What is freedom?

Answer 1

Just another word for "nothin' left to lose."

Answer 2

sometimes others before us have already done the thinking....

here is what i agree with:

C. Wright Mills:

Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them -- and then, the opportunity to choose.

Charlie Daniels:

A brief candle; both ends burning
An endless mile; a bus wheel turning
A friend to share the lonesome times
A handshake and a sip of wine
So say it loud and let it ring
We are all a part of everything
The future, present and the past
Fly on proud bird
You're free at last.

written en route to the funeral for his friend, Ronnie Van Zant of the band, Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Dorothy Thompson:

When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered.

Dwight D. Eisenhower:

We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.

Edward R. Murrow:

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

Eleanor Holmes Norton:

The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with.

Epictetus:

We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free.

Discourses

Goethe:

None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free.

H. L. Mencken:

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.

James Baldwin:

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.

Jean-Paul Sartre:

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.


John P. Zenger:

No nation ancient or modern ever lost the liberty of freely speaking, writing, or publishing their sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves.

Noam Chomsky:

For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and which all too often we sere as willing or unwitting instruments."

Somerset Maugham:

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

Thomas Jefferson:

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

Voltaire:

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

Answer 3

I'm happy to answer your question and refer to all those who have answered before me. The definition of freedom takes almost half the page in my Websters New World Dictionary. I do know the meaning of freedom but when I looked up the meaning I felt it was worth reading. I'm going to have my kids read it too. Sometimes they tell me we don't have enough freedom. I started writing this when there were only 6 questions answered.

Answer 4

Freedom is state of mind to feel free. Freedom is not taking liberty or taking things granted. Freedom is ability to exercise the power of free will. It is not for weaker bodies but state of mind of strong person with foresight.

Answer 5

Hello, Mr. "Dog",

The universal foundations of "freedom" are at the reign of particles physics. Our material world is made with quantum tornadoes, whose have seven variables forces, and the mixing of quality and quantity of those forces results that have no two equal quantum tornadoe. So, each quantum tornadoe is unique and being that it is a bit-information. These are the non-materil essence of the Universe: bits-informations. Like our human body has like ultimate origin the packages of bits information called "genes".

. If the essence, the quantum bit-information is moving, doing and performing its information it is "energy"; if it is not moving, restrained by some restraint, it is "mass". We can say also that "energy" is free and mass is imprisoned.

Along the universal evolution these bits-information were growing, joining at eve big packages, and we, human beings, are these packages just now. Each human being is a distinct and unique package of information, different from everyone else. If a human being is moving, performing the function of his/her information, he is exercising his free will, and the name of this state is "freedom".

Ok, I have told you the viewpoint from Matrix's Theory. Now, we have the viewpoint from the official phylosophy, which is the following:

Freedom is a many-faceted term encompassing the ability to act in all ways which add to that ability. It is oftentimes gauged by the degree of absence of external restraint — or control; the lack of submissiveness and servility as the anti-thesis of freedom. In the context of external control, it is also known as self-determination or autonomy — On the other hand, freedom is also called inner peace; the presence of inner control, an inner experience of choice, spontaneity, fulfillment, and even spirituality.

The protection of interpersonal freedoms can be the object of a social and political investigation, while the metaphysical foundation of inner freedom is a philosophical and psychological question. Both forms of freedom come together in each individual as the internal and external values mesh together in a dynamic compromise and power struggle; the society fighting for power in defining the values of individuals and the individual fighting for societal acceptance and respect in establishing one's own values in it.

Spiritually, freedom encompasses the peaceful acceptance of reality. The theological question of freedom generally focuses on reconciling the experience or reality of inner freedom with the omniptence of the divine. Arguments for and against the existence of inner freedom, in either religious or other senses, are compared and contrasted by Roderick Hindery in frameworks called Determinist, Existential, and Experiential. The paramount issue is whether existence or lack of freedom can be established solely from the viewpoint of external observation or also from that of inner experience.

Answer 6

Freedom is non-acceptance of any authority ....by mind. Including the influence of feelings and habits on self.

Answer 7

Freedom is being able to do or say anything that you want without being judged by other people.

Answer 8

Fearless to teh things people tell you that you can't do

Religous choices that are your own

Earning things the way you know how, not worrying about criticism

Eating what you like or you should, not whats given to you by force

Doing things that feel you should do, within reason

Owning things for yourself that no one else can claim

Meeting the people you want to meet, not being put infront of them and being told to speak.

freedom has alot of meaning and everyone can have their own opinion on it. That is mine... death shouldn't be an option

Answer 9

It is more than words could define.
Once defined it would no longer be freedom.

Answer 10

That 2 plus 2 will equal 4.
(George Orwell)

Answer 11

Freedom is the right to doubt, to search, to investigate, to inquire, to debate, and to say no to any authority be it religious, social, or political.