Liberty Dial Introduction - A New Way to Define Political Positions and Policies

[david286]

Here's a slightly different view that's along the same line....

watch?v=DioQooFIcgE&feature=ch­annel_video_title

[karetoshare]

the thing is that pure communism is really a form of anarchy, so it would really be collectivised in the people?

if anything instead of communism vs fascism, left vs right, liberty vs tyranny it should be- total govmt(despotism, where 1 rules all) vs no govmt( anarchy)

so in essence it would be a circle like you have portrayed, except instead of communism vs fascism it would be, anarchy vs total govmt.

[karetoshare]

@karetoshare and also, unlimited democracy would be on the side of anarchy but not exactly anarchy since pure democracy is like organized anarchy (51% of nation oppresses 49% of nation, 10 people can rule against 9)

[Dadarian1]

I like to say that bravo for trying to think outside the box, and redefine set definitions, that is a good thing. But I have a question which I hope you'll (or more/most likely someone else) answer: Do you really discount equality so much in our modern political life that it need not be on the scale. Freedom is well and good, but there IS such a thing as to much freedom, hence anarchy and those strange and dangerous militas out in the Mid-West. I hope that you will answer this question, thanks.

[CTFxCsoldierNumber27]

if you look at past Communist states, of course you would think Communism is total govt', but if you actually take the time to read the Communist manifesto, you will see that Communism actually is power to the people.

[somethingsomething59]

@CTFxCsoldierNumber27

Cool story bro its a one party state 

[CTFxCsoldierNumber27]

@somethingsomething59

the Communist Party is the vanguard of the working class and the proletariat, all who disagree with it are either messed up in the head or misinformed...

[somethingsomething59]

@CTFxCsoldierNumber27 Communism is not for the working class its for extreamists the working class votes modarete left not extreamism

[CTFxCsoldierNumber27]

@somethingsomething59 the working class has 2 options: either vote for their liberation. example, reform. OR, fight for it, in revolution.

the way i see it, revolution can probably get things done more faster than reform because you don't have to go through all the debate and crap, that just waists time.

[somethingsomething59]

@CTFxCsoldierNumber27 Why would they want a revolution to communism and go back to being a slave to the system 14 hour days???? communism serves no one except the ring master soicalism is for the working class The thing is there is not much working class left in 1st world countries

[CTFxCsoldierNumber27]

@somethingsomething59

yes, and what ever is left of them is obviously been brain washed to believe what ever the govt' wants them to think.

[somethingsomething59]

@CTFxCsoldierNumber27 Again cool story bro looks like a commie has brainwashed you

[CTFxCsoldierNumber27]

@somethingsomething59

yes, his name is Karl Marx ;)

[UnknownVisions]

To me its a spectrum of economic left and right - further left means more government regulation and further right means less, and Up and down - or authoritartianism vs social anarchism, where the more "up" the more authoritarian and the more "down" the more personal freedoms people have. Most freedom is at the bottom right - matching the ideas of the libertarians, and the least freedom is at the top right - matching stalinist russia, or general marxism.

[normandyeurope]

It is flawed to say power of big business and power of the people do not go hand in hand.

[ligerman30]

@FocusOnLiberty This is far more accurate than the left right spectrum but not as accurate as others because there are more than one kind of liberty. Unfortunately, the "modern" liberals and conservitaves are spilt between liberty and control. Modern Liberals want economic control and social freedom while modern conservitaves want economic freedom and social control. Check out the Nolan Chart, it's the best one so far.

[LuckyPierre78]

The proper understanding of the spectrum isn't simply progressivism on the left and conservatism on the right, but more broadly defined by more government on the left and less government on the right. There's nothing "less-government" about fascism. Like communism, socialism and progressivism, fascism is placed firmly on the left. To the right is conservatism and libertarianism. It's a myth to suggest fascism comes from the far right. On the far right is anarchy - NO government.

[ThePheolix]

@LuckyPierre78 My thoughts exactly!!!!

[robdale88]

imbued with a rather narrow, unapplicable and ideologically imbued view of liberty which tilts the scale towards what is traditionnaly viewed as 'Conservative' values. Your scale implies that no governement at all would mean absolute freedom and I am saying this is inherently false. Plotting the abstract terms of liberty versus tyranny is just as mistaken as the traditional ideological spectrum.

[FocusOnLiberty]

Hogwash. You are right in that there is no fixed concept of Freedom. But, there is DEFINITELY a fixed concept of both Liberty and Tyranny.

Let me suggest to you that if you do not like the way it is described in this video that you create a video of your own rather than attempt to hijack this one to show your professors that you are a brilliant student. I'd love to see what you manage to deliver.

[Damnthewargods]

It's hard to believe that the Education system has degraded the learning of today's youth in such a manner that they would graciously accept tyranny to live under than to be an individual

[Damnthewargods]

They didn't say No Government - just less Government. Somewhere in the middle. But what we have is oppressive, unresponsive and unrepresentative.

Liberty is well documented in the Constitution. As in Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Oppression does not bring happiness.

Are you perhaps a Statist or someone who cannot be responsible enough to self govern based on high moral standards and principles?

Just curious as your comments seem to view Liberty and freedom as a bad thing

[robdale88]

I get what you are saying and I get that you think your argument is right. However I am just trying to show you that there is no one fixed concept of liberty/freedom and that your attempt to reformulate the political spectrum with an abstract notion of liberty at its centre merely biases the scale against certain legitimate views on the role of government. You started out by claiming that the old spectrum is ideologically biased but then went on to demonstrate another view that is ideologically

[FocusOnLiberty]

People like yourself NEED to feel that there are no 'fixed' anything! That way you can slip and slide to your heart's content. Truth then can became what you say it is.

I will repeat ad-nauseum... When the weight of the government's control over its people reaches a certain point, it is no longer of the people... nor by the people... and soon is no longer FOR the people. History has demonstrated it over and over and over.

[robdale88]

What I said earlier about 'limited governement' as apposed to absolute governement was not a reiteration of your point but merely that the founding fathers wished to constitute a governement premissed on a set of inalienable rights as apposed to the unconsititutional power of the British crown. They were placing a limit on governements control of issues of conscience not of ideologically specific debates such as healthcare. The Constiution forms a the contextual limit not blueprint of government

[FocusOnLiberty]

That is patently false. Very convenient notion for a statist. But, completely and utterly false. And, that is clearly demonstrated in the Federalist Papers and other writings of the time where the subject is discussed at great length.

[robdale88]

What do you define as the difference between 'Freedom' and 'Liberty'??????????

[robdale88]

No it doesn't well done. You follow Locke, the same philosoper who made a defence of Slavery and the right of governement to enforce religous orthodoxy? Rawls doesn't seem to drive the most recent statist agendas, he is now dead, his first principle of justice is also called the liberty principle, that a system of justice must afford 'the most comprhensive scheme of liberty applicable to all', have you actually read any of it?

[FocusOnLiberty]

Have I read his complete works? No. Do I need to in order to understand Liberty vs. Tyranny? No. Do I understand the Oxford influences on him and his influences on modern Statism? Yes.

My video is not about any 20th century political philosophers... right or wrong. It's about a Constitutional Republic, a nation of laws, created by brilliant men that understood the difference between Liberty and Tyranny.

[robdale88]

Yes you did say it but you seem to miss the point of the concept of limited government, limited governement implies the avoidance of arbitary decree etc. What ploy have a fallen for? What is the exact distinction you draw between Freedom on the one hand and Liberty on the other??? I am really interested in what you mean by a distinction between the two.

[FocusOnLiberty]

We can say that we have "A" freedom. But, we do not have "A" Liberty. Liberty is the "container" in which freedoms thrive.

[robdale88]

lol. This isn't a distinction its just a semantic confusion that you've use to create a definition. Freedom of Speech implie the liberty to say what I want, it is still part of the concept of Freedom. There is no distinction between Freedom and Liberty as two seperate things and Governement is not automaticall an inhibiter of it. I agree with your assertion that governement can limit freedom, but it doesn't have to.

[robdale88]

I would reccomend John Rawls's 'A Theory of Justice'/ 'Justice as Fairness'. Rawls was arguably the most influential political philsopher of the 20th Century, taught on the philsophy of Law and the Constitution at Harvard and made extremly strong arguments which go against against the basic premis of your argument that governement itself remove liberty/freedom.

[FocusOnLiberty]

Since his work seems to drive the most recent Statist agenda's I am not surprised that you are a fan. You can follow whoever you'd like to follow. But, I prefer John Locke to John Rawls. Influence does not equal truth.

[robdale88]

I am not 'misunderstanding' anything about the politcal notions that went into the drafting of the constitutuion, however I am disagreeing with your manipulation of them. The constitutuion forms and important part of Americas politcal system, however it in itself does not offer an absolute definition of Freedom/Liberty (yet again there is no difference between the two). Have you tried reading any of this Political Philosophy you are so readily dismiss as 'Maoist'?

[FocusOnLiberty]

The complete blurring of the lines between "Freedom" and "Liberty" is a relatively new ploy. And, you have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. Words mean something, unless of course, you are are student of Bill Clinton.

[robdale88]

Please once again I ask can you give me your two distinct definitions of 'Freedom' and 'Liberty'. Those apes have freedom of movement to an extent but to set them free would give them absolute freedom, which you seem to term liberty. However when it comes to government we are not talking of simple physical freedom, we are talking of the ability to lead a fulfilled life, this in itself requires consistent cooperation between each individual in that society, which requires governemtn.

[FocusOnLiberty]

Hmmm... Limited Government. Didn't I just say that?

[robdale88]

This Limited government is one that is not allowed to arbitarily arrest people to interfere with inalienable rights, the founding fathers said nothing that would relate to say the provision of free universal healthcare. I agree with you that there is a possibility for big governement to go beyond its remit and interfere with a persons rights but this is not a direct collary. Big government does not in itself equal a loss of rights.

[robdale88]

No current Politcal Philsophy owes nothing to 'Maoist doctrine', Maoist doctrine has its soruces if Confuscian ethics which forms a completly seperate school of thought from the Kantian origins of western philosophy. And sorry but you don't seem to have much more clear understanding of the philsophical principles of the founding fathers. They talked of Limited governent as opposed to absolute governement.

[robdale88]

Governement, no matter what its 'size' is can be a good thing as long as it holds true a set of inalienable individual rights of conscience, something the Founding Fathers recognised and something that the Patriot act etc. and the recent attitudes of the modern American conservative movement has failed to.

[FocusOnLiberty]

You completely fail to understand that a huge government bureacracy is totally incapable of holding true to a set of unalienable individual rights of conscience. The reason WHY a government grows is to facilitate encroachment on those rights.

[robdale88]

The quest for religous freedom and then the desire to shirk off imperial subjegation in itself does not imply a resistance to Statism, the forming of a Constitution is a Statist act itself and not illiberal in itself. The adherence to a view that Government in itself is bad, as I said earlier, is getting in the way of creating a government that best serves the people.

[FocusOnLiberty]

The movement toward statism is a continuum. You appear to have zeal for defending large government and a limited understanding of the basic philosophies that resulted in the American revolution and the formation of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. You have just about everything exactly backwards. Recognizing that some government was required, these documents LIMITED government's role.

[robdale88]

I don't want to descend into a petty debate over semantics but there is no diference between 'Freedom' and 'Liberty' except in the sense that Liberty is a Freedom from something. This is a common conclusion in Political Philosophy, it is not just my own opinion. The concept of Liberty within the Constitutuional process both reflects the pursuit of non-conformist Purtian religous freedom and then the subsequent quest for Freedom from control of the British crown.

[FocusOnLiberty]

Current "Political Philosphy" is so permeated with Maoist doctrine that it is no wonder that you believe that Liberty and Freedom are one and the same. There is a zoo in Washington DC where the apes have the freedom to move from one caged area to another by traversing overhead wires. Sure, they have freedom of movement. But, they do NOT have Liberty. Caged is caged. Trying to fool people into thinking that Liberty and Freedom are one and the same has been a goal of statists for years.

[robdale88]

I for one am in favour of my freedom to walk the streets with a low chance of being gunned down and thus wish there to be higher gun control, others on the other hand believe what is in question is the freedom to own a gun. It is not simply an black and white issue as you try to make it out to be.

[FocusOnLiberty]

For NOW the many cameras in British streets afford greater freedom to walk around unmolested. But, one must always be aware that these same cameras could be used for sinister purposes by a FUTURE government. You have traded, perhaps, freedom now for liberty later. The founding fathers of the U.S.A. thought LONG TERM and not in mere expedient terms.

[robdale88]

The State in fact facilitates the freedom of individuals to act without fear of reandom attack etc. There is no concrete distinction between the power of a people and power of government, accept within political rhetoric. How do you define this ration of power? How do you define the people?

[robdale88]

You are right to the extent that most modern theories of government contend that government is formed on the back of the reliquishing of some forms of liberty, however this tends to be the forms of liberty uncondusive to social harmony, i.e. the liberty to kill anyone you like, reflected in law, in return government in fact provides an enviroment of stable a predictable relationships.

[robdale88]

Fair enough but drawing a direct distinction between government and power of the people seems self defeating. How can a group of people effectivly have 'power' if there is no instrument through which to implement it?

[FocusOnLiberty]

That's an interesting question. (And, I am enjoying your interaction!).

I think of it just as it is pictured in the center of the dial.  That is balls of various sizes and weights. In the early life of our country it was easy for the voters to directly push government into certain directions. Now, the bulkiness of the goverment gives it enormous inertial resistence to change. In 1791 the entire Congressional Record, for the full year, was smaller than that of a single day now.

[robdale88]

Yes fair enough, but the population, business and number of areas requiring some form of regulation has expanded. But the Constitution does not lay out any particular aversion to 'Big Government' (again what do you mean by this), it merely opposes legislation on matters of personal concscience, ones which the modern conservative movenement are most preoccupied with. Have you looked at the notion of an axial spectrum which conterposes economic liberty with social liberty?

[robdale88]

p.s. You live in a Liberal Democracy, in that the views of all individuals are supposed to accounted for within a system of representative government. We are all Liberals by the fact that we live in a 'Democracy'.

[FocusOnLiberty]

While I appreciate the time and effort you took to reply to this video, I'm not convinced that an ever larger government could ever truly provide MORE liberty. The problem, as the video demonstrates, is one Ratio of Power. The ONLY defense against a 'good' government becoming a 'bad' government is to keep the ratio of power in favor of the people rather than the government or big business. That is what this video is attempting to show.

[robdale88]

gets in the way of a more fundamental debate over where it is suitable for a government or collective to enable the freedom of the individual. Individual freedom and government are not mutually exclusive. Such a claim has formed the false crux of the modern conservatism and we should actually be discussing the difference between good and bad government and not merely claim that governent in itself is marekdly illberal based on a definition of freedom that holds such a view as an a priori truth.

[FocusOnLiberty]

Again, while the U.S. founders mentioned freedom, it was LIBERTY that was their primary pre-occupation. And, they knew that massive governments and liberty were mutually exclusive.

[robdale88]

Where exactly do they make a specific differentiation between liberty and freedom? And where, except for the notions of Freedom of Religion (which the conservatives fail to uphold) do they make this equation between 'Big' Government (what do you mean by this by the way?) and Iliberalism?

[robdale88]

correlation between government and liberty is simply false. The existance of say the Postal Service (which is nationalised and part of the state) provides me the freedom to send letters. I am not saying that the impact of some areas of government policy do affect freedom, anti-abortion and anti-homosexual legislation for example do impede on an idividuals freedom of choice. However there is not one type or definition of freedom. Government does not atomatically imply iliberalism and to argue so

[FocusOnLiberty]

One of the outgrowths of working on this project was the realization that Liberty and Freedom are NOT exactly the same things. There are nuanced differences. Some actions of government might take away liberty while giving one some measure of freedom. A simplistic example would be a government toll road using EZPass. It provides me with greater freedom to travel without cash. But, erodes my liberty by collecting data. The primary focus of the Liberty Dial is Liberty... NOT Freedom.

[robdale88]

No there isn't, sorry but there simply isn't. Depends which definition of Freedom you use, within the positive-negative defintiions of liberty. However if you adopt Gerald Macullum's Tripartite (The freedom of Y, from X, to do Z) defintion of liberty you can define liberty as the raltionship between Y and Z as liberty. But the differences between 'Liberty' and 'Freedom' are merely rhetorical, you can replace any refernce I made to Freedom with Liberty but it still holds true.

[FocusOnLiberty]

Britain has a long history of relative freedom. But, I'm not so sure that it would be easy, from that point of view, to understand the paramount role that Liberty played in bringing about the Revolution and in the formation of our fledgling government. Perhaps it was the DISTANCE from the throne that helped our founders see their quest as a pursuit of Liberty... which always involves some level of freedom... but, is NOT one and the same thing. :) Have to go. But, I will be back later.

[robdale88]

The values of Liberty and Freedom are in fact the primary values of Liberals - Liberalism->Liberty, see the connection. Although I agree with your completly unoriginal assertion that the traditional 'spectrum' of ideologies is useless. However one of the central concepts along wich both political philsophy and ideology fundamentally disagree is the concept of Freedom i.e. the Kantian-Hegelian debate between the situated and transcendental individual. Your assertion that there is a direct

[FocusOnLiberty]

If that were only the case!  That is why I choose to use the term STATISM or STATISTS rather than liberals or liberalism. When we compare our revolutionary experience with that of France, we vast differences from beginnings having the same goals. The French found themselves freed from one form of statism and plunged into another! While the monarchy and the Committee of Public Safety LOOKED different, they were, underneath, both statist at heart.

[Rhodes1966]

Well done and well thought out! It is detestable we have allowed the statist to control the language of the debate. Time to change.

[TMeeks01]

Thanks, Rhodes1966!

[0lmstead007]

fascism is also on the far left... do your research m8

[TMeeks01]

Did you even bother to listen to the video?

If so, you should realize that the purpose was to start with the most common perception of the Left vs. Right understanding and work from there. All it takes is a few simple searches to see that the place where I started is the place most people ascribe to the Left vs. Right polical divide. We'd get nowhere starting where you want to start because it would be instantly dismissed.

[jacksmommy324]

Well done! I've never seen it put that way. Liberty vs. Tyranny is more true now than ever. Thank you for bringing this to us!

[TMeeks01]

Thank you so much! You made my day. :)

I'm hoping that those that consider themselves moderates will quickly come to understand that we ARE at a real 'Tipping Point'.