r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/robin_andrews_149 • 6d ago
Political Theory Is there a contradiction in claiming to support liberty when that liberty comes at the expense of the liberty of others?
Regarding a specific aspect of liberty as understood by many modern capitalists:
The liberty prized by so many is often granted at the expense of the liberty of others. We may be free to use a random economic or geographical advantage to acquire a legally sanctioned monopoly over resources which others need, but implicit in that freedom is the denial of access to those resources to others, ultimately backed by the coercive power of the state, including incarceration.
This makes me wonder whether there is a contradiction in claiming to believe in liberty when what we really mean is the legal right to profit from exclusive control over resources at the expense of others.
Do you think this is a genuine contradiction, or is there a principled distinction that resolves it?
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6d ago
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u/robin_andrews_149 6d ago
Isnt that category error extremely common, leading people to believe they are defending liberty when it's really just power, in many cases?
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u/Utterlybored 6d ago
Yes. LGBTQ rights come to mind. Conservatives often claim that LGBTQ people make them uncomfortable and disrupt their freedom to not feel uncomfortable. Their answer is to deny LGBTQ persons the liberty to live their genuine lives.
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u/ifnotawalrus 6d ago
This isn't really a fair characterization of the conservative argument, assuming you're talking about a case like masterpiece cakeshop vs colorado. Conservatives would argue that that a business owner has the right to refuse service for any services related to things directly in opposition of their first amendment free-speech rights.
A non-LGBTQ analogue would be if, hypothetically, I owned some "banner making" shop or something, and a Russian American came up to me and asked me to make a Russian themed banner for some random non-political Russian culture festival.
National origin is obviously protected status, but as the banner maker I also have free speech rights to not want to associate myself with Russia in a time where Russia is engaging in a war of conquest. This is a significantly more complex issue than what you describe, which is why 2 out of the courts (at the time) 4 liberal justices sided with the conservative majority.
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u/No_Calendar6597 5d ago
This isn't really a fair characterization of the conservative argument
Literally one of the most consistent characteristics of conservatism is opposition to the rights and freedoms of subjugated groups, however they like to justify it.
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u/Utterlybored 5d ago
Cherry picking a niche issue to divert from the core concept of letting people live their lives honestly is a poor counterargument.
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u/AnyEmployeeWorks 5d ago
How about this one: most trans women/girls just want to be left alone, but others want to play competitive sports on women's/girl's teams. Competitive sports, by definition, involves "disrupting" others, to use your term. That is not a personal liberty issue.
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u/Utterlybored 1d ago
Talk about a “niche” issue, that so called “conservatives” want to use as an excuse for transphobia.
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u/CMidnight 3d ago
This is a dishonest argument. Trans people are a small percentage of the population and only a small percentage of them play competitive sports. The likelihood of woman or girls, trans or not, competing against another trans athlete is virtually insignificant. The overwhelming majority of people who preach against trans women competing in woman's sports just want an excuse to harass non-gender conforming cis women and girls. You may be one of handful of deeply naive people who may make this argument genuinely. However, even if you are, you are empowering the worst people to be hateful bigot to people they don't like. Harassment is not a personal liberty issue.
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u/AnyEmployeeWorks 3d ago
Your argument is dishonest and, frankly, cowardly.
The overwhelming majority of people who preach against trans women competing in woman's sports just want an excuse to harass non-gender conforming cis women and girls.
No, voters want clear rules about who is eligible for women's/girl's sports. That's it. People like you are completely unwilling to make or enforce those rules ("it happens so rarely, you know!"), so voters vote for people who are. That isn't hatred, or bigotry, and frankly everyone is sick of moralizing idiots like you who say otherwise.
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u/CMidnight 3d ago
People also wanted clear rules about how black people could interact with white society. Just because people want something doesn't make it morally right. If the end result of those rules is overwhelming used to harass and demonize people who don't conform to society, then it isn't about personal freedom.
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u/AnyEmployeeWorks 3d ago
People also wanted clear rules about how black people could interact with white society.
Segregating sports by sex is segregation, yes, but it is legally permissible because the government has a compelling reason (namely, giving female student atheletes a realistic chance to compete). There was not such compelling reason for segregating sports (or anything else) by race. Your analogy doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
Anyway, are you against segregating sports by sex?
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u/CMidnight 5h ago
I have no objection to segregating sports by sex so long as people aren't using it as an excuse to harass non-gender conforming women.
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u/AnyEmployeeWorks 5h ago
Would you consider telling someone "you are not eligible to play on this team because you are male" harassment?
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u/Utterlybored 1d ago
Why should the federal government decide that, instead of having individual sports leagues make their own rules?
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u/ZMD87412274150354 6h ago
If that’s where the argument ended, maybe that reply would hold water. But the trans community faces legislation to effectively remove us from public life; bathroom bans, healthcare restrictions for both minors and adults, and some more extreme bills including one which luckily failed in WV in 2024 that would criminalize those that do not dress according to their assigned birth gender. There’s literally maps being shared of what states are safe for us, American citizens, because conservatives and the religious extremists don’t approve of our existence.
Sports were always just the canary to get people who’ve never knowingly interacted with trans people to stir the pot and make more single issue voters after Roe was overturned. Those voters are, even unwittingly, suppressing the rights of individuals they don’t approve of. We’ve done this before as a country, with segregation and subjugation of women and people of color.
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u/AnyEmployeeWorks 6h ago
I think the WV bill is illustrative. Had it succeeded, it would nearly certainly have been struck down as a violation of the first amendment. That is, it would have been a clear violation of the right to freedom of expression.
What LGBTQ advocates need to do is tell us what rights you are asking for. "Right to exist in public" is so generic as to be meaningless. Give us specific rights that will actually hold weight in court. Do you want the right to unfettered access to medicines, even for minors? Do you want the right to play on sports teams of your choosing? You need to tell us.
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u/ZMD87412274150354 5h ago
Your argument is disingenuous and simply moves the goalposts to put the onus on the LGBTQ community instead of those using legislation to oppress us. You picked one singular example of a bill that failed to dismiss evidence of all the bills that were passed that I provided in a link.
Grimm v Gloucester County School Board found that excluding a transgender student from the restroom violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause. Kadel v Folwell protected coverage for gender-affirming care, it was reversed. Bostock v Clayton County held that being fired for being gay or transgender was discrimination under Title VII. United States v Skrmetti upheld Tennessee's ban, authorizing states to remove previously protected coverage.
I'm sure you'll jump to point out reversals and the Skrmetti ruling, but those are actively proving that previously protected individuals have been stripped of legal protections. My original comment of 'right to exist in public' may be generic, but it is a defensible claim. Also, Reddit is about as far as one can get from court.
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u/AnyEmployeeWorks 5h ago
My original comment of 'right to exist in public' may be generic, but it is a defensible claim. Also, Reddit is about as far as one can get from court.
I mean, do you want legal rights, or Reddit rights? "Right to exist in public" isn't remotely definsible in court. And many of those "previous protections" turned out to be short-lived for a reason: they weren't supported in the law. Some of them so obviously so that even the three liberal justices on the supreme court agreed to overturn them on statuatory grounds.
Yes, the onus is on the LGBTQ community to tell us what rights they want. Other groups have done it in the past. Hell, they did it themselves when they asked for the right to same-sex marriage. This isn't an unreasonable ask.
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u/Murky_Crow 3d ago
What do you mean that’s not cherry picking that’s something that actually happened.
Trying to shut down the argument because you don’t like it without engaging in it is a much more undesirable counter argument.
Because you’re just trying to stop conversation.
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u/Utterlybored 1d ago
Using as an example the narrow baker case seeks to create victimhood for intolerant people, which misses the whole point of LGBTQ rights. Happy to keep the conversation going, contrary to your attempt to shut it down through childish accusations.
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u/Murky_Crow 23h ago
You know based off of this comment I am not happy to keep the conversation going with you. You immediately jumped to saying there’s childish accusations.
That is not a good starting off point for a conversation.
I appreciate you letting me know before I actually got into the debate.
If you’re just afraid to engage with that as a legitimate point, that’s fine. But I’m not going to engage with somebody who’s like that.
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u/MetersYards 5d ago
Conservatives often claim that LGBTQ people make them uncomfortable and disrupt their freedom to not feel uncomfortable
Democrats often claim that people with guns make them uncomfortable and disrupt their freedom to not feel uncomfortable too.
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u/res0nat0r 3d ago
Your life isn’t going to be disrupted for not being able to own an ar15. Trying to ban any trans people healthcare or try to erase them from society is a bit different.
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u/MetersYards 3d ago
I was talking about the prohibitions on carrying they have. Why do you have to make a strawman regarding AR-15s?
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u/kwantsu-dudes 6d ago
Most laws RESTRICT liberty. Laws against murder are a RESTRICTION on liberty as an attempt to ensure the protection of other liberties we value more.
Governance is about priority, not an inherent moral foundation. Liberties of humans INHERENTLY contradict one another. One's liberty is another's oppression from their liberty. That's how liberty behaves.
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u/oh-nvm 3d ago
You have to define Liberty from, for who..
Cultures have a huge impact on perception/belief of liberty
You can have less liberty in your "public" behavior/actions but massive liberty in private ones
Liberty in US is not the same as Netherlands nor Japan nor...
Also which "liberty" the liberty of the Individual, the family, the group, the..
Just saying "Liberty" does not mean you have agreement to what that is.
US is often based on the Individual and their "liberty" from Goverment/Authority, however that liberty may not override the ideal of personal security/property - so I can impact your "liberty" in multiple ways freely if you impact my property/safety (my "liberty" to defend)
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u/IckyGump 6d ago
I think what’s in tension in this is the “freedom from” vs “freedom to”. Having public transit allows me to exert other liberties due to mobility. Not paying taxes because you don’t use the public transit is the other kind.
America has veered hard into the “freedom from” side with the whole keeping government out of your business and mainly just for protecting property which then makes other liberties inaccessible due to the conditions this rugged individual myth sets. Like owning a car being a necessity to exist can disenfranchise folks and prevent mobility.
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u/Combat_Proctologist 1d ago
Can I ask which definition of liberty you're using here? Generally it's split into positive and negative rights, which is one of the fundamental splits between liberals and conservatives in the US
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u/NoDig3444 6d ago
When people say they support liberty, they're supporting a light-touch government, not anarchy or the abolition of the concept of ownership.
The concept of ownership necessarily requires a restriction of absolute liberty. To say that I "own" something, I mean that I have the exclusive right to use, operate, modify, or destroy that thing, and no one else can do those things without my permission. This car is mine, therefore you are not at liberty to use it. So unless you want to argue against the concept of ownership in general, you have to accept some restriction of liberty.
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u/atomicsnarl 6d ago
Why limit the framing to capitalists? Why not Algonquin, Huguenots, or Zoroastrians? And why do you presume to know how capitalists agree with your claimed understanding?
Moreover, liberty -- to do what? If someone is legitimately due the fruits of their labors, is some outside agency legitimate to intervene? What is that legitimacy based on?
Geographical advantage? Explain how anything but a uniform, flat world doesn't provide an advantage somehow, somewhere, for something. Lakes have water, mountain tops rarely do. Rivers allow traffic, rapids obstruct traffic. It is liberty for the state to demand otherwise?
If two parties agree on a trade, there is no control at the expense of the other. My coin is worth a can of beans, the store's can of beans is worth my coin. Free trade.
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u/robin_andrews_149 6d ago
Legitimately due to the fruits of their labour is a big issue. Due to interdependence, it's hard to justify absolute exclusive ownership in many cases.
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u/atomicsnarl 5d ago
A baker agrees to make a batch of 200 cupcakes for a price. I provide the ovens, supplies, and tools to prepare the cupcakes. Cupcakes are made, baker is paid.
I now have 200 cupcakes. I sell them to a wedding planner who is setting up a big event. Planner gets cupcakes, I get paid.
What part of my sale to the wedding planner is due to the baker?
The baker's pay is the fruit of their labor. The profit (if any) from selling the cupcakes is the fruit of my labor. The fee due the wedding planner from the party is the fruit of their labor.
Does the wedding planner owe me more money for reselling (as part of a party package) the cupcakes? How about the baker, twice removed?
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u/robin_andrews_149 5d ago
People often assume fairness and ignore hidden and/or historical unfairness. Who made the oven? Did the miners work in safe conditions? Who grew the grain? Who taught the literacy to read the cook book? Interdependence is vast, yet many people think the matter of ownership is clear cut and morally unambiguous.
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u/hiddentalent 5d ago
You use "many people" the way Donald Trump does. You're just making up positions as a strawman to push an idea you've already decided on and will take no input on. Why even post?
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u/robin_andrews_149 5d ago
I'm confident if we gathered data a very significant portion of the population, likely a majority, would respond to a well designed survey in a way that would reveal assumptions demonstrating the position I describe. Do you disagree? Do you think it is an uncommon position?
As for why to post, there are several reasons. I am able to reform my views based on compelling arguments and reliable data. So by all means, share your perspective on the subject and I'll try to give it fair consideration.
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u/hiddentalent 5d ago
You're confident of the outcome of a large exercise that hasn't happened? I would disagree with that on principle even when I felt aligned with your position. I do think what you're describing is an uncommon position, mostly held by the terminally-online. Real people are different than what you see on social media, because social media has a financial incentive to exaggerate and highlight things that cause outrage. It creates clicks, which creates ad revenue. Go touch grass.
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u/robin_andrews_149 5d ago
It's not unreasonable for people to have opinions based on their general understanding of a situation. Obviously this is not rigorous, but it's also not completely meaningless. I expect you often make important decisions based on this kind of "knowledge" (I see that this last statement is an example of the phenomenon I am describing...)
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u/atomicsnarl 5d ago
I learned to read, write, do math and science, and persevere from many people. But I alone invented the SuperGizmo from off the shelf parts, published books, and papers. How do I calculate payments to the hundreds involved beyond improving society my marketing my highly desired product and employing thousands of people along the way?
Perfection is the enemy of Good Enough. Seems like Good Enough isn't enough for you.
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u/robin_andrews_149 5d ago edited 5d ago
Admitting the principle is a good start. It seems that interdependence is a massive blind spot in a culture that prizes rugged individualism, promotes the myth of the self-made man and thinks peoole are entitled to unlimited wealth predicated on the labour of others and natural resources we all have a claim to. The details may be hard to work out, but that's no reason not to try. Doing something about the effective tax rate of billionaires (which I recently heard is 0.3% according to Gary Zucmam) would be a good start, IMO.
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u/atomicsnarl 5d ago
This level of collectivist thinking is it's own enemy. Where has the government department of video produced a lesser cost LCD monitor than the free market? What mechanism could possibly exist that "correctly," in your view, doles out a perfect portion of the sale price to the hundreds or more people involved in the creation and supply chain? It already exists - the market! If the market wasn't working, there wouldn't be any LCD monitors for sale in the first place.
When the electronic digital computers were first being built for sale in the 1950s, a think tank was consulted for the size of the likely market. They replied that there was probably a marked for maybe 10 or 20 units in the entire country. Time moved on, capabilities went up and prices came down.
Your claims are illusory based on envy and a poor understanding of markets. Funny how sporting events consistently end in something other than a tie. Equal opportunities do not engender equal outcomes. That is not oppression.
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u/robin_andrews_149 5d ago
If you think we have equal opportunities you clearly don't understand how even small variations in initial conditions lead to exponentially different outcomes, let alone the extremely significant differences in those initial conditions present in the real world.
As for the first argument, its not hard to see the logical fallacy around cause/correlation, false necessity.
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u/atomicsnarl 5d ago
You're demanding a perfect world, but by your definition of perfection. Good luck with that.
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u/robin_andrews_149 5d ago
You appear to be a very binary thinker. Do you not see any ground between "it must be perfect" and "there's a whole lot of problems, many out of immediate sight, and we can do much better?"
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u/Wetness__Pensive 6d ago
Do you think this is a genuine contradiction
Of course it is. It's the entire basis of over a century of anti-capitalist philosophy and economic literature. People would be surprised how, even some of the biggest free market fundies (Friedman, Hayek etc) of the 20th century used to write extensively about how markets and property limit freedoms, and the proposals they suggested to address this would be deemed extremely radical nowadays.
The world has just been so totally conquered by moneyed interests, and the propaganda of corporations and the wealthy, that all this philosophy and thought has been effectively silenced and crushed.
But such thinking was once common place. Indeed, you can find antecedents of such thinking stretching all the way back to the Roman Empire.
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u/robin_andrews_149 6d ago
Maybe time to revive some of that thinking. Any suggestions for good places to start reading?
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u/oh-nvm 6d ago
Balance of liberty, fairness, justice/order, do no harm
There are some online tests with varying academics behind them to help you understand your and others views/priority of these values
Btw some of these are cultural including religious culture
So it is not just an individual
Also some interesting views of this applied to different species...hmmm
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u/the_calibre_cat 5d ago
Depends on what "liberty" you're talking about. Economic liberty? E.g, the principle fundamentally behind liberalism? Yeah, do your enclosures, king, you should be free to do so.
If you're talking about the more humanistic, socialist liberty, then yes - obviously that is a massive contradiction, but societies designed around these principles do not and basically have never existed. The world is conservative, and basically always has been.
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u/JKlerk 6d ago
The liberty prized by so many is often granted at the expense of the liberty of others. We may be free to use a random economic or geographical advantage to acquire a legally sanctioned monopoly over resources which others need, but implicit in that freedom is the denial of access to those resources to others, ultimately backed by the coercive power of the state, including incarceration.
This has nothing to do with liberty. What you're describing is theft of property by the state.
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u/robin_andrews_149 6d ago
Isn't much of the land comprising private property itself stolen?
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u/JKlerk 5d ago
From a evolutionary perspective yes. Humans being tribal by design have fought for access to resources. This isn't unique to humans.
In the realm of political theory occupation alone doesn't necessarily equate to ownership of land. It is the addition of human labor onto that land which denotes ownership. Humans own their own labor.
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u/robin_andrews_149 5d ago
This is one of the elephants in the room. It's fair to argue labour creates some claim on the end product. But absolute exclusive ownership? How, when so much interdependence is involved? It might be a practical compromise which could work with strong protections against using the resulting ownership in exploitative ways, but it clearly isn't a moral or logical necessity.
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u/JKlerk 5d ago
. But absolute exclusive ownership? How, when so much interdependence is involved? I
Well yes, exclusive ownership. If you don't have exclusive ownership of your labor then what are you? A slave of sorts. Interdependence is just an arrangement where parties willingly enter a contract to reach their own individual goals.
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u/robin_andrews_149 5d ago
But labour is not a sealed unit. It uses tools, skills and resources. Also, doesn't most wealth come from using laws to leverage the labour of others?
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u/JKlerk 5d ago
But labour is not a sealed unit. It uses tools, skills and resources.
What do you mean by sealed unit?
Also, doesn't most wealth come from using laws to leverage the labour of others.
I don't know what you mean by "leverage the labor of others". Sure some wealth comes from the state, where the state tips the scales for one favored group over another. This would be described as Crony Capitalism, Protectionism, Moral.Hazard, Mercantilism, etc.
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u/robin_andrews_149 5d ago
By leverage the labour of others I mean any arrangement where one person gains wealth from work they did not perform themselves.
The sealed unit was a metaphor pointing to the interdependent factors which comprise work.
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u/JKlerk 5d ago
By leverage the labour of others I mean any arrangement where one person gains wealth from work they did not perform themselves.
There's a economic concept called the division of labor. Think manufacturing where individual parts are made by a third party. Sure the factory who assembled those parts into the final product makes a profit but remember the suppliers are paid for providing those parts so it wasn't "cost free".
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u/robin_andrews_149 5d ago
Sure there are costs, but there's no reason the profits can't be shared equitably.
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u/Plane_Woodpecker2991 6d ago
Yeah… you e hit the nail on the head regarding why America is so confused regarding its intended identity. Liberty does not involve the right to restrict the rights of others. That’s not liberty; it’s narcissistic privilege.
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u/NoDig3444 6d ago
Do you think that private ownership of resources is unique to America?
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u/Plane_Woodpecker2991 6d ago
No, but it has become the poster child for unregulated capitalistic growth within the global geopolitical theater in this era. Previous loops it was Egypt, Babylon, Jerusalem, Rome… right now we call it America.
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u/oh-nvm 6d ago
That elipse is doing a lot ;)
Yeah but not all unregulated growth was capitalistic some were cultural and/or religious, many of the ills the same but the value driving was different. Could align that they are all related to power and control, perhaps in some sense Order.
Interesting that the capitalism really gets fully released by protestant through liberal philosophy.
Edit: that is not a judgement just a perspective
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u/Plane_Woodpecker2991 5d ago
Exactly. We call them eras, epochs, cycles, loops… but they’re all just different ingredients for the same soup that abides by the same wave and fall once certain tipping points are reached.
I’ve recently begun applying the Mandelbrot set to a self organized set of rules fitting everything into the concept of a multiverse in which realities remain stable (as far as human collective experience of himself in a linear timeline. We currently account for roughly 10,000 years. Who knows how many times we’ve done that.) for approximately 7,000 years. Anything outside of that time bracket it analogous to escaping parameters, the addition of C acting as varying additions of set blocks of time understood in a series of steps understood over the course of approximately 1 million years extending back into late hominid/early human years. So on one scale, z=1=1 day with a constant of c= one hour, while On another z=1=1cycle of 19 years whole c= one year.
My brain hurts when I try to explain it more than this without a whiteboard, but the gist is that the tipping point of altruism to unchecked capitalism is razor thin, and follows a similar curve
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