Is Freedom a Right, or a Responsibility?

Question

A friend posted a link to Unicef's "Photo's of the year" - this years winner is a wedding photo - of an 11 year old girl to a 40 year old man in Afghanistan. Here's my question - if we live in a society where individuals have the freedom to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' do we have any obligation to the other citizens of the world?
http://www.unicef.de/foto/2007/english/index.htm

(Thanks for the link, James)

Answer 1

We have the responsibity to look at ourselves first. We cannot make the determination for other people and other nations until we have truly established those rights for ourselves.

The "rights" are good on paper, but not always in practice.... Just ask those who are struggling for equal recognition because of religious views or gender orientation.....

Answer 2

Freedom is indeed a right; as far as responsibility, we need to be vigilant that our freedom considers the community first, the personal second. There is no freedom when one's freedom infringes upon another, as is the case in the story referenced above. No one's freedom is greater than another's and should not be forced upon another.

In such a situation as related above, one would hope that the very community where this has taken place would be outraged at the abuse and take action. Bringing attention to the case will hopefully have an effect and force some action. It is a sad reality, though, when considering "freedom", that involvement by others(and by "others" I mean the American forces in the area) in this situation would most likely be considered by the local populace an example of outsiders forcing their ideals upon a purely domestic situation. Remember, this is a country where the Taliban, with its deeply misogynistic values, still has great influence, and popular support.

It is a difficult situation, and if the question were asked of me, I would say damn local customs and charge in and rescue the poor kid. Sometimes freedom requires the courage to be bold, to take risk when required.

Freedom is a right.

Freedom is a responsibility.

Freedom is sometimes a difficult choice, with a price to pay.

Answer 3

Freedom can be both a right and a responsibility. But it is not the right of a country to force another country to do anything out of some trumped up "responsibility" it thinks it has to the world. That could open up all kinds of horrible things such as Hitler's attempt to wipe out the Jews for purification purposes (now that was sick and demonic). I think that people like the ones in the example you gave should be shown how harmful it is to a child and to a society when things of that nature take place. On the other hand, in situations such as child slavery and prostitution in places like Taiwan and India, the children cannot wait until a moral society helps them. In that case, there should be an aggressive intervention on the behalf of those children.

Answer 4

Freedom is a responsibility. Freedom does not and has never come free. Every human being on this earth has the right to freedom. Unfortunatly, most of the people don't. Unless America has the funds and the will to take on almost every other nation on this planet it will remain so and even if it did it isn't our place. It may not be our responsibiliy to fight for the rest of the worlds freedom or even our right, but I will continue to pray for all of those who weren't fortunate enough to be born in the US. There comes a time when every person must stand up and be willing to fight and die for their own freedom. Now when that happens, like in Myanmar and the so called civilized nations sit back and watch the torture and deaths of innocent people who simply want freedom, that's when I get truly angry. If they are willing to die for freedom we should be willing to help. It shouldn't matter if they have somrthing we want, they cry out for something that we take for granted every day. Like asking and anwering questions on this website and more often than not they die for it.

Answer 5

We have an ethical responsibility for other citizens - however it is not pragmatic to involve ourselves in their affairs. Freedom has to be created within a society, it cannot come from outside. Unless the people create it themselves they cannot truly appreciate it. There are ways that we can help them, but blowing up their country is not one of them. We can demand that our corporations and government do not support dictatorships. We did this successfully with companies such as Nike in South Africa (they were complicit with South African apartheid in the 80s). But this has to be across the board. We cannot support Saudi Arabia and China while coming down on Cuba. That is hypocritical.

The best policy IMO is to lead by example. If the US took care of it's own people first and minded it's own business and behaved as a goodwill ambassador to the world (like Switzerland) then we can truly have an impact. Justice starts at home and that's what Freedom truly is.

Answer 6

Freedom is both the right AND responsibility of the individual. The problem is other countries will never see it and tell us we live a lie. They will say we have no rights and that WE are the barbarian heathens. We cannot make others live like we do, and for now we must look to our own shores to protect our freedoms from many in our country who are trying to take them away but getting us to vote it away. No, to say it simply, we pray for those like that child, but make our country better before looking to help others.

Answer 7

i concept it replaced into Victor Frankl who stated it. i've got self belief maximum folk think of they want the liberty, yet they actually do no longer want the accountability. accountability involves thinking with regard to the implications of one's movements, an extremely distasteful concept. So the reality is, with freedom comes outcomes. "accountability" has in basic terms grow to be yet another word for blame. that's what we now have, outcomes: international warming, height oil, terrorism, a turning out to be divide between wealthy and poor, etc. If human beings, agencies, government leaders have been somewhat interested in accountability, the implications may be plenty much less dire. while disaster time comes, human beings will gladly resign freedom, in basic terms to ward off that different terrifying criminal accountability. I want the issues myself. If something desires doing, I remind myself to take that extra step, no longer making use of the excuse of others' state of being inactive. It does not constantly paintings yet while i do no longer attempt, how will human beings get the belief?

Answer 8

Freedom is a right and a responsibility. No doubt.


My question is: Are we free to use it?

Thanks for the link. Great photos.

Answer 9

The United States is not the world's policeman. We've been its bank for far too long. At some point, we need to start dealing with our own interests and problems. And freedom is a burden that is not to be born lightly.

Answer 10

Where is her 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'?

We can't change the cultures of countries like Afghanistan. We have cultures like that in the US. Haven't you heard of Irish Travelers?