And I've been pondering. I'm at considerable odds with a lot of what you say, actually, and have been postponing the effort ...
I don't think it is necessary, or wise, to frame the conflicting interests in these situations all as "freedoms".
"Freedom from fear, freedom from want" may make nice rhetoric, but it isn't freedom we're talking about. I don't adopt the "negative freedoms" discourse.
Freedom and security are separate interests. They are both
rights, but different kinds of rights. I'll mention that article I like on the issue of generations of rights again:
http://www.uichr.org/resources/eb/weston4.shtmlThe right to security isn't just a right to be "free from" oppression and exploitation.
Those may sound like quibbles, because obviously we're largely
ad idem on what we're after, but the emphasis in the principles behind it is important.
And it's kind of illustrative of the difference between "liberals" and "social democrats", or socialists, or whatever we call those lefter than liberals when it comes to the scale of valuing economic/social equality (while not falling down the scale of valuing personal freedom/autonomy).
Liberals think in terms of a negative duty -- a duty
not to do something. Social democrats think more in terms of a positive duty -- a duty
to do something.
Now, about this lawyer-dissing. "Let justice be done, though the heavens fall" isn't really the criticism you're looking for, I think. Justice being done and the law being enforced aren't always the same thing. ;)
The rule of law, rather than "the law", is probably what we're really talking about. The notion that a society is governed by rules, not by the whim of, or force wielded by, persons.
And yes, enforcing rules is not always "good". But having rules that have been agreed to, and enforcing them
equally, is a prerequisite for good at a societal level. ("Equal" does not mean "the same", in a modern and sophisticated understanding of "equality", of course.)
Total freedom isn't possible, because it is inherently self-contradictory - I can't have freedom of speech if the government is free to repress me, I can't have freedom from torture if no rules govern the appropriate behaviour of other citizens or the Police.Yes ... but "freedoms" are characteristics of individuals, not of collectives or corporations or governments. It just isn't correct to speak of the "freedom" of a government to do something.
The relevant question is: can you be free to speak if you don't own a newspaper or have never learned to read and write, or to speak the language of your society? Or: can you be free to assemble if you don't have the bus fare to get to the meeting? Or: can you be free to attend the religious gathering of your choice if you will lose your job for doing so?
And the answers are all: YES. You are perfectly free to do all those things. You may never be heard, or your assembly may never happen, or you may starve in the dark without employment, but
as long as you are not prohibited from, and punished for, doing any of those things, you ARE free.
What you are not is secure. You are not happy, or fulfilled, or healthy. And people who are free, but not any of those things, might reasonably wonder what the hell good all their freedom does them. They can't eat it.
And to me, that's the fundamental question: WHY do we believe/agree that we are "free"? Don't we have some
reason for this? Is it not
because we all want to be happy, and fulfilled, and healthy, and we don't want other people interfering in our efforts to achieve those goals?
Complete freedom on an employer's part -- to discriminate, to pay starvation wages, to have a dangerous workplace, to demand that employees perform services 52 weeks a year -- is not an interference with the employee's freedom. The employee remains completely free, and may quit at any time; s/he is not enslaved, or indentured. But the employee can't eat that freedom, or sleep in it, or wear it, or get a broken bone set with it.
To me, being liberal is about being restrained in the type and amount of legislation one enacts - not overlegislating into the personal lives and decisions of citizens, but not allowing widespread abuse under the heading of "freedom". Striking the right balance is key, and by no means easy....To me, being a social democrat (as I am in my present context, even if that is less than I would be in a different time or place) is about being willing to interfere in the exercise of individuals' freedoms
to the extent necessary to ensure that all members of the society have a minimum of security ... the question of what that minimum is being always a matter of debate. It certainly includes adequate and nutritious food, adequate and decent housing, adequate and appropriate education, adequate and timely health care, and a number of other things -- including an adequate level of personal safety.
Obviously, social democracy shares with liberal democracy the basic belief that the exercise of individuals' freedoms should not be interfered with where it is
unnecessary to do so in order to achieve the legitimate goals of the society -- and that those legitimate goals do not involve regulating matters that are purely private, such as individuals' private practices in such areas as sexuality and religion.
But social democracy does not regard any individuals' right to freedom as prevailing over other individuals' right to security -- any individuals' interests, as they define them (and as they are entirely at liberty to define them), as automatically trumping any other individuals' interests.
Freedom and security are recognized as being potentially contradictory, i.e. it is recognized that the exercise of one individual's freedom will sometimes inevitably have an adverse impact on another individual's security, and that enhancing one individual's security will sometimes inevitably have an adverse impact on another individual's exercise of freedom.
A liberal starts from the position that the individual whose interest is framed as "freedom" will prevail unless (in the modern USAmerican formulation of "liberalism") some threshold is met (and it seems to be an idiosyncratic threshold) where the adverse impact on the other individual's security is too great.
A social democrat is closer to regarding individuals' freedom interests and individuals' security interests as on an equal footing, although there is much of the "liberal" still apparent in many social democrats. I'm a believer in evolution
and progress, and therefore an optimist when it comes to our ultimate recognition that we have just as much of a duty to ensure that we are all secure as we have to refrain from interfering in the exercise of personal freedom.
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