Public Safety vs Personal Freedom?

Question

In your opinion, what is more important, public safety or personal freedom? Please say why you feel its more important.

Answer 1

If there is only one person, He/she can do what ever he/she chooses. The more that people come into a given environment the more restrictive becomes their right to do what ever because others have the right to exist without being exposed to what you may or may not want to do.

Should we drive without rules? Should we eat in restaurants that are free to clean or not clean, use stale food or spoiled food if they chose to?

Some feel hey have the right to steal information from your computer and purchase things and you pay for it.

Or maybe you want to fly with an air lines that chooses to do maintenance if and when they chose to.

You can have compete freedom, if you want to.
Just go off into the Jungle where there are no other humans, then you will not have to interact with anyone!

Answer 2

The assumption that they by necessity mutually negate or oppose each other is one-sided thinking. Public safety as an expression of personal Will en mass is completely possible. Freedom has two forms: 'freedom from' and 'freedom to'. Public safety may be a 'freedom to' opportunity. My right is my duty and my duty is my right. The Will is positive and the Judgment is negative. Will in its universal form is positively expressed in duty. All those having a good Judgment may see its positive expression, but those having a bad Judgment also have a diminished Will, some degraded to the point that the Judgment is mistaken as the Will, i.e. violent people.

Answer 3

Freedom is the most important, but the activity in question has to be weighed against the threat it may pose to those around you. Obviously, if you're engaged in something that could very likely result in an accident or any kind of physical harm to others, their safety and well being takes precedence.

What you do in the privacy of your own home or back yard should be your business and nobody else's.

Answer 4

This is basically individualism vs communism as I interpret your question.

I'd pick "Personal Freedom" pretty much on the pretenses that I'm an atheist. I feel that the concepts of God and the afterlife are too subject to spend your life not enjoying yourself.

Call me a hedonist, call me an anarchist, call me whatever you want, I'd just rather have a society that encourages individualism and individual development on an individual scale... individually.

The whole, live by the colony, die for the colony just comes across as sort of arrogant and way too sure of itself. Of course, my ideal world is completely irradicated of most ideologies in the world such as fascism, nationalism, communism, socialism, patriotism and every form of religion, which is pretty hard for some people to swallow.

The truth is the human species is very sporadic in how it organizes. Human organization is almost always based on whether the people NEED or the people WANT. These trends tend to fluctuate depending on economic as well as social situations so there's bound to be revolutions to be had in name of either Public Safety/Welfare/NEED and Personal Freedom/Liberty/WANT.

Answer 5

I think that public safety is more important than personal freedom. One having the liberty of personal freedom vs public safety possibly endangers us all such as the Oklahoma City bombing incident.
Personal freedom should not cross the line.

Answer 6

I think they are both equally important. In today's society one cannot exist without the other. I think, unfortunatly, sometimes the governement likes to take away our personal freedoms in the name of safety, even though there is no evidence that this particular freedom could directly harm the public (marijuana use). I personally tend to fight for personal freedom for that reason. But i think both are equally important.

Answer 7

Personal Freedom. Wars have been fought, around the world, and particularly in this country, to preserve Personal Freedom. I have never heard of a real war being fought to preserve public safety. In the Novel 1984, the "leader" wanted people to think he was preserving their "public safety" but it all turned out to be a hoax.

As soon as you are willing to give up one of your freedoms, you might as well give them all up, because they will all be taken from you one by one. And, as a wiser person than I said, "it would be only what you deserve."

If you give up Personal Freedom, you give up the right to think for yourself and decide who you want to be your elected representatives in government. Is that what you want?

Answer 8

Public safety is a hands down winner. It's always better to protect the masses than to permit personal freedom. If not, people may not be around to enjoy the freedom they already have.

I would rather have my and your phone tapped and know that I am safe then to have no clue what's going on or if I and my kids are safe.

rather simple........

don't think about yourself, think about the person next to you....

Answer 9

Both, and both can co-exist. Public safety is nothing more than ensuring that EVERYONE is protected from excesses that cause injury...or that's what its supposed to mean. As with anything, it can be taken to ridiculous excess. Personal freedom, while in theory means to be able to do anything you want to do, has also been taken to ridiculous lengths.
With freedom comes moral responsibility.....

Answer 10

As long as your personal freedom( such as seat belts) doesn't affect anyone but you, no one should be able to force it on you as matter of public safety. If it affects only you it is personal preference not public safety.