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Originally posted by dgs212: Principally, my beliefs run as follows: Every human being (and animal, I guess) has the right to freedom and liberty, american or otherwise, and this should be the fundamental motivation of all policy. Notice that freedom is a lack of exploitation by others (either individuals, governments, corporations, etc.). |
Well, not on a simple right/left axis, that's for sure, since some of your ideas are in conflict. One might start with "libertarian," but then again, the State is often the best guarantor of liberties (yes, Finboy, the State serves at the pleasure of the people, and liberty lies in the hearts of men and women and not in an enormous warehouse run by the GAO) -- and, as we know, hard-core libertarians are allergic to more government than absolutely necessary.
"Freedom as a lack of exploitation" is also a tricky construct. A long-standing belief of mine is that you cannot adequately define a belief based on what it isn't, rather, you've got to commit and tell me what it is. Sure we want freedom from exploitation, who doesn't, but saying such doesn't much explore a) what freedom is, at base, and b) what exploitation is.
These are loaded terms, as loaded as the now dulled-down and crude monikers "liberal" and "conservative." To get in deeper one would have to be very specific in one's terminology.