Once upon a time I thought freedom was easily defined.
Then I discovered that to some people 'Free' means 'someone else pays my way'. :roll:
Fundamentally, freedom is the ability to act with little or no restraint.
Freedom is therefore always relative. This is important; RELATIVE... not absolute.
No one has absolute freedom. You have the freedom to jump off a cliff, but not the freedom to be spared the consequences of acceleration x mass in a gravity field... unless you're attached to a bungee cord, that is.
In terms of human society, it is often said that your liberty ends were another person's rights begin. The problem with this is defining what those rights are of course.
In reality, you have the FREEDOM to violate other people's rights... but there will be consequences. They may shoot you. The law may lock you up. Thus you can argue that you DON'T have the freedom to screw with others, but in reality you DO... what you lack is the freedom to do so free from *consequences*, unless you're Superman in a world without Kryptonite.
One theory says that those with more resources (ie wealth) at their disposal are more free than those without, because what they CAN do is a broader set of choices than those of someone who is poor. This is true in a way, but the rich often become slave to their possessions, servant of their portfolio and investments, chained to their properties and employees and lifestyle, in a sense.
"A man is not an island"... we live in a society, not as Robinson Crusoe the lone castaway. Thus we all have limits on our freedom based on the rights and power of the individuals around us and the rules of society as a whole. In other words, it has always been safer to **** with people who have LESS power than you (in whatever sense of power, personal/economic/political/etc), and much more dangerous to do so with equals or superiors.
A well-run society has rules about how you can treat everyone regardless of their personal power, and enforcement/justice/punishment for violating those rules. All such things are constraints against any absolute notion of freedom.
So practically and realistically speaking, understanding that freedom is RELATIVE... how do you measure whether you are free? Well for me I'd start thus:
Am I free to do those things NECESSARY for me to continue to live?
Am I free to do those things IMPORTANT to my life, prosperity and pursuit of happiness?
Am I free to do those things I WANT to do as long as I am not doing harm to others?
The first one needs to be a clear and unmitigated Yes; the second should be largely Yes, but there will be constraints based on the needs of others.
The third one is where things get more complicated, as wants collide with other wants and needs.
A state of total anarchy would be "freedom" in a sense... but it would be a Hobbsian dystopia of force and violence and theft. We are at our most free when we are free to act in our own interests and on our own wants only up to the point of not harming others, because otherwise we must fear our fellow man too much to exercise our freedom easily.
In other words, if I feel that I can do more or less what I want as long as I am not trespassing on someone else's life, liberty, property or needs, then I am about as free as I can reasonably be.
An important caveat is that Freedom is something men concern themselves with
only *after* they have food in their belly, shelter from the weather, and some reasonable prospect of living to see the next day.
