mmmm.....Bacon....good for breakfast AND supper

idolatry

A pretty wise man. Too bad he died before WWI. Maybe he could have helped us stay out of it and prevent WWII, the Cold War, and a host of other horrendous things.

Benson was a man whose heart rejoiced in liberty. He was so precise on this utterance that it makes me shiver.

This is only the structure of a republic that is supposed to maintain its function. However, once the elite become averse to liberty, the structure can no longer maintain the function. A republic is not so much a form of government as it is a function of government, i.e. to maintain liberty.

"escaped from moral chains and are able to think freely"?! As if immorality or amorality were freedom! Good grief. This is terrible. Besides, most psychiatrists and psychologists are communists. They don't care for freedom at all. They don't even believe in agency.

Sure, but freedom to bear arms is likewise guaranteed only to those who own them. Do we not have the freedom to acquire them by just means? That freedom is also guaranteed.

Emerson was very wise. I agree.

How true....but hard to say that it doesn't exist anywhere at present.

That depends on your definition of tolerance, but I mostly disagree

Mike, I think that was Hayek's point

This is true, but I would like to know who he thinks is "conferring" liberty.

Freedom is not necessarily independence. Can someone serve God? Is God then not free?

But it ROCKS ABSOLUTELY TOO!

I like Kant. He was smart

Liberty comes from our creator, including the liberty from false ideas and bad habits. Christ makes us free.

Nice way of putting it

no

An interesting way to put it.

Interesting....I will have to think about that some more, but I find it very insightful.

ahhh....sort of. Liberty is certainly a law that some want to live by and others not. Still, it doesn't need to be earned. Liberty is free. We must only claim it.

Amen, brother Ben. Amen

That is actually Aeschylus, but it was long enough ago that someone else can take the credit.

I do have to say, though, that in any given circumstance, a person may feel it necessary to follow certain unjust statutes as violating them may not be prudent. This is not always a moral obligation, but a matter of personal conscience and situation. The speed limit, for instance. Thus, the question is still an important one that each person should ask himself but that I am not certain I can give a definitive answer to.

Good question. Hits at the heart of legal positivism vs natural law.