Source:TIME Magazine– “A marcher with “Freedom Now CORE” on his shirt joins in cheers of Mississippi Freedom march leaders assembled at the foot of a Civil War memorial statue in Grenada, Miss., in 1966. ” From TIME Magazine.
“We tend to think of freedom as an emancipatory ideal—and with good reason. Throughout history, the desire to be free inspired countless marginalized groups to challenge the rule of political and economic elites. Liberty was the watchword of the Atlantic revolutionaries who, at the end of the 18th century, toppled autocratic kings, arrogant elites and (in Haiti) slaveholders, thus putting an end to the Old Regime. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Black civil rights activists and feminists fought for the expansion of democracy in the name of freedom, while populists and progressives struggled to put an end to the economic domination of workers.”
From TIME Magazine
“Freedom, generally, is having the ability to act or change without constraint. Something is “free” if it can change easily and is not constrained in its present state. In philosophy and religion, it is associated with having free will and being without undue or unjust constraints, or enslavement, and is an idea closely tied with the concept of liberty. A person has the freedom to do things that will not, in theory or in practice, be prevented by other forces.”
From Wikipedia
If you are some who believes in freedom let’s say regardless of your democratic philosophy, then freedom can mean several things to several different people, regardless of what your let’s pro-freedom political philosophy is.
If you come from more of a social democratic doctrine, freedom to you probably means the freedom for people to not to have to live without the basic essentials in life. And that you believe in welfare rights and that government’s job is to guarantee that no one has to go without what they need to live well in life. Which is why Socialists (let’s say) tend to believe in a bigger, centralized, national government, that’s financed through high taxes to make sure that everyone is guaranteed a quality life.
If you come from the classical liberal or classical conservative school of American politics (which is where I graduated) you believe in the rights of the individual. And that government’s job is to let people be free and not have to worry about their public safety, but not there to try to run their lives for them. That the job of government is to see that everyone has the opportunity to live in freedom, but not guarantee their personal welfare, other than their public safety.
My personal definition of freedom is very close to what I quoted from Wikipedia: “Freedom, generally, is having the ability to act or change without constraint. Something is “free” if it can change easily and is not constrained in its present state… The right for people to be left alone to be able to live their own lives, short of hurting any innocent person with what they’re doing.
I’m not antigovernment, never have been, but believe the job of government is to promote and protect our individual, constitutional rights. Not try to run our lives for us.