be truly free.

To better understand what freedom and liberty mean, it's helpful to look at the respective etymologies of these words, digging into their histories and how they developed.

Freedom comes from Old English, meaning power of self-determination, state of free will; emancipation from slavery, deliverance. There were similar variants in Old Frisian such as fridom, the Dutch vrijdom, and Middle Low German vridom.

Liberty comes from the Latin libertatem (nominative libertas), which means civil or political freedom, condition of a free man; absence of restraint, permission. Its important to note that the Old French variant liberte, "free will," has also shaped liberty's meaning. In fact, William R. Gregs essay France in January 1852 notes that the French notion of liberty is political equality, whereas the English notion is rooted in personal independence.

In an interview with Lew Rockwell, Professor Butler Shaffer makes some interesting distinctions between freedom and liberty. Shaffer argues that freedom is the condition that exists within your mind, within my mind. Its that inner sense of integrity. Its an inner sense of living without conflict, without contradiction, without various divisions and so forth.

This point of view is in line with the philosophy of the Stoics. They believed that a persons body can be physically imprisoned, but not his mind (much like Viktor Frankl famously said in his Man's Search for Meaning). Shaffer adds to the distinction:

Liberty is a condition that arises from free people living together in society. Liberty is a social condition. Freedom is the inner philosophical and psychological condition.

In short, freedom is inherent to humans. It exists within them by virtue of their humanity. Liberty is a political construct that allows people to enjoy freedoms such as property rights, free speech, freedom of association, etc.

Sadly, liberty has not been the natural state of mankind. History has shown that liberty particularly of the individual has been a distinguishing feature of Western societies, especially in the early years of the United States.

One of the structural problems with American politics since the advent of the Progressive Era in the early 20th century has been the emphasis on positive rights (aka "positive liberties," a misnomer at an individual level if there ever was one) at the expense of negative ones. What are the differences between negative and positive rights?

Philosophy professor Aeon Skoble provides a good summary:

Fundamentally, positive rights require others to provide you with either a good or service. A negative right, on the other hand, only requires others to abstain from interfering with your actions. If we are free and equal by nature, and if we believe in negative rights, any positive rights would have to be grounded in consensual arrangements.

For example, private property, free speech, and freedom of association are negative rights. In other words, these are rights that prevent others above all, the state from transgressing on you personally or on your property.

Along with these rights come responsiblities. In other words, you must bear the consequences of your actions as you exercise them. This is why you can't "falsely shout fire in a theatre and cause a panic" without bearing the consequences of the panic you caused, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes noted in Schenk v. United States in 1919.

Like all negative rights, free speech comes with responsibility; if you use that speech to spread information which is false and causes harm, then you're not protected carte blanche. Others can petition the court for the panic you've caused as a result of your exercise of free speech.

On the other hand, positive rights are granted by the government and involve the trampling of an individual or another class of individuals rights. These kinds of rights like state-funded healthcare or public education are justified on abstract grounds, such as the public good or the general will. By their very nature, they require the state to take from one group in order to give to another, usually in the form of taxes.

Appeals to the general will originate from the famous 18th century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who emphasized that a strong government makes individuals free and that individuals submit to the state for the sake of the greater good. If that sounds backwards to you, you're not alone.

Author James Bovard highlights some of the follies behind Rousseaus thinking:

Rousseau's concept of the general will led him to a concept of freedom that was a parody of the beliefs accepted by British and American thinkers of his era. Rousseau wrote that the social contract required that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free.

In other words, if you don't want to go along with the "will of the people" (or as Rousseau defined it, "the general will"), then the state can compell you to do so even if that means trampling your individual rights and responsibilities.

Bovard also noted how Rousseaus concept of freedom had nothing to do with the independence of the individual:

C. E. Vaughan, in a 1915 study of Rousseau's work, correctly observed that, for Rousseau, freedom is no longer conceived as the independence of the individual. It is rather to be sought in his total surrender to the service of the State. "

Rousseau (1712-78) was the first of the modern intellectuals, and one of the most influential Englightenment thinkers. He died a decade before the French Revolution of 1789, but many contemporaries held him responsible for it, and so for the demolition of the Ancien Regime in Europe.

One can see how Rousseau's ideas translated into actions when comparing the French Revolution to the American one. After all, ideas matter especially in revolutionary politics.

The French and American Revolutions happened within a dozen years of one another, yet they centered around two very different concepts of individual liberty. For the French, the goal was to ensure political equality. For the Americans, it was personal independence. This distinction helps shed light on what made the outcomes of the two Revolutions so different.

The French Revolution devolved into chaos when revolutionary zealots like Maximilien Robespierre became the de facto head of the Committee of Public Safety. Under the Committees direction, Robespierre conducted the infamous Reign of Terror against all opponents of the French Revolution. Robespierre was inspired in part by Rousseau, stating: "Rousseau is the one man who, through the loftiness of his soul and the grandeur of his character, showed himself worthy of the role of teacher of mankind."

If Thomas Jefferson was to Rousseau the facilitator of their respective Revolutions, then Robespierre was to General Washington the implementor.

During his despotic period of leadership, Robespierre went as far as to create a Cult of the Supreme Being, a state religion based on secularism. This was part of Robespierres revolutionary program to completely destroy Frances Roman Catholic tradition in pursuit of an ambiguous "political equality" amongst the masses. Instead of trying to fight for freedom-based principles like the Founding Fathers did, Robespierre was more concerned with destroying all features of French civic society in the name of progress.

In a cruel twist of irony, Robespierre and his Committee of Public Safety behaved more like the previous French monarchy once they seized control. For that reason, the French Revolution turned into a chaotic murder spree that saw tens of thousands of people executed at the guillotine for simply opposing Robespierres vision. In the end, Robespierre got a taste of his own medicine, when the French National Convention arrested him and put him to death on July 28, 1794.

It took a young upstart general in Napoleon Bonaparte to put an end to the 15-year chaos of the French Revolution. France reverted back to monarchical rule when Napoleon became emperor in 1804, which restored some semblance of political stability to the crisis-beleaguered nation.

France reached great heights under Napoleons rule, in which the country dominated a substantial portion of Europe. However, Napoleon would be defeated and forced into exile in 1815. France went back to its monarchical system, albeit with certain republican features, when Louis XVIII assumed the throne from 1815 to 1824. France did not morph into a genuine republic until 1848, when the Second Republic was established. However, France swung from imperial to republican governments until 1871, when the Third Republic of France came into power.

The road to political stability in France was rather rocky, and was a demonstration that flawed ideas about the tenuous relationship of the state's role in an individual's life can be deadly. Unfortunately, most countries across the globe have taken after Frances example of governance as opposed to the American model.

Latin America is arguably the best example of this.

Etched above the entrace to the Colombian Palace of Justice is a quote by General Francisco de Paula Santander:

"Colombianos las armas os han dado la independencia, las leyes os darn la libertad" (Colombians arms have given us independence, laws will give us liberty)

Santanders quote was indicative of the stark difference in political philosophies of the Latin American Wars of Independence from Spain and the American War of Independence from Great Britain. He and his counterpart, Simn Bolvar, were not inspired by classically liberal ideas of an individual's inalienable rights hence Santanders belief that liberty comes from the state, not from natural law as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the American Declaration of Independence:

Jefferson's philosophy held that an individual's unalienable rights are notgivento one in a document, but by their Creator (and subsequently codified in the Bill of Rights "in order to prevent the misconstruction or abuse of its powers" as it states in the preamble.) In other words, an unalienable right is God-given. It isnt granted by a president, a king, or any government otherwise it can be taken away.

Santander and his counterpart Bolivar didn't share Jefferson's view. Juan Baustista Alberdi, one of Latin Americas premier classical liberal thinkers in the 19th century, understood the major distinctions behind the Latin American and American Wars of Independence in his essay Omnipotence of the State:

Washington and his contemporaries were more interested in fighting for individual rights and liberties than just fighting for independence of their country. Once they attained the former, they were able to achieve the latter, as opposed to South American countries, who won their political independence but did not obtain individual freedoms.

The Founding Fathers fought, above all, for the restoration of the liberties they enjoyed as Englishmen, which were usurped by the tyranical King George III. On the other hand, Latin American leaders were fighting for independence from Spain and not much else. There wasn't an underlying belief in an individual's unalienable rights. Instead, in their view, these rights were granted by the state and their laws, and consequently could also be taken away.

Bolivar in particular feared introducing too much liberty to the uneducated masses once Spainish rule ended. He foresaw anarchy, and thus believed in the necessity of a strong central authority once Gran Colombia gained independence. (Gran Colombia was made up of Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela.) These were the views of a man raised in the Caracas elite.

Bolivar (1783-1830) was born into aristocracy in Caracas. He was a product of the Enlightenment, and was strongly influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Just like Robespierre in France, Boliver was entranced by Rousseau's ideas. In particular he subscribed to Rousseaus general will concept, which called on the intellectual and educated elite to identify what's in the best interest of the people.Picture the state serving as a "benevolent guiding hand" if you will; except that it won't be benevolent if you don't go along with where that hand is guiding you.

Bolvar believed that past subjugation under Spanish colonial rule left many of the Gran Colombia people ignorant and unable to acquire knowledge, power or civic virtue. Therefore, supposedly in the name of the "greater good,"Bolvarbelieved that these people should be freed but not given too much individual liberty. He says as much in his famous Cartagena Manifesto, where it's clear he was not a fan of federalism:

But what most weakened the government of Venezuela was the federalist structure it adopted, embodying the exaggerated notion of the rights of man. By stipulating that each man should rule himself, this idea undermines social pacts and constitutes nations in a state of anarchy. Such was the true state of the confederation. Each province governed itself independently, and following this example, each city claimed equal privilege, citing the practice of the provinces and the theory that all men and all peoples have the right to institute whatever form of government they choose. The federal system, although it is the most perfect and the most suitable for guaranteeing human happiness in society, is, notwithstanding, the form most inimical to the interests of our emerging states.

In Bolvars view, the 1812 collapse of the First Republic of Venezuela was due to its decentralized federal system, which demonstrated that the First Republic in fact needed to have stronger state control. After independence was achieved throughout most of Latin America in 1821, Bolvar established Gran Colombia an even larger territory with stronger centralized power.

Bolvar had lofty aspirations for Gran Colombia. He saw it as a potential powerhouse that would rival the U.S. and European powers by implementing Rousseua's "general will" concept. However, Bolivars dreams did not go as planned. By 1828, Gran Colombia was on the ropes due to internal turmoil and political infighting.

There is a parallel here with the U.S. Articles of Confederation. It lasted eight years before the Continental Congress in Philadelphia replaced it with the U.S. Constituion, primarily because the federal government was too weak to pay their Revolutionary War debts. Gran Colombia lasted seven years before it began to implode. However, unlike the Continental Congress, which convened to replace the U.S. Articles whilst still protecting an individual's inalienable rights, Bolivar dissolved the Constitutional Convention of Ocaa because he was unable to reform the Constitution of Gran Colombia. He then did what all good dictators do he declared himself in charge of the Republic of Colombia, making it abundantly clear that Colombia was in fact no longer a republic.

The Gran Colombia experiment would come to a grinding halt in 1830, when Ecuador, New Granada (present-day Colombia), and Venezuela decided to break away and carve out their own national paths.

Gran Colombias dissolution made Bolvar pause and reflect. At the end of his life, he'd been driven out of politics, into exile, and knew he would die soon. In his letter to General Juan Jos Flores, Ploughing the Sea, Bolvar was blunt about his concerns for Latin Americas future:

You know that I have ruled for twenty years, and I have derived from these only a few sure conclusions: (1) (Latin) America is ungovernable, for us; (2) Those who serve revolution plough the sea; (3) The only thing one can do in (Latin) America is emigrate; (4) This country will fall inevitably into the hands of the unrestrained multitudes and then into the hands of tyrants so insignificant they will be almost imperceptible, of all colors and races; (5) Once weve been eaten alive by every crime and extinguished by ferocity, the Europeans wont even bother to conquer us; (6) If it were possible for any part of the world to revert to primitive chaos, it would be (Latin) America in her last hour.

Since then, Latin America would experience decades of political and economic instability. Despotism, the non-existence of the rule of law, and economic interventionism have been hallmarks of Latin American politics for the past century and a half. One could argue this is due to the fact that there is no philosophical basis in an individual's unalienable right. It is only a matter of power.

One neednt look further than present-day Venezuela to see what happens when collectivism becomes part and parcel of the political culture. Ideas like individual liberty and personal responsiblity form the philosophical bedrock of a functioning republic. Their adoption can be the difference between generational poverty or prosperity for nations.

The manipulation of what liberty and an individual's rights and responsibilities constitute has already made its way to the U.S., where the lack of understanding of what liberty truly means has been apparent since the advent of the Progressive Era.

During this period, political pundits and economic theorists became obsessed with scientism, which is the over-reliance on or over-application of the scientific method as a means of trying to move society forward towards an ambiguous utopia. Instead of focusing on the defense of foundational principles like liberty and the rights and responsibilities of the individual, 20th-century intellectuals focused more on scientific ways to plan society from the top down. The state would obviously be the main driver, and its central planning would make people free."

However, such a view encountered pushback during the 20th century. Economist Ludwig von Mises courageously stood up to this top-down vision and exposed the limits of science in his work Planned Chaos:

Science is competent to establish what is. It can never dictate what ought to be.

Mises warning unfortunately fell on deaf ears. Progressivisms apex came about during the administration of Woodrow Wilson.

In that period, the income tax and the Federal Reserve were established, while the U.S. embarked on its most expansive foreign adventure to date when the Wilson Administation (supported by powerful bankers like J.P. Morgan) led America into World War I under false pretenses, lying about the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania by German submarines. This war would pave the way for increasing levels of government intervention, as witnessed during the New Deal and Great Society Eras where the warfare/welfare state became even more consolidated. To this day, Washington's power in the lives of private citizens continues to grow without much pushback.

Discussions about freedom and liberty as well as the important distinction between negative and positive liberties, which form the bedrock of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights have become quite quaint, as people use these words in Orwellian fashion to justify a litany of government intrusions in our lives. When we let their meanings become obscurred, we cede to those whose underlying goal is more state power the ability to manipulate the public for their own tyrannical ends. We not only need to comprehend the differences between freedom and liberty, but also recover their original meaning so that there is foundational clarity in political discussions.

Original post:

Freedom vs. Liberty: Understanding the Difference & What ...

Somehow, someone made the decision to let Joe Biden out and to go to a CNN town hall.

Im not sure who thought this was a good idea. But even within the friendly confines of CNN, it was a complete train wreck even by Biden standards.

Naturally, most of the questions from folks in the audience were Democrats or softball questions. But there were some highlights and it was disastrous.

Lets start with the creepiness and the incoherence.

Heres Joe Biden claiming that top corporations dont pay a cent in taxes with that creepy stage whisper voice.

Does anyone want to tell him hes also doing that sign that the left has deemed a white power sign? It isnt, but theyre always freaking out about it and claiming it is. So are they going to call out Biden now?

Here he was talking aboutthe supply chain problem because of disruptions at the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach. Except he couldnt remember Long Beach.

How much is he working to solve this problem if he cant even identify the name of the port? And how much of a problem is it when his brain just goes out on him like this? What am I doing here? he says. Yikes. Doesnt he know?

Then theres this really weird moment. What the heck is going on here with his hands? He looks like hes about to have a fit and stops halfway.

More complete confusion he misidentifies Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD).

When you start to get into the meat of his answers (such as they were), Biden revealed he had no answers and/or just doesnt tell the truth.

When asked about the rising gas prices he says he doesnt have a near term answer and its going to be hard.

Great, the guy who promised he has an answer to everything not only has no answers, he makes problems worse with the things he does do. How about not attacking the energy industry, cutting off sources of oil that we had like the Keystone XL pipeline and today, not defending the Willow Project in Alaska that would provide us with both oil and thousands of jobs? How about not working against our energy independence or helping the Russians complete their pipelines like Nord Stream 2?

Biden claimed that wages are up but in fact, because of rising prices, the purchasing power hasnt gotten better.

Biden also said he agrees with terminating police officers and other first responders if they didnt comply with vaccine mandates. Welcome to chaos and anarchy and a complete disregard for the value that all these people represent to our society. Bidens America.

In terms of dealing with the border? Hey, he just hasnt had the time. Theres no evidence so far that hes ever been there. But Jill has, so that should be enough, right?

However, Biden has had time to go spend most weekends since he took office in either one of his Delaware homes, including time to bask on the beach. Priorities.

When asked about the removal of a statue of Thomas Jefferson, while he stated a basic truth that its up to the locality to determine what to do about such statues he, Biden, couldnt be bothered to say anything on behalf of one of our Founding Fathers. Its cool with him if they pull a Stalin and just do away with history. Thats a troubling thought.

While in such a train wreck of a town hall, its hard to pick a worst moment, definitely one of the worst looks was when Biden actually mocked freedom. Come on, man, its the United States, dont you know we dont go for mocking freedom?

The two things that concern me, Biden said One, are those who just try to make this a political issue Freedom, I have the freedom to kill you with my COVID. No, I mean come on, Freedom?

Just shut up and comply with Big Brother, you peasants, how dare you think you are free from having the government mandate injections into your body! Stop with that freedom stuff! The vaccine doesnt prevent the transmission and vaccinated can spread it as well. Unvaccinated doesnt necessarily mean infected. So his demonizing is once again just nonsense. Anyone who talks this way about freedom doesnt understand the first thing about this country and should never be in this office.

Read the original post:

Biden Mocks Freedom in Twisted Train Wreck of a Town Hall ...

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said Friday that Taiwan is the "frontline of tyranny versus freedom," and called President Biden's actions, regarding his proposed military defense budget, "weak."

BIDEN PLEDGES TO DEFEND TAIWAN IF CHINA ATTACKS

DAN SULLIVAN: Taiwan is not some peripheral sideshow in great power competition. To me, it is the frontline of tyranny versus freedom. And it's in some ways similar to like West Berlin during the height of the Cold War against the Soviet Union in the last century. So what we have in our country is a history of commitment and resolve with regard to Taiwan

But what the president, he's saying things that are important. But what he's doing in terms of actions is actually weak. Right now, the president is submitting a defense budget that would cut defense, that would shrink the US Navy. And to me, the actions of what we're doing in terms of keeping a strong military are much more important than the words. That's what the Chinese Communist Party look for, strength.

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Sen. Dan Sullivan says Taiwan is 'frontline of tyranny vs ...