When I say "freedom" I'm really referring to the most literal sense of the word: lack of restrictions! Not other philosophical meanings(like being provided with the means to do one thing or another)
We can all agree that we need A FEW, strictly NECESSARY restrictions, in order to reduce OBJECTIVE HARM being caused to us. The so-called malum in se deeds, like murder, theft, fraud, physical harm and so on. If we count all these deeds, they're no more than ONE HUNDRED!
The biggest PROBLEM we're facing today in the developed world is the fact that the legislatures and the governments GO FAR BEYOND what's strictly necessary for a functioning society in terms of criminalization and other restrictions! In the US there are somewhere between 25k and 300k criminal laws and statues or civil legislation that can turn into criminal legislation under certain circumstances.
Incarceration is a super-big problem in America, but it's far from being the only one: any conviction even without incarceration, any other kind of judicial restriction, or even mere arrests - all of these infringe on all kinds of liberties and rights, often lead to discrimination and can easily lead to actual incarceration in a variety of totally harmless situations.
Then there's ever increasing surveillance, more and more use of cctvs, more and more collection of data, the governments and certain companies get to know far too much about ordinary citizens - this can and does lead to a lot of harm!
Those in the repressive state institutions like the police, prosecutors, judges, intelligence services, the military - get more and more power and are less and less accountable for their (mis)deeds!
All these things do happen all so called "democratic" countries!
We can all agree that we need A FEW, strictly NECESSARY restrictions, in order to reduce OBJECTIVE HARM being caused to us. The so-called malum in se deeds, like murder, theft, fraud, physical harm and so on. If we count all these deeds, they're no more than ONE HUNDRED!
The biggest PROBLEM we're facing today in the developed world is the fact that the legislatures and the governments GO FAR BEYOND what's strictly necessary for a functioning society in terms of criminalization and other restrictions! In the US there are somewhere between 25k and 300k criminal laws and statues or civil legislation that can turn into criminal legislation under certain circumstances.
Incarceration is a super-big problem in America, but it's far from being the only one: any conviction even without incarceration, any other kind of judicial restriction, or even mere arrests - all of these infringe on all kinds of liberties and rights, often lead to discrimination and can easily lead to actual incarceration in a variety of totally harmless situations.
Then there's ever increasing surveillance, more and more use of cctvs, more and more collection of data, the governments and certain companies get to know far too much about ordinary citizens - this can and does lead to a lot of harm!
Those in the repressive state institutions like the police, prosecutors, judges, intelligence services, the military - get more and more power and are less and less accountable for their (mis)deeds!
All these things do happen all so called "democratic" countries!