Are we seeing the realization of Victor Hugo’s famous maxim, “An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.”? I certainly think so.
Liberty was defined by Thomas Jefferson as "Declaration of The Rights of Man and The Citizen" as: "Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law."
However I preferred Patrick Henry’s saying that "Liberty is not the right to do what one wants, but the right to do what one must."
Liberty is the freedom to do as you please so long as you don’t coerce others. This means you have to right to associate with others voluntarily, you have the freedom of speech and publish, practice the religion of your choice or not at all, keep what you earn, run your own business and love and live as you please – as long as you don’t violate the rights of others.
We need liberty to think, to create, and to fulfill our individual and unique potential. Liberty is as essential to our psychological nature as food and air are requirements of our biological nature.
When we are deprived of liberty, economies stagnate, cultures deteriorate, science declines, living standards fall and the human spirit diminished.
As of its compelling and important value, tyrannical dictators in the past have uses liberty in promoting their evil agenda. They pretend to advocate “higher” freedom – such as “national security”, “economic equality” or “the common good”. We all have heard it in the past. The graveyards of history are filled with corpses of those deceived by such claims. Slaves are made by such claims.
From the Soviet Union to Nazi Germany, totalitarian nations have murdered and tortured over 100 million people all the name of “economic equality” and “the common good”. Even the United States imprisoned over 100 thousand American-Japanese descendents in the after math of Pearl Harbor in the name of “national security”.
In 1759, Benjamin Franklin famously said, those who give up their liberty in exchange for government promises of security, end up with neither liberty nor security.
Countries which deny liberty to their citizens are the most brutal, poor, and miserable places on earth. In the end, tyrannies fail because they are based upon coercion, and coercion is fundamentally incompatible with human nature.
It is in our nature to seek and be free. Therefore individual rights must have elements of freedom which include the freedom to live your life in peace. Other rights include:
· Freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly;
· Freedom of association;
· Rights to self-defense;
· Rights to keep what you earn; and
· Freedom of enterprise and the right to own property.
Freedom is not just practical but moral as well. Socialist often argues that liberty would not feed a starving man – implying that liberty is less important than government-guaranteed security. But it is the absence of liberty that produces starvation and poverty. The freer the country, the more prosperous it is. The poorest, most miserable countries in the world – Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, etc. – have an abundance only of government promises, fear and suffering.
From the concentration camps of Nazi Germany and the Soviet gulags, to Cambodia’s killing fields, the 20th Century has witnessed hideous despotisms. But coercive government of every variety – socialism, fascism, and the democratic welfare state – simply doesn’t work and eventually collapses.
Liberty is the wave of the future. The Internet, computer encryption, digital cash and other exciting new technologies have begun to free people throughout the world. With courage and dedication, the 21st Century will be the century of global liberty.
Sooner or later liberty will triumph. Liberty is our destiny – an idea whose time has come.
Liberty was defined by Thomas Jefferson as "Declaration of The Rights of Man and The Citizen" as: "Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law."
However I preferred Patrick Henry’s saying that "Liberty is not the right to do what one wants, but the right to do what one must."
Liberty is the freedom to do as you please so long as you don’t coerce others. This means you have to right to associate with others voluntarily, you have the freedom of speech and publish, practice the religion of your choice or not at all, keep what you earn, run your own business and love and live as you please – as long as you don’t violate the rights of others.
We need liberty to think, to create, and to fulfill our individual and unique potential. Liberty is as essential to our psychological nature as food and air are requirements of our biological nature.
When we are deprived of liberty, economies stagnate, cultures deteriorate, science declines, living standards fall and the human spirit diminished.
As of its compelling and important value, tyrannical dictators in the past have uses liberty in promoting their evil agenda. They pretend to advocate “higher” freedom – such as “national security”, “economic equality” or “the common good”. We all have heard it in the past. The graveyards of history are filled with corpses of those deceived by such claims. Slaves are made by such claims.
From the Soviet Union to Nazi Germany, totalitarian nations have murdered and tortured over 100 million people all the name of “economic equality” and “the common good”. Even the United States imprisoned over 100 thousand American-Japanese descendents in the after math of Pearl Harbor in the name of “national security”.
In 1759, Benjamin Franklin famously said, those who give up their liberty in exchange for government promises of security, end up with neither liberty nor security.
Countries which deny liberty to their citizens are the most brutal, poor, and miserable places on earth. In the end, tyrannies fail because they are based upon coercion, and coercion is fundamentally incompatible with human nature.
It is in our nature to seek and be free. Therefore individual rights must have elements of freedom which include the freedom to live your life in peace. Other rights include:
· Freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly;
· Freedom of association;
· Rights to self-defense;
· Rights to keep what you earn; and
· Freedom of enterprise and the right to own property.
Freedom is not just practical but moral as well. Socialist often argues that liberty would not feed a starving man – implying that liberty is less important than government-guaranteed security. But it is the absence of liberty that produces starvation and poverty. The freer the country, the more prosperous it is. The poorest, most miserable countries in the world – Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, etc. – have an abundance only of government promises, fear and suffering.
From the concentration camps of Nazi Germany and the Soviet gulags, to Cambodia’s killing fields, the 20th Century has witnessed hideous despotisms. But coercive government of every variety – socialism, fascism, and the democratic welfare state – simply doesn’t work and eventually collapses.
Liberty is the wave of the future. The Internet, computer encryption, digital cash and other exciting new technologies have begun to free people throughout the world. With courage and dedication, the 21st Century will be the century of global liberty.
Sooner or later liberty will triumph. Liberty is our destiny – an idea whose time has come.
2 comments:
I agree with you on this one Md but I think in the world we live in, we can't really practice liberty to the fullest, due to certain limitations and restrictions.
All in all, I'm loving your posts. Keep 'em coming =)
Welcome Bleachers, glad to have you. I just wanted to correct you that liberty is not something one practice, it's what everyone should have. However you are correct that full liberty is hard to gain because of the limitation and restrictions. But it should never stop us from trying to achieve it.
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