put yourself in the shoes of an otherworldly observer and draw a rational philosophical conclusion on whether an individual (not you or me in particular) warrants that or not.

That is my point - that you can only make that judgement as an autonomous entity yourself - by imposing one's own judgements based on one's unique experiences.

Even a community is a amalgam of individuals that have chosen to live among others that share the same values, or one where one person, or a select few get to realize their own autonomy and manipulate others to do their bidding (which is what we have right now in the current two-party political climate in the U.S.). In many nations - one person makes all the decisions and they simply have acquired enough power to make everyone else fall in line with their wishes.

True political autonomy comes by abolishing political parties, imposing term limits on all politicians and taking money out of the campaign process.

whoa, whoa, whoa... where did all that come from? We're not on CNN here.

True political autonomy comes by abolishing political parties, imposing term limits on all politicians and taking money out of the campaign process. — Harry Hindu

Freedom, as modern politics defines it, is a comforting illusion — a linguistic placebo to pacify the governed.

It gives the individual a sense of sovereignty while binding him invisibly within the collective’s moral geometry.

Alam, T. B. (2025). The Illusion of Liberty: When Individual Rights Become Communitarian Grants [Zenodo]. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17351527

One merely needs to make a simple observation to see that this is not true. The fact that we have prisons at maximum capacity in indicative of the fact that people do act in ways that contrast with the society they live in.

I define freedom as choices. The more choices you have the more freedom you have. The more information you have, the more choices you have. So freedom is obtained by having access to all information, which is what the government and those in power want to limit so they can control you. In this sense we have more freedom by controlling the flow of information, which means limiting the power of government and politicians, which means abolishing political parties (so that media can no longer be a mouth-piece for the political parties), imposing term limits and stopping the flow of money into political campaigns.

I define freedom as choices. — Harry Hindu

Legal freedom is not.

The fact that we have prisons at maximum capacity in indicative of the fact that people do act in ways that contrast with the society they live in. — Harry Hindu

That's because the laws are made by the state, uniformly, for individuals.

We're talking legal freedom here, not free will.

(But first we doctrinize it from the individual's shoes)

Legal freedom is not. — Copernicus

Legal freedom is secondary freedom. You have to be aware of options that might be counter to what the state expects of you, even if you might be jailed for it, to be able to make any decision other than what the state expects of you.

Legal freedom is usually intimately tied to the amount of free information in a society. Which is why you don't see alternative views in societies with strict, nationalistic laws.

That's because the laws are made by the state, uniformly, for individuals. — Copernicus

What is the state?

What is the state? — Harry Hindu

The collective.

Legal freedom is secondary freedom. — Harry Hindu

I want self-autonomy to be legalized.

The collective. — Copernicus

A collective of what? Does the "state" always represent the masses?

I want self-autonomy to be legalized. — Copernicus

It can be legalized but won't matter much if you choose to live in a bubble, or have limited access to information.

A collective of what? Does the "state" always represent the masses? — Harry Hindu

Yes. The collective sovereign land you reside in and its institutions.

It can be legalized but won't matter much if you choose to live in a bubble, or have limited access to information. — Harry Hindu

Why is that? I don't think you got my point.

The individual lives within his own consciousness.
His perception, will, and moral sense are confined to his mind.
If liberty means self-determination, then it should begin and end within the self — not in the social contract that others draft on his behalf.

But when the state dictates what one can do, it transforms autonomy into permission. The “Bill of Rights” then is not the liberation of man but the institutionalization of his boundaries.

Alam, T. B. (2025). The Illusion of Liberty: When Individual Rights Become Communitarian Grants [Zenodo]. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17351527

Every man is a sovereign entity with his own constitution, unbothered by anything outside his self.

Yes. The collective sovereign land you reside in and its institutions. — Copernicus

Let me help you. The collective consists of autonomous individuals, some of which have acquired enough resources and influence to get others to follow their own autonomous decisions. The point is that the collective always resolves down to the individual.

Why is that? I don't think you got my point. — Copernicus

You can be given all the legal freedoms the state has to offer, but if you have access to limited information to make informed decisions, how are you suppose to realize your true freedom if you are not aware of other options that might offer better outcomes?

Let me help you. The collective consists of autonomous individuals, some of which have acquired enough resources and influence to get others to follow their own autonomous decisions. The point is that the collective always resolves down to the individual. — Harry Hindu

You view individuals as units of the community. I see each individual as the only self that is real or matters to himself (solipsistic view).

freedom — Harry Hindu

I see freedom as ability, not allowance.

I have the freedom to kill you because I CAN. Not because I was ALLOWED to.

Freedom = Free Will.

You view individuals as units of the community. I see each individual as the only self that is real or matters to himself (solipsistic view). — Copernicus

This seems contradictory to what you're saying in the other thread.

This seems contradictory to what you're saying in the other thread. — Harry Hindu

Definitely not. Show me which point.

I see freedom as ability, not allowance. — Copernicus

Yet you described the state as the one that allows freedom.

This is the current state of the U.S. where the masses think they are free because we have laws that state that the government has limited power over us as individuals, but if they control access to information, and replace it with misinformation, are we really a free society?

Yet you described the state as the one that allows freedom. — Harry Hindu

Well, which country do you live in and who writes the laws there? I wanted human ability to be legal rights. The police can't arrest me for killing you because it's my right (i.e., ability).

But this raises the question: when is it a good reason to do otherwise? Generally speaking, if using one's liberty harms others, that's probably a good reason to restrict that freedom. — 83nt0n

You should be allowed to do whatever you want with your own person and property, as long as you don't physically harm the person or property of a nonconsenting other adult.

other adult. — Colo Millz

The others live in the universe I solely proclaim, hence he is subject to my jurisdiction and authority. And I am his, vice versa.

The problem is when we outsource our thinking and our speech to the community. — Harry Hindu

Well, it's a bit more than that. Your thinking and speech are already communal. It's a fact of your existence that you are a member of a community. All you get is some small say in how big that community is.

If these things were objectively wrong then no one would ever be rude or murder another. To be objective means that it is always the case as in the relationship between matter and energy in e=mc² — Harry Hindu

Why think that if these things are objectively wrong, then these things would never happen? If it is objectively wrong that the Earth is flat, does that necessarily mean that nobody will believe the Earth is flat?

You should be allowed to do whatever you want with your own person and property, as long as you don't physically harm the person or property of a nonconsenting other adult. — Colo Millz

Yes, I agree with this. Though I do think there should be some room for distributive justice, market externalities, etc.

Well, which country do you live in and who writes the laws there? I wanted human ability to be legal rights. The police can't arrest me for killing you because it's my right (i.e., ability). — Copernicus

This has nothing to do with what I am saying about access to accurate information and how it extends or limits our freedoms regardless of the current laws.

If you never had the information that provided you the option to kill someone, what need is there for laws and law enforcement? Information controls freedom. Your choices will be determined by the amount and type of information available, not by laws.

Why think that if these things are objectively wrong, then these things would never happen? If it is objectively wrong that the Earth is flat, does that necessarily mean that nobody will believe the Earth is flat? — 83nt0n

It depends on why they believe the Earth is flat. It would seem logical that one would believe the Earth is flat from a certain perspective of the Earth, even though they are wrong. We can predict what shape people will believe the Earth is based on their current experiences. What reasons would someone kill another human being, and would any of them be legitimate reasons, therefore acknowledging that it is not objectively true that killing is immoral?

Well, it's a bit more than that. Your thinking and speech are already communal. It's a fact of your existence that you are a member of a community. All you get is some small say in how big that community is. — Banno

It would only be communal in a society in which each individual gets the same voice. In any other society, an individual, or a small group of elites, control access to information and it is their thoughts and speech that you possess, or only the thoughts and speech they want you to possess, not the community as a whole.

In a society with multiple political parties, people choose to live in certain political bubbles. Their speech and thoughts are that of the political party and not the community as a whole, which is made up of alternative views. In some societies you can choose which community you are part of, and switch when it appears your community has moved to far to the left or right.

I value logic and reason. You might say that I developed in a community that values logic and reason. But I didn't. I grew up with religious parents. I abandoned those beliefs in my late teens and early twenties. And I credit my own experiences, not the community's (can we even say a community has experiences like an individual does?) of the hypocrisy and inconsistency of that community that lead me to start to question my community's ideas.

So I don't see how it can be totally communal. If what you say is true, we would be stuck in our communities without the ability to change, or choose, communities that align with our internal principles.

It would only be communal in a society in which each individual gets the same voice. — Harry Hindu

An inequitable community is still a community.

What we get to do is to choose our acts within the community in which we find ourselves. Ethics is working out what I should do in that community. Politics is working out what we should do in that community. Libertarianism is pretending not to be in a community.

Libertarianism is pretending not to be in a community. — Banno

Some of them do that. Others imagine they serve a community by means of their withdrawal.

Thatcher saying, "society does not exist" is different from the bunker theology of individuals saying, "All who would burden me are my enemy." The latter is a special flavor of solipsism living rent free in a world they never made, to quote Howard the Duck.

So I don't see how it can be totally communal. If what you say is true, we would be stuck in our communities without the ability to change, or choose, communities that align with our internal principles.

It’s rather nonsensical, isn’t it?

For me the figurative language used to describe these abstractions is always a tell. We’re “in” a community, inside of it, as if in a bubble. Or maybe there is a circle within which some of us are standing, and therefor we all must be affiliated. We’re “members”…of what exactly? A book club? A race? A nation? A city-state? Oh, we speak the same language, so some bloke on the other side of the world is in the same community as I? We’re “connected”, as if by chains. We “share” this or that—a language, some values, a history—as if I’m handing someone half my cookie.

What we’re witnessing is the struggle to articulate and perhaps deal with the brute fact of our separateness. But I fear that beneath it is the pernicious desire for conformity.

Closing this pending further investigation and potential deletion for being an AI-written OP.