Liberty vs. Security

I meant legally, not personally. For example, do you want PCP, Meth, and Heroine to be legal, it would give people more liberty, but detract from societal security. Or do you want the government to spy on people, and keep a record on everything they do, and where they are? It would help in combating crime, but would take away liberty.

Generally, on such issues, where do you stand?

Oh! Ok. You wanted on a large scale, not on the individual scale.
I will note here that someone will inevitably cite the worst-case-scenerios no matter what I say and its a um... 'rock and a hard place' kind of thing.
Security is where I would probably place my first. Maslow would probably agree with this.

I figured it was a given since we are in the Political coffehouse.

I made a specific indication that "in issues of major policy it's an absolutely true dichotomy". I don't really see how we can discuss the issues outside of policy, or why we should care about it in that context.

That's false. Security is something that has to be provided for you, liberty is something inherently springing from your nature as a person. Guaranteeing liberty means securing it, but you can live in total freedom without anyone providing you security. It's equally possible to live in total security without any freedom. In order to guarantee your security your actions are limited to protect you (or others) from their consequences. This inherently destroys at least some liberty.

Explain how you can make society more secure without sacrificing the individual liberties of its citizens.

Answer the damn question. What right does a man lose when he has money in his pocket? What opportunities has he been denied? Then tell me what I've lost when the law protects me from harm and abuse.

Liberty, security, and justice are the products of prosperity. All three are inherently virtuous and interdependent on the existence of each other. Remove one and all you have left are perversions of the others.

Liberty implies a state of protected freedom. Unprotected freedom is simply chaos, and chaos provides the potential for oppression, exploitation, and slavery; the exact opposites of security, liberty, and justice.

This is paradoxical. If I have no rights then how am I secure from anything?

That doesn't destroy liberty in the slightest. That protects your right to life.

Taking away a man's rights doesn't make him secure, it makes him oppressed. What you're suggesting here is absolutely no different then when a red suggests that in a truly "just" and "equal" society every man would be shackled to his neighbor; and we both know that's slavery, not justice. Just as well security is not oppression, neither is liberty exploitation.

Security as a independent concept is clearly separate from security as a result of policy. Security means protection from harm, and while individuals are entirely capable of producing it for themselves and by themselves, if government decides to increase collective security then it must necessarily sacrifice the individual liberty of its citizens. You try to make it seem as if there is never a conflict between the interests of collective security or individual liberty, when in fact this conflict is probably the largest and most obvious one in the whole of government.

Protection of negative rights is just and necessary. Security infringes on liberty when society decides to expand 'protection' beyond what their personhood guarantees them, and start demanding that others provide for them.

That's not true at all. It's completely possible (and there are numerous historical precedents) for a society to be desitute and just/secure/free.

You're just picking and choosing what liberty or security you like. Liberty is simply the freedom to act without interference, which will obviously result in total chaos if taken to the utmost extreme, and security is the protection from harm, which will obviously result in a totalitarian nightmare if taken to the extreme.

False; liberty implies nothing more than what it means. It just so happens that in most situations, liberty is protected by force, usually at the hand of government.

You might recall a topic I made quite some time ago about chaos, liberty, freedom, etc. Chaos is simply freedom in its most absolute form. Personally I find it entirely ideal.

You can be totally secure from bodily harm, economic worries, political upheaval, and all of the other myriad of things that upset the delicate balance of your life.

By making it illegal for me to perform 'x' action. The less legally-sanctioned options an individual has, the less liberty he has.

Security and oppression are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they usually go hand in hand. Just empirically speaking, societies which have put their collective security above the individual liberties of their citizens have been oppressive nightmares.

Liberty isn't exploitation and security isn't oppression, but both open up those possibilities. It comes down to which one you're more comfortable with.

This is an interesting discussion, but I'm going to have to side with Kali on this one.

I tend to lean more on the side of freedom, but I think it depends on how much one side has manifested itself. For example, if my freedom was directly and concretely being attacked and my actions were severely limited I might be really in favor of freedom over security at the time. On the other hand, if my security was being attacked and there was no immediate danger to my freedom, I might think freedom as a value is less important because at that point it is pretty abstract.

Collective security and sacrifice? What exactly is so "secure" about the concept of sacrifice? Are we even talking about the same thing?

You're defining security as robbing one man and giving to the other. By doing so the man you stole from has neither liberty, security, or justice.

Name one. Even hunter-gather society, the most destitute of the destitute, was ruled by brutes, slave drivers, and exploitative nihilists in the guises of shamans and their demonic representations of natural forces.

No, I chose all three. Extremism is exactly what you get when you pick one over the others.

Liberty implies that as a person you have a right to life, property, and opportunity; and rights are a product of law.

Yes, absolute freedom. Including the freedom to infringe upon the freedom of others, to deny them life, property, and opportunity. While it may true that those interested in holding onto chaos as the ideal state of society would most likely avoid imposing order on others, we both know that not everyone interested in preserving chaos; and so it's only a matter of time before some mystic slaps you with chains or some brute cuts your tongue out.

Sure, until it's all taken away from you for breaking the established mold provide to you by the ruling power. Real fucking secure.

If action 'x' involves violating another persons liberty then clearly action 'x' isn't something someone who values liberty would sanction.

No they don't. If the purpose of a policy is not to protect my person from harm by others, then the policy only serves to shelter me for something some brute fears.

Eww, collective security again?

How about both + justice? Why value one over the other if you recognize the possibility of perversion from doing so?

Whoops, totally forgot about this thread. In any case, Demon, you're clearly operating under an unconventional definition of security here. In the sense that you describe it, security is just a dependent function of liberty, which, from the idealist's perspective, may be true. But it does not accurately describe or refute the existing and omnipresent political dichotomy of (individual) liberty vs. (collective) security.

My opinion is this.

Obviously first & foremost, you need a balance of both. That fact I doubt should be in question. Certain people require their freedoms limited for the benefit of others or even themselves. Anarchy in my opinion will not & does not function since humans will just naturally group together & those groups will either group together or kill off or force out other groups until you end up with lots of big groups essentially you'll just end up reforming government.

I would choose security however, on the basis that I'm much more free alive and safe than I am not safe or dead. But I am sceptical about giving the Government too much power when the law needs so much reform to even make sense.

Someone probably already used this quote, but here it is: "They who can give up essential liberty, to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety." So I guess I would have to choose Liberty.

I agree with the top bit, but I would rather die then be totally secure without any liberty. I imagine being locked in a room with no sound , colour or means to kill myself.

I wasn't implying that wasn't the case. There are plenty of ways to increase security with not sacrificing liberty. For example more security cameras which are only used to solve crimes etc.

I just think it and roll with it.

I guess that would explain the total lack of justice as an option. Anyways, since you put it that way. I'd have to side with liberty.

That isn't an argument, it is a quote. Why is this the case, what's your evidence. What is "essential" about liberty & what do you mean by deserve?

My point is that people that who are willing to give up liberty for security deserve neither. Loss of any liberty often only leads to loss of more liberty, as it is a slippery slope. So therefore I would chose Liberty. Sorry, I was very vague before, as you said.

That's fine, it's just those sorts of quotes are the work of continental 'philosophy' namely.

1) Here is my conclusion
2) If you don't agree with my conclusion you're (evil/a dick/an idiot) etc. etc.
3) Therefore, my conclusion is correct.

Continental Philosophy is my pet hate because it manages to say everything whilst saying nothing since the conclusion is its own justification in most cases. In any case choosing either is wrong since a clear mixture is necessary & the difference between the majority of the more liberal people & the majority of the more security people I wouldn't say is that extreme.

I agree, that there needs to be a mix of the two, but if it's just a choice between liberty and security, no compromises, then I would choose liberty