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Which is more important?

Which is more important?

  • Total voters
    48
  • Poll closed .
I haven't read all ten pages and want to say this upfront. But in response to the initial question, my gut answers "Freedom." With freedom, anything is possible whereas financial security will always be ephemeral.
 
Liberty over money all day long!
 
I chose freedom, but freedom is a pretty broad word. Freedom from tyranny? Freedom from social pressure? Financial freedom? Anarchy?

The word security in financial security is pretty interesting, too. How many people truly have financial security? Most just have a financial level they get used to. How much is secure? How little can you get used to (or at least get by on)? How much freedom do I have to trade to get secure? No one willingly trades all of their freedom for financial security. However, everyone is willing to trade a little bit of freedom (I go to work or I give my word in an exchange of goods).

The free man isn't by all interpretation truly free. We all have needs - in the hypothetical would freedom include being free from these needs? We all put constraints upon ourselves - family, fellow man, etc. Can a father be free from his responsibility to his children? Can a man be free from his word given?

Freedom requires some order - can my family be free if choosing to walk down the street means they may be robbed or killed? All choices have consequences.

In the hypothetical, I picture myself breaking out of my shackles and forging a life for myself based on my own strength and wit.

In reality, all men (who are not literally physically bound) are at some level free - they can choose submission or not. What they choose to submit to and the reasons they choose to submit are up to them.
 
cpwill said:
two reasons:

1. this is debate politics.
2. it is much easier and can be left almost completely up to the individual to attain the second. not so the former. "go get a job" is a qualitatively different statement than "overthrow your government", and to pretend the two are comparable is ludicrous.

when you have freedom, you can secure for yourself wealth with which to exercise it. when you lack freedom (as the nKorea example demonstrates), you cannot secure for yourself those things, but are dependent upon your tyrant.
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I wonder why we have poor then? I mean what's the appeal to those who want to be poor around the world?
 
I'm curious why "financial" wasn't also appended to freedom .. or why it wasn't omitted from security.

Regardless, freedom and security are yin and yang forces. When they become somewhat imbalanced for too long, bad things happen, then measures are often taken to restore the balance .. and the more imperative the perceived need to restore the balance, the more relatively extreme the measures to restore the balance can become.

It is good to respect both freedom and security .. and true wisdom knows when just a dash of one is momentarily appropriate, subsequently soon allowing the other to catch up.

Sadly, however, idealogues always favor one greatly over the other, almost no matter what the situation. We would do well to listen for these people .. and keep them out of office.
 
I'm not sure that freedom and financial security can be separated. And yet Franklin said it best:

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
 
I choose money. That is the best choice. What is the worth of freedom when you are begging in the streets? You have blown out your knee. You are suffering. You are miserable. You have no insurance. You cannot afford insurance. You cannot afford surgery to repair the ligament. You cannot work. Despair hits you so hard you can neither think nor sleep. You think freedom is always the best answer, eh? Think about your survival. Freedom isn't worth spit when you're living yet dead. Think.
 
Wake said:
I choose money. That is the best choice. What is the worth of freedom when you are begging in the streets? You have blown out your knee. You are suffering. You are miserable. You have no insurance. You cannot afford insurance. You cannot afford surgery to repair the ligament. You cannot work. Despair hits you so hard you can neither think nor sleep. You think freedom is always the best answer, eh? Think about your survival. Freedom isn't worth spit when you're living yet dead. Think.
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And yet financial freedom is hard to come by with Big Government raping everyone's wallet.
 
evanescence said:
And yet financial freedom is hard to come by with Big Government raping everyone's wallet.
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I am left to choose between either freedom or money. If I am to sacrifice freedom, I will have much money to secure me and my family.
 
Define the level of freedom vs the level of financial security?

If it was a choice of being free (level of freedom in the US today) vs financial security as expressed by the security offered in most western european countries and the freedom they have, it would generally be a non issue. The vast majority would not see a difference in the level of freedom. Nor would the vast majority see a difference in their financial security. If it was the freedom offered by living in Somali (in a famine currently) or the security of living in say Belorussia, I woud choose Belorussia

Freedom means little if you die of starvation, financial security means little if it can be taken from you at a whim by the powers that be
 
evanescence said:
No you wouldn't. Since when has sacrificing liberty ever been a good thing? Give me a single example.
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Tell me, since when has being in poverty been a good thing? I would rather live in financial security with little freedom, and feed my little ones, than live in freedom, and suffer miserably. Do you have health insurance, Eva? If you don't, just imagine the hell of twisting and snapping bones. Do you take any meds? What if you have such freedom yet cannot find a job? What do you do? Resort to thievery? Feeding my family is a good example of sacrificing freedom for money.
 
DiAnna said:
How? Are you thinking about, say, living in a forest somewhere, foraging for your own food... that kind of thing?
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Unless there are laws restricting movement or thought, then you can truly have freedom without financial security... the poorest person in the world is capable of this. Financial security enables more choice but nothing more. A poor person is just as free as a rich person in every sense of the word.
 
Wake said:
Tell me, since when has being in poverty been a good thing? I would rather live in financial security with little freedom, and feed my little ones, than live in freedom, and suffer miserably. Do you have health insurance, Eva? If you don't, just imagine the hell of twisting and snapping bones. Do you take any meds? What if you have such freedom yet cannot find a job? What do you do? Resort to thievery? Feeding my family is a good example of sacrificing freedom for money.
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The choice was not financial security or starving to death... it was between financial security and freedom. With freedom you can still have money. Without freedom you can't truly have financial security since you lack the freedom to actually be secure.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Unless there are laws restricting movement or thought, then you can truly have freedom without financial security... the poorest person in the world is capable of this. Financial security enables more choice but nothing more. A poor person is just as free as a rich person in every sense of the word.
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Being free to move without the means to do so means little.

Freedom without the means to actually use it is useless
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Being free to move without the means to do so means little.

Freedom without the means to actually use it is useless
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Again the argument is not about having freedom or being a slave. Poor free people are free to do whatever they want just as those that are financially stable. Having all the money in the world and not having the freedom to be able to spend it is doesn't work.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Again the argument is not about having freedom or being a slave. Poor free people are free to do whatever they want just as those that are financially stable. Having all the money in the world and not having the freedom to be able to spend it is doesn't work.
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Poor people are not free to do what ever they want.

The lack of means is restricting that freedom. A poor person can not go and fly to Paris if they do not have the money to do so. A rich person could. The freedom to buy a meal does not mean much if you do not have the money to buy it
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Poor people are not free to do what ever they want.

The lack of means is restricting that freedom. A poor person can not go and fly to Paris if they do not have the money to do so. A rich person could. The freedom to buy a meal does not mean much if you do not have the money to buy it
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Materialism is not representative of freedom. Flying to Paris is no more free than being able to walk to the store and buy a Twinkie. And we are not talking about freedom versus no money and starving, as I already pointed out. We are talking about financial security versus freedom. There are hundreds of millions of people that do not have financial security, that work hourly and live close to day-to-day that are experiencing freedom in many forms. But one thing is beyond debate, financial security with no freedom means that you can't express your freedom or spend your money.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Materialism is not representative of freedom. Flying to Paris is no more free than being able to walk to the store and buy a Twinkie. And we are not talking about freedom versus no money and starving, as I already pointed out. We are talking about financial security versus freedom. There are hundreds of millions of people that do not have financial security, that work hourly and live close to day-to-day that are experiencing freedom in many forms. But one thing is beyond debate, financial security with no freedom means that you can't express your freedom or spend your money.
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Even those in the most restrictive state have the freedom of thought.

Freedom without the ability to exercise that freedom is as good as useless
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Even those in the most restrictive state have the freedom of thought.

Freedom without the ability to exercise that freedom is as good as useless
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I agree but it seems like we are on different wave lengths since that is not the argument. The argument is financial security which does not insist on being pennyless. I am not finacially secure in that I don't have retirement ready and the job market here is facing a declining population structure meaning jobs will be tight in the next few years and I have all the freedoms in the world. I am as free as my multi-million dollar earning family members though... the police are not hindering me, laws support my freedoms, I can travel to the movies or fly to the USA as we are doing in two weeks to vacation for a month. I am not even sure why you are making the argument that you are, in all honesty.
 
Bodhisattva said:
I agree but it seems like we are on different wave lengths since that is not the argument. The argument is financial security which does not insist on being pennyless. I am not finacially secure in that I don't have retirement ready and the job market here is facing a declining population structure meaning jobs will be tight in the next few years and I have all the freedoms in the world. I am as free as my multi-million dollar earning family members though... the police are not hindering me, laws support my freedoms, I can travel to the movies or fly to the USA as we are doing in two weeks to vacation for a month. I am not even sure why you are making the argument that you are, in all honesty.
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The arguement I am making is that choosing freedom or financial security is something that will vary between people and change depending on the situations they are in.

It is not freedom vs financial security in that either are absolutes, but more on a relative scale. Would I choose to live in China and be monsterously rich, or live in the US and live in a slum? Given the level of freedom in China is actually good for most people, I would choose to live in China. If the choice was to be poor in both China and in the US I would choose to be poor in the US
 
Both of course are important to me but if I had to choose I would say financial security for sure. You could be free all you want, but if you're ****ed and out of money then you are sleeping on a park bench out in the cold in a blizzard and then you die. End discussion.
 
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