What is Liberty?

[vivster]

Puppyroach said:

vivster said:

There is no absolute freedom of speech. Liberty can only go so far before it infringes on somebody else's liberty. That's why I said that the concept of liberty is flawed because absolute liberty is impossible. So a compromise has to be made.

How far that compromise goes is up to the individual states and their people.

With liberty it's less about what the government infringes and more about what liberty you infringe on someone else's liberty. The government itself isn't a separate entity. It's supposed to represent and protect the liberties of its people. So it's not really an infringing on you, but an enforcement of protecting someone else from your infringement.

No, what you said was:

"Liberty is a concept for stupid people to say stupid things and further their stupid agenda."

And who spoke about absolutes? Liberty isn´t an absolute state of the world but rather a constantly moving goalpost where we try to find ways to balance absolute freedom with society as a whole. You have one end of the scale where there is no liberty at all and you have the other scale of the end with absolute liberty, even if it infringes on other people´s liberties. But the degree of liberty we have is still present on that whole scale so how can it then be a concept for stupid people?

Because stupid people are the ones constantly moving the goal posts as they please. The concept itself is useless. We shouldn't concentrate on how "free" someone is but rather how respectful we treat each other.

"Freedom" is a strawman used by stupid people to justify being assholes.