jillvonie traylor's List: Personal Freedoms

• THE POPULAR slogan “freedom from want,” which links freedom and economic security, is either an anachronism or a semantic illusion which helps to becloud the socio-economic problems which face the free world.
• There was a time when individual freedom and economic security went hand-in-hand. In a world of general insecurity—out at the fringe of the Frontier—the freedom of the individual to make the fullest possible use of his physical and mental resources was the only assurance he possessed that he would survive in a hostile world
• Similarly, at the time of John Locke, the late 17th century English defender of the rising middle class, freedom from government oppression and repression enabled the individual to use his faculties in order to acquire property and thus gain economic security and social status.
• It was for that reason that Locke argued that “life, liberty and property,” are inherent rights of the individual which no government could, or should take from him.
• The entrepreneurial middle class was increasingly subjected to rigid government controls; the acquisition of personal wealth was pictured by writers of the time, both Christian and pagan, as a useless, if not immoral occupation; and slaves and free peasants alike came under the “protection” of the large landowners
• “America has been known as the land of opportunity, but opportunity depends upon freedom, and freedom means individual responsibility—not the rule of force by government. The government interventionist abandons freedom of choice because he is contemptuous of the ability of individuals to know what is best for them.”
• The rapid economic growth during the 19th century, the rising standard of living and the unprecedented expansion of personal freedom coincided with, and to a large extent were due to, the rise of the entrepreneurial middle class which followed the overthrow of 17th and 18th century collectivism through the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England, the American Revolution of 1776, and the French Revolution of 1789. Only after political and economic power had passed from the aristocracy and its proliferating bureaucracy to the middle class, whose vitality and strength sprang from personal freedom and private initiative, did the western world achieve its greatest economic, social and political advance

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• This paper presents the first-ever comprehensive ranking of the American states on their public policies affecting individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres
• We develop and justify our ratings and aggregation procedure on explicitly normative criteria, defining individual freedom as the ability to dispose of one’s own life, liberty, and justly acquired property however one sees fit, so long as one does not coercively infringe on another individual’s ability to do the same.
• On personal freedom alone, Alaska is the clear winner, while Maryland brings up the rear. As for freedom in the different regions of the country, the Mountain and West North Central regions are the freest overall while the Middle Atlantic lags far behind on both economic and personal freedom.

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• Liberty is a historically controversial philosophy. One understanding of liberty asserts that freedom is found in a
• person's ability to exercise agency,
• particularly in the sense of one
• having the freedom to choose what authorities one will submit to agency with in exchange for rights derived from that authority to develop resources to carry out their own will, without being inhibited; Social Contract

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• Individual freedom is derived from the concept of religious freedom, which is derived from the Biblical teaching that salvation is an individual and personal matter and can only be achieved through a direct and personal relationship with God
• us, Roger Williams, who believed in the separation of church from civil government, was forced to leave the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637 and founded the free colony of Rhode Island, where different denominations were welcome. By so doing, Williams enhanced the idea of individual freedom by accepting the notion that there were among Protestants more than one way to salvation, more than one way to interpret the Holy Scripture
• It was John Adams who said, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
• Because Christians were constrained by the laws of God, they did not need the laws of government to control or regulate them. Which is why the Constitution limited the power of government. And it was that political freedom that unleashed the creative powers of individual Americans who then went about building the greatest, richest, and most advanced nation in the history of mankind.
• And that is why education in the new American civilization stressed individual achievement and responsibility
• But in order to prove that they were right and the Bible was wrong, they had to change America into a socialist society. The way they chose to do it was to take control of the public schools, impose a socialist curriculum, and inculcate American children in the principles of socialism.

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• No 

  thing can be  greater
• Than the great Imitator
  Falling prey to the Truth
  
• set you
• The purpose of life is the expansion of happiness  

  --Deepak Chopra
• What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us
  are tiny  matters compared to what lives within us.  

  --Thoreau
• Always do what you are afraid to do.  

  --Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise  and thinking that having problems is a problem.
  --Theodore Rubin
• To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of  becoming is the only end of life.
  --Robert Louis Stevenson

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• According to the report’s authors, they “explicitly ground [their] conception of freedom on an individual-rights framework. In [their] view, individuals should be allowed to dispose of their lives, liberties, and properties as they see fit, as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others.”
• The Freedom report ranks individual liberty of state residents based on three major categories: fiscal freedom, personal freedom, and regulatory freedom. Fiscal freedom involves issues including state taxes, government spending, and wages.  Regulatory freedom involves the impact that local laws have on personal economic choices and property, including labor regulation, mandatory health insurance, and eminent domain. Personal freedom involves individual choice, such as the right to drink, smoke and shoot guns.
• One of recurring themes in the report is the issue of eminent domain. People who have their property seized by the state are worse off than those whose property cannot be. That is until, perhaps, they cannot travel easily from their property to some other point because the state could not build a road. The way that the Mercatus Center looks at this problem, people would be better off to own their land and build their own roads. That is a brilliant approach until it becomes clear that it is impractical. People may be better off without regulations for how their children should be educated, but these same people may not have the background to home school their children. They have freedom, but one which may cause their offspring to be poorly educated.

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• We explicitly ground our conception of freedom on an individual-rights framework. In our view, individuals should be allowed

  to dispose of their lives, liberties, and properties as they see fit, as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others.
• to dispose of their lives, liberties, and properties as they see fit, as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others.

• Common civil liberties include the rights of people, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech, and additionally, the right to due process, to a trial, to own property, and to privacy.
• might be said that the protection of civil liberties is a key responsibility of all citizens of free states, as distinct from authoritarian states.
• Before universal suffrage, this distinction was important, since many people were ineligible to vote but still were considered to have the fundamental freedoms derived from the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This distinction is less important now that Americans enjoy near universal suffrage, and civil liberties are now taken to include the political rights to vote and participate in elections.
• The Fundamental Rights — embodied in Part III of the constitution — guarantee civil liberties such that all Indians can lead their lives in peace as citizens of India. The six fundamental rights are right to equality, right to freedom, right against exploitation, right to freedom of religion, cultural and educational rights and right to constitutional remedies.^[3]
• These include individual rights common to most liberal democracies, incorporated in the fundamental law of the land and are enforceable in a court of law.

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• Personal Freedom Outreach is a non-profit, non-denominational group  with three goals: to educate Christians about the dangers and heretical doctrines  of religious cults, to use the Gospel of Jesus Christ to reach members of those  cults and to warn Christians of unbiblical teachings within the church  itself.
  

• When citizens enjoy their rights to expression, belief, organisation, and personal autonomy in a society welcoming of diversity, their country enjoys higher levels of income and social wellbeing. The Personal Freedom sub-index measures countries’ performance in two areas: individual freedom and social tolerance. As illustrated in the chart below, the variables in the sub-index are categorised into these areas
• The Personal Freedom sub-index assesses the effects of freedom of choice, expression, belief, and movement on a country’s per capital GDP and the subjective wellbeing of its citizens. It also assesses how the levels of tolerance for both minorities and immigrants affect countries’ economic growth and citizen satisfaction
• A strong empirical link exists between individuals’ freedom to choose what to do, where to go, what to believe, and overall life satisfaction. There is also a strong link between the levels of tolerance within a society for ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity, and the overall satisfaction people enjoy within that society.

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