What exactly does "Liberty" even mean?

[rylasasin]

When viewing Libertarian arguments against leftism, they often like to claim that minimal stateist capitalism is on the side of "Liberty", and that socialism/communism takes away that Liberty.

... But, I'm curious, just what exactly IS "Liberty" supposed to even mean anyway? I mean, Libertarians (and right wingers in general) love to throw around that word, but yet they never can seem to define it.

So I put the question to you, Revleft... what exactly is "Liberty" AND what "Liberty" is/would be lost in a socialist/communist/post scarcity society? Does it even have any real definition, or is it something like creationists and their "kinds" of animals?

[Tychus]

... But, I'm curious, just what exactly IS "Liberty" supposed to even mean anyway?

The right to do whatever you want and the right to stop everyone else from the same right. ;)


I mean, Libertarians (and right wingers in general) love to throw around that word, but yet they never can seem to define it.

Because they can't. They have no idea what they're talking about, just exploiting uneducated retards from the South to retain the majority vote.


So I put the question to you, Revleft... what exactly is "Liberty" AND what "Liberty" is/would be lost in a socialist/communist/post scarcity society? Does it even have any real definition, or is it something like creationists and their "kinds" of animals?

I'll let Revleft answer that, since they dont consider me "one of them".;)

[Ostrinski]

It's a meaningless word. Only good for rhetoric.

[Rafiq]

Liberty is a bourgeois concept that, as an ideology, is backed by bourgeois rationalism.

[VirgJans12]

Libertarians are talking about the freedom of trade. Which is exactly what causes the freedom of many others to perish. When we say freedom, we mean the right and possibility to do whatever we like.

[Tim Cornelis]

Liberty is a bourgeois concept that, as an ideology, is backed by bourgeois rationalism.

The concept of "liberty" existed prior to the establishment of bourgeois society. What you are espousing is meaningless rhetoric unless you can elaborate.

Liberty is "the condition of being free from restriction or control" or "the right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one's own choosing".

But most libertarian right-wingers would equate it with self-ownership.

[Rafiq]

The concept of emancipation and collectivism existed before the proletarian class came into existence. The point, is that, the word transformed and adjusted itself to present conditions.

[ckaihatsu]

The political abstraction you use "dates" you on the timeline of historical development -- it's the point in history where you think society progressed just as far as it needed to, with no more social progress needed since then / after that. ('Liberty' was a revolutionary concept compared to the fully undemocratic top-down rule by the franchise of church and crown.)








Locke's political theory was founded on social contract theory. Unlike Thomas Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature is characterised by reason and tolerance. Like Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature allowed men to be selfish. This is apparent with the introduction of currency. In a natural state all people were equal and independent, and everyone had a natural right to defend his “Life, health, Liberty, or Possessions". This became the basis for the phrase in the American Declaration of Independence: "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".[21]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_locke


[3] Ideologies & Operations -- Fundamentals

http://postimage.org/image/34modgv1g/

[RedGrunt]

Liberty takes on different meanings to different classes. Also, there are "positive" and "negative" liberties.

[Seth]

Liberty is freedom from the control of others, i.e. the collective. The individual represents free, just society and the collective is tyrannical and anti-social. Where the individual is free, you see highly developed culture and an all around superior society. Collective societies are artificial and propped up by authority. This is why people in the Soviet Union and all over the world were and are naturally attracted to western thinking, fashion and music, as it represents a superior, just, and humanist society, despite the aggressive, anti-social nature of the American state and big finance. Liberty is far from meaningless, in fact it is the only principle on which socialism can be built.

[Veovis]

Liberty is being able to live one's life free from the anxiety of material needs.

[ckaihatsu]

Liberty is freedom from the control of others, i.e. the collective. The individual represents free, just society and the collective is tyrannical and anti-social. Where the individual is free, you see highly developed culture and an all around superior society. Collective societies are artificial and propped up by authority. This is why people in the Soviet Union and all over the world were and are naturally attracted to western thinking, fashion and music, as it represents a superior, just, and humanist society, despite the aggressive, anti-social nature of the American state and big finance. Liberty is far from meaningless, in fact it is the only principle on which socialism can be built.





The political abstraction you use "dates" you on the timeline of historical development -- it's the point in history where you think society progressed just as far as it needed to, with no more social progress needed since then / after that.


I'll add that a society's *cultural* development parallels -- and is limited by -- its *political* development.

Without an ongoing continual *revolutionary* progressing, social development goes into stasis and is seen reflected in a similar standstill of *cultural* development. Many artists, scientists, and cultural types become content to just maintain and imitate older historical forms instead of striving to create *new* forms -- they become as living museums.


Consciousness, A Material Definition

http://postimage.org/image/35t4i1jc4/


[1] History, Macro Micro -- Precision

http://postimage.org/image/34mjeutk4/

[Princess Luna]

The ability to pursue one's goals or interests without government interference

[ckaihatsu]

Collective societies are artificial and propped up by authority.




Liberty is far from meaningless, in fact it is the only principle on which socialism can be built.


Since socialism is the *epitome* of collectivism, it would seem that there's an internal contradiction within your two axioms here.... (I take it to be that a truly global proletarian collectivism would provide a common material / political *base* upon which individuals could express the most intense individualism ever yet known in human history.)





Liberty is being able to live one's life free from the anxiety of material needs.








Upon the other hand, Socialism itself will be of value simply because it will lead to Individualism.

Socialism, Communism, or whatever one chooses to call it, by converting private property into public wealth, and substituting co-operation for competition, will restore society to its proper condition of a thoroughly healthy organism, and insure the material well-being of each member of the community. It will, in fact, give Life its proper basis and its proper environment. But for the full development of Life to its highest mode of perfection, something more is needed. What is needed is Individualism. If the Socialism is Authoritarian; if there are Governments armed with economic power as they are now with political power; if, in a word, we are to have Industrial Tyrannies, then the last state of man will be worse than the first. At present, in consequence of the existence of private property, a great many people are enabled to develop a certain very limited amount of Individualism. They are either under no necessity to work for their living, or are enabled to choose the sphere of activity that is really congenial to them, and gives them pleasure. These are the poets, the philosophers, the men of science, the men of culture—in a word, the real men, the men who have realised themselves, and in whom all Humanity gains a partial realisation. Upon the other hand, there are a great many people who, having no private property of their own, and being always on the brink of sheer starvation, are compelled to do the work of beasts of burden, to do work that is quite uncongenial to them, and to which they are forced by the peremptory, unreasonable, degrading Tyranny of want. These are the poor, and amongst them there is no grace of manner, or charm of speech, or civilisation, or culture, or refinement in pleasures, or joy of life. From their collective force Humanity gains much in material prosperity. But it is only the material result that it gains, and the man who is poor is in himself absolutely of no importance. He is merely the infinitesimal atom of a force that, so far from regarding him, crushes him: indeed, prefers him crushed, as in that case he is far more obedient.

The Soul of Man under Socialism by Oscar Wilde

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1017

[hatzel]

This is why people in the Soviet Union and all over the world were and are naturally attracted to western thinking, fashion and music, as it represents a superior, just, and humanist society

Do you really think that's the reason? Because we're 'superior' and, for some strange reason, still insist on calling ourselves humanists despite that whole idea, despite it's valuable articulation in such hands as Fromm's, having been adequately exposed as premised on falsehood? You have a very interesting approach to the world around you...

That said, almost all definitions of political liberty I have heard are impossible. Individual liberty is synonymous with permission, and as such cannot be said to exist; permission and possibility always lies outside the individual, it is Ortega y Gasset's circumstance, the I-defining non-I - individual liberty, so understood, is defined by the Other in its permitting the individual to act without consequence, though is easily revoked, and as such speaking of individual liberty as individual is foolish, as, I would argue, is calling it the freedom to act rather than the demarcation of the limits of possible permitted acts, to be performed without any inherent freedom. To speak of liberty as an attribute of communities rather than individuals is equally foolish, as communities necessarily involve the creation of acceptable and unacceptable behaviours, permitted and prohibited, without which life in common would prove impossible; the existence of political communities is always an affront to liberty, and each can seek only to destroy the other.

A far more reasonable understanding of liberty - one which is not politicised - is the liberty one can oneself create in interaction with the very circumstance which dictates that liberty is impossible.

[Drosophila]

Meaningless rhetoric. To idiots like Ron Paul it's the freedom to die knowing that you're irresponsible for not being able to pay the insurance company.

[NGNM85]

Liberty, in the words of Henry Ward Beecher, is the souls’ right to breathe. It can also be divided into two further subcategories; Positive Liberty (‘Freedom to.’) and Negative Liberty. (‘Freedom from.’) Liberty is at the very heart of the Socialist project. Bakunin, for example, defined a Libertarian as; ‘ (a) fanatic lover of freedom, considering it as the unique environment within which the intelligence, dignity and happiness of mankind can develop and increase." Furthermore; this impulse towards freedom is a fundamental componant of our humanity.

If by ‘Socialism’ we mean Libertarian Socialism, (Real socialism.) then the inhabitants of a, more-or-less, 'fully-realized' Anarchist society would enjoy substantially more freedom (Both positive, and negative.) than any of us, presently, enjoy in the West.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Liberty is the concept of individuals being free to do x, y or z whenever they want (within societal norms, of course). I'm sure that, if we cannot all totally accurately define it, we can understand what liberty means. Liberty exists in politics, in economics and socially. I see politic and economic liberty as freedoms from stuff; from poverty, from dictatorship, from materialist angst. Social liberty is the freedom of the individual. Not in a free market, property owning sense. But the freedom to criticise, the freedom to associate with whomever one wants, the freedom to talk about whatever one wants, the freedom to write, sing and draw whatever one wants.

We are all aware of the concept of liberty. Sadly, some Socialists genuinely believe that liberty and positive freedoms do not matter, and that only negative freedoms (i.e. freedom from poverty, material difficulty etc) matter.

[ckaihatsu]

We are all aware of the concept of liberty. Sadly, some Socialists genuinely believe that liberty and positive freedoms do not matter, and that only negative freedoms (i.e. freedom from poverty, material difficulty etc) matter.


While your spirited positivism is encouraging and even commendable, you're really only serving the interests of bourgeois propaganda with this line, in our present day and age.

The dutiful reiteration of many common revolutionary positions may become wearying at times, but I'll never tire of pointing out that so-called "natural rights" -- like that of "free speech", association, personal expression, etc., are not the kinds of actions that we should even *need* to codify and celebrate.

It's like having a party to celebrate the anniversary of the day we learned to walk as infants -- certainly a milestone but not what we would normally consider as an "accomplishment", and definitely short of anything we'd consider as 'political', either positive or otherwise.

I'll also note that 'liberty' is entirely dependent on historical political social conditions and is *not* a fixed checklist regardless of social context. In an insurrectionary revolutionary situation, for example, when the balance of power is in the balance and the outcome far from certain, there could very well be excellent reasons to *curtail* the "free speech" and "right to assembly" for those making it clear that they oppose revolution.

To do less than exercise mass revolutionary power when it's available would be to be *unrealistic*, succumbing to idealism / dualism for the sake of pure ideas instead of being tangibly political when the situation calls for it.

[RadioRaheem84]

Liberty is a buzzword that's used by right wingers to silence any real response to material conditions.

For instance:

Right Winger: "You can keep your government run health care, I'll take liberty".

Notice liberty here in this context, which is an ideal, is supposed to overshadow the real tangible thing that is universal health care.

[#FF0000]

itt SOME DUMB MOTHERFUCKERS

"liberty" is fucking complicated is what it is but i would say Stammer and Tickle got the gist of it.

I'd recommend reading John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, and, in this one case -- read the Preface carefully.

[dodger]

Liberty is a buzzword that's used by right wingers to silence any real response to material conditions.

For instance:

Right Winger: "You can keep your government run health care, I'll take liberty".

Notice liberty here in this context, which is an ideal, is supposed to overshadow the real tangible thing that is universal health care.

Like a lot of life's knotty problems I tend to define things by a negative. What's life like without Liberty. Hell, is the only way to describe it. So Liberty must be heaven, and it is. "Taking liberties" an old expression, often directed against youth, over the ages, points to some contradictions, not all antagonistic. If handled well. Self discipline trumps social controls. So better to wait until next door have brought their washing indoors, before lighting that bonfire. Born in 1947 and able to recall going off with Ma, ration cards, queues, "Don't ask, or you wont get" was the reaction to a 4/5yr old demanding/begging for a treat.It was several years before I could even pick at her jumbled logic. Too late by then I had 5 sibling rivals. Do ask or don't ask, you still don't get. How will I get ,if I don't ask? Took some doing to break that kind of social conditioning. To be told we are "at liberty", by teacher or drill sergeant is fine.....but not half as satisfying as when we 'take' liberties, especially by the bucket load, finally, as adults. Although one thing I was taught, cannot break free of, wherever in the world I am, I have to queue. Even in Napoli. I don't think it a bad trait, my Neapolitan lady friend took a contrary view. She told me I would never get my cinema ticket. She was right. Rompi balle

[Bronco]

itt SOME DUMB MOTHERFUCKERS

"liberty" is fucking complicated is what it is but i would say Stammer and Tickle got the gist of it.

I'd recommend reading John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, and, in this one case -- read the Preface carefully.

Hmm I've read some of this before but never finished it, he makes some good arguments in favour of freedom of thought and speech but is a lot of the book not sort of a forerunner to right-Libertarianism and individualism, does it actually have much value to Leftists?

[KR]

In an socialist-anarchist society we would have much more liberty and freedom than we currently have.

[#FF0000]

Hmm I've read some of this before but never finished it, he makes some good arguments in favour of freedom of thought and speech but is a lot of the book not sort of a forerunner to right-Libertarianism and individualism, does it actually have much value to Leftists?

Yeah it's p. good either way.

Also in the preface John Stuart Mill flat out says Utility is more important than Liberty, and that he argues for Liberty only insofar as it serves Utility.

[Ocean Seal]

Liberty. What is liberty? Liberty is that thing that the occupy protestors had sprayed on their faces. Liberty is that thing that bombed the Libyan people. Liberty is that thing that keeps Palestine without water. Liberty is that thing that starves India. Liberty is that thing kills unionists in Latin America. Liberty is that thing which lets the rich live off our work. Liberty is what allows the bourgeoisie to have complete control over what we know liberty as.
If I'm not mistaken liberty is a pretty fucked up thing right?

The socialists are all totalitarians. They want to take away the two core capitalist liberties.
The first being the scum that they are, they take away from our masters. The liberty to exploit.
The second set of liberties they ironically take away from the poor. The liberty to starve, the liberty to be homeless, the liberty to be desperate for a job and live without one, the liberty to be poor even after working three jobs. All of those liberties which the proletariat enjoy daily.

[freakazoid]

Liberty is the concept of individuals being free to do x, y or z whenever they want (within societal norms, of course). I'm sure that, if we cannot all totally accurately define it, we can understand what liberty means. Liberty exists in politics, in economics and socially. I see politic and economic liberty as freedoms from stuff; from poverty, from dictatorship, from materialist angst. Social liberty is the freedom of the individual. Not in a free market, property owning sense. But the freedom to criticise, the freedom to associate with whomever one wants, the freedom to talk about whatever one wants, the freedom to write, sing and draw whatever one wants.

We are all aware of the concept of liberty. Sadly, some Socialists genuinely believe that liberty and positive freedoms do not matter, and that only negative freedoms (i.e. freedom from poverty, material difficulty etc) matter.

Which can then lead to some very scary ideas and actions. I've begun to notice that for many here positive freedoms takes a back seat, and not only takes a back seat but then gets demonized as a "burguise concept of freedom". :rolleyes:

[RGacky3]

Liberty is generally means ability to do what you want without outside coercion.


Right Winger: "You can keep your government run health care, I'll take liberty".

Notice liberty here in this context, which is an ideal, is supposed to overshadow the real tangible thing that is universal health care.

Its just a missunderstanding of liberty, having private companies restrict your healthcare which you would otherwise have IS outside coercion.

[freakazoid]

Otherwise have by stealing from others?

[DinodudeEpic]

Liberty means to not be controlled by others, same as what Seth said earlier.

Now, perfect liberty is impossible to achieve, but we can go as close as possible by having a society where constitutional rights and democracy regulate both the state and economy. With both making sure that power won't be abused, we can reach something near perfect liberty.

Short and simple.

[syndicat]

"liberty" is a contested word in that it's supposed to be something of value but in fact it has contradictory meanings. the freedom of the employer to do what he wants with his business & means of production is inconsistent with worker's liberty to control the way their working abilities are exercized.

right-wing "libertarians" (fake libertarians, from my point of view) always define liberty very narrowly as what is called negative liberty: freedom is the absence of coercion or physical restraint. so if you're in jail you're physically constrained so you're not free. they will say that workers are "free" in their relationship to employers because nobody puts a gun to their head to take a job offer.

but in fact workers are forced to seek work from employers due to not owing a means to livelihood independent of the employers, since they monopolize the means of production. shows the poverty stricken concept of "liberty" right wing fake libertarians work with.

now, from a left libertarian point of view, there is another concept of liberty, what is called positive liberty. positive liberty is actually have control over -- managing -- the decisions that directly affect you, such as how your abilities are exercized, your actual life. and, secondly, having equal access to the means to develop your potential, your abilities, such as education and health care, and skills in work.

but self-management is systematically incompatible with capitalism. this is why left libertarians, who emphasize positive liberty, are anti-capiitalist.

[ckaihatsu]

Liberty means to not be controlled by others, same as what Seth said earlier.





The ability to pursue one's goals or interests without government interference


The distinction between idealized feel-good phrasing vs. actual material conditions *cannot* be overemphasized. For a proletarian politics to move the world forward we *cannot* afford to indulge in the luxury of throwing lofty, abstract, non-concrete poetry around while actual realities go unaddressed.





Liberty is a buzzword that's used by right wingers to silence any real response to material conditions.

For instance:

Right Winger: "You can keep your government run health care, I'll take liberty".

Notice liberty here in this context, which is an ideal, is supposed to overshadow the real tangible thing that is universal health care.


A good case study came up in another thread where it was proven that society has a greater collective interest in collecting rainwater -- and also in *banning* certain individuals from doing so on their own -- (!)

By the yardstick of conventional "liberty" this would definitely be counter-intuitive.


Collecting rainwater now illegal in many states

http://www.revleft.com/vb/collecting-rainwater-now-t166719/index.html

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

While your spirited positivism is encouraging and even commendable, you're really only serving the interests of bourgeois propaganda with this line, in our present day and age.

The dutiful reiteration of many common revolutionary positions may become wearying at times, but I'll never tire of pointing out that so-called "natural rights" -- like that of "free speech", association, personal expression, etc., are not the kinds of actions that we should even *need* to codify and celebrate.

It's like having a party to celebrate the anniversary of the day we learned to walk as infants -- certainly a milestone but not what we would normally consider as an "accomplishment", and definitely short of anything we'd consider as 'political', either positive or otherwise.

I'll also note that 'liberty' is entirely dependent on historical political social conditions and is *not* a fixed checklist regardless of social context. In an insurrectionary revolutionary situation, for example, when the balance of power is in the balance and the outcome far from certain, there could very well be excellent reasons to *curtail* the "free speech" and "right to assembly" for those making it clear that they oppose revolution.

To do less than exercise mass revolutionary power when it's available would be to be *unrealistic*, succumbing to idealism / dualism for the sake of pure ideas instead of being tangibly political when the situation calls for it.

If the freedoms that you compare to a toddler being able to walk for the first time were in fact respected and demonstrated across the bourgeois world and across the countries that supposedly represent, and have represented, Socialism, then I agree, we should focus on more typical 'party-line' kind of policies. Sadly, the 20th Century 'Socialisms' showed a profound dis-respect and lack of compassion for peoples' liberty and positive freedoms. As i've said, I know many Socialists can choose to ignore that working people want their liberty, as long as productivity statistics are high and inequality statistics are lower than in the bourgeois world, but that is, to me, a narrow and historically fallible approach.

Allowing people to exercise positive freedoms is even more important in a mass revolutionary situation than it is in an elitist/nepotist/plutocratic/dictatorial bourgeois situation. In the latter, we are fighting both a defensive economic struggle to protect what little rights we already have (minimum wage, ~40 hour working week etc.) and an offensive war to establish democracy. A genuinely mass revolutionary situation can only occur when direct democracy is being exercised. That is, the most extreme rule of the majority. In this situation it is important to balance the democratic will of the working class with the liberty and freedom of the individual, to associate, to dissent etc. Obviously, I agree that in a revolutionary situation (Essentially, one of war), there will always be a need/desire to curtail some 'peace-time' rights/freedoms to some extent, particularly to the dissenting ex-ruling class, but it is important that a Socialist society does not become one where the (even democratic) rule of the majority is so strong (or is abused, perhaps by a vanguard as in the 20th Century Socialist states) that individual freedoms are curtailed, particularly those of the working class.

I realise my language (individual freedoms etc.) is somewhat bourgeois, but I don't really give a flying fuck, my point still stands and it's not some bourgeois, liberal point. It's an extremely salient point: no matter how cloaked we Socialists become by our ideology (and we undoubtedly do, at times!), we cannot mis-represent the basic wants of the every-person to be free, to have liberty and so on.

[ckaihatsu]

If the freedoms that you compare to a toddler being able to walk for the first time were in fact respected and demonstrated across the bourgeois world and across the countries that supposedly represent, and have represented, Socialism, then I agree, we should focus on more typical 'party-line' kind of policies.


Allow me to clarify why I used that particular metaphor.

- Is it necessarily 'political' to mouth off about how you don't like the person who happens to be in charge, wherever you are?
- Is it necessarily 'political' to have a social meeting with a dozen people about something or other?
- Is it necessarily 'political' to take paint to canvas to make an artistic creation of some sort?

We could go on endlessly like this about *basic* actions and activities that comprise the human condition regardless of the era, but until we put them into some kind of *real*, *concrete* political context, we're just revolving around and around vague abstractions like "free speech", "right to assemble", and "personal expression".

That's why I liken these to one's simple ability to walk, because we could just as easily endlessly discuss one's "right to walk" in the abstract, but, at least in *this* example, it's a little more obvious that it's *not* *inherently* a *political* matter, and that context is everything.





Sadly, the 20th Century 'Socialisms' showed a profound dis-respect and lack of compassion for peoples' liberty and positive freedoms. As i've said, I know many Socialists can choose to ignore that working people want their liberty, as long as productivity statistics are high and inequality statistics are lower than in the bourgeois world, but that is, to me, a narrow and historically fallible approach.


I'm not an apologist for historical Stalinism, and the historical political development of that time is a complex and far-ranging one. I hope it will suffice to say that the entire historical era was one of industrialization catch-up for the rest of the non-Western world.





Allowing people to exercise positive freedoms is even more important in a mass revolutionary situation than it is in an elitist/nepotist/plutocratic/dictatorial bourgeois situation. In the latter, we are fighting both a defensive economic struggle to protect what little rights we already have (minimum wage, ~40 hour working week etc.) and an offensive war to establish democracy. A genuinely mass revolutionary situation can only occur when direct democracy is being exercised. That is, the most extreme rule of the majority.




In this situation it is important to balance the democratic will of the working class with the liberty and freedom of the individual, to associate, to dissent etc. Obviously, I agree that in a revolutionary situation (Essentially, one of war), there will always be a need/desire to curtail some 'peace-time' rights/freedoms to some extent, particularly to the dissenting ex-ruling class, but it is important that a Socialist society does not become one where the (even democratic) rule of the majority is so strong (or is abused, perhaps by a vanguard as in the 20th Century Socialist states) that individual freedoms are curtailed, particularly those of the working class.


Your concerns are understandable but, again, without a concrete context, they're sounding more like vague anxieties over an undefined potential scenario. Would you care to posit a fleshed-out situation in which working-class "individual freedoms" would possibly be threatened by a revolutionary movement?





I realise my language (individual freedoms etc.) is somewhat bourgeois, but I don't really give a flying fuck, my point still stands and it's not some bourgeois, liberal point. It's an extremely salient point: no matter how cloaked we Socialists become by our ideology (and we undoubtedly do, at times!), we cannot mis-represent the basic wants of the every-person to be free, to have liberty and so on.


I'll maintain that (typically-bourgeois) concerns over "individual freedoms" need to be contextualized -- otherwise it's apples-and-oranges. I could just as justifiably ask why *any* government / authority would *bother* the individual over *anything* when doing so would necessitate the use of resources, manpower, time, etc. -- to argue the flip-side.

[Veovis]

Liberty. What is liberty? Liberty is that thing that the occupy protestors had sprayed on their faces. Liberty is that thing that bombed the Libyan people. Liberty is that thing that keeps Palestine without water. Liberty is that thing that starves India. Liberty is that thing kills unionists in Latin America. Liberty is that thing which lets the rich live off our work. Liberty is what allows the bourgeoisie to have complete control over what we know liberty as.
If I'm not mistaken liberty is a pretty fucked up thing right?

The socialists are all totalitarians. They want to take away the two core capitalist liberties.
The first being the scum that they are, they take away from our masters. The liberty to exploit.
The second set of liberties they ironically take away from the poor. The liberty to starve, the liberty to be homeless, the liberty to be desperate for a job and live without one, the liberty to be poor even after working three jobs. All of those liberties which the proletariat enjoy daily.

BTW, I linked to this on my blog. Hope you don't mind. :thumbup1: