"Human beings are at their best when they are free of authority." Agree or disagree?

[spin]

38. Much depends on the level of authority ...

In order to function a society needs some rules and laws and a system to enforce them. This should be limited as much as possible.

Excessive authority can stifle freedom and consequently advancement of the society.

For example religion serves a valuable purpose in a society as it can increase moral behavior. Almost all religion is based on a version of the "Golden Rule." (ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule) However if religion gains control over a society it can stifle the advancement of scientific knowledge.

Catholic Church and science

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Galileo Galilei

The 1633 Church condemnation of Galileo Galilei created a time of antagonism between the Church and science.[citation needed] Federico Cesi created the Accademia dei Lincei in 1603 as an Italian science academy, of which Galileo became a member.[19] This scientific organization would be refounded as two separate institutions, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, in 1936.[20]

Galileo's championing of Copernicanism was controversial within his lifetime, when a large majority of philosophers and astronomers still subscribed to the geocentric view that the Earth is at the centre of the universe. It has been much debated why it was not until six decades after Spina and Tolosani's attacks on Copernicus's work that the Catholic Church took any official action against it. Proposed reasons have included the personality of Galileo Galilei and the availability of evidence such as telescope observations[citation needed].

After 1610, when he began publicly supporting the heliocentric view, which placed the Sun at the centre of the universe, Galileo met with bitter opposition from some philosophers and clerics, and two of the latter eventually denounced him to the Roman Inquisition early in 1615. Although he was cleared of any offence at that time, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as "false and contrary to Scripture" in February 1616,[21] and Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it—which he promised to do. When he later defended his views in his most famous work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632, he was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy," forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

In March 1616, the Roman Catholic Church's Congregation of the Index issued a decree suspending De revolutionibus until it could be "corrected," on the grounds that the supposedly Pythagorean doctrine[22] that the Earth moves and the Sun does not was "false and altogether opposed to Holy Scripture."[23] The same decree also prohibited any work that defended the mobility of the Earth or the immobility of the Sun, or that attempted to reconcile these assertions with Scripture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_science#Dark_Ages

Even non religious societies can suffer from excessively authoritarian governments.

Censorship in the Soviet Union

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Control over information

All media in the Soviet Union were controlled by the state including television and radio broadcasting, newspaper, magazine and book publishing. This was achieved by state ownership of all production facilities, thus making all those employed in media state employees. This extended to the fine arts including the theater, opera and ballet. Art and music was controlled by ownership of distribution and performance venues.

Censorship was backed in cases where performances did not meet with the favor of the Soviet leadership with newspaper campaigns against offending material and sanctions applied though party controlled professional organizations.

In the case of book publishing a manuscript had to pass censorship and the decision of a state owned publishing house to publish and distribute the book. Books which met with official favor, for example, the collected speeches of Leonid Brezhnev were printed in vast quantities while less favored literary material might be published in limited numbers and not distributed widely. Popular escapist literature such as the popular best-sellers, mysteries and romances which form the bulk of Western publishing was nearly non-existent.

Possession and use of copying machines was tightly controlled in order to hinder production and distribution of samizdat, illegal self-published books and magazines. Possession of even a single samizdat manuscript such as a book by Andrei Sinyavsky was a serious crime which might involve a visit from the KGB. Another outlet for works which did not find favor with the authorities was publishing abroad....emphasis added
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_Soviet_Union

Many authoritarian governments today fear the freedom of the internet for good reason. We see this today in the recent freedom movements that led to the Arab Spring.

I fear today that the fear of terrorism is causing our government to restrict many of the freedoms we were granted in the Bill of Rights. For many years the freedom that Americans have enjoyed which included freedom of religion, freedom of the press and freedom of speech have been envied by many people who live under the thumb of an authoritarian and oppressive regime. If we lose those liberties, the terrorists will win as we will no longer be as bright a beacon to the world. It is not necessary to destroy our nation but merely to make it more authoritarian and oppressive like theirs. It might also be logical that the rich 1% of our nation would like to see a far more authoritarian government as it would help stifle any movement to undermine their wealth and power.

I also fear that an another unhealthy trend is developing in our nation and that is the desire of those on the religious right to promote the Bible as a science textbook and to incorporate many of their Christian views into law. Our Founding Fathers wisely believed in a separation of church and state.

Individual freedom with reasonable constraints can advance our civilization but in reality such freedom is difficult to achieve and preserve.