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I hope we all have some definition of what freedom is. It is the act of guiding your own destiny, of making your own choices in life so that you may determine your own fate. It is the ability to follow your own goals. However, when two individuals strive for goals contrary to each other, there must be some sort of leeway as to how this conflict should be governed. This governing force, be it through the means of a compromise, an authority figures injunction, or simply a heated battle, all come out with the ends of solving the incompatibility suffered between the two ideas. When you look at society as a whole, what is the proper method of administering this governing force of resolution? What should decide who is in the right and who should be forced to change their goals?
By todays definition, we all should obey set laws for maintaining a style of living, so that we may all go about our lives with the highest degree of freedom that can be found for all. This is a rather well put way of saying that we can all do what we want without interfering with what other people want in the process, or at least to an extent that is allowable by our moral codes at the time. In reality, this method of a general rule for all to obey is simple, rather effective, and completes the job of protecting our individual values rather well. That is when you picture the highest level of freedom to be only in a general sense.

When we step away from the concept of freedom being a concept to be accepted by all, and look at it as an individual concept, the entire equation reverses itself. The guidelines we live by in order to proliferate our own goals in a vast culture, now become guidelines that prohibit us from expressing our true nature. That is, the nature of being able to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints. Without other people around, the confining factors simply set up limits upon the individual, and the "freedom for all" we experience in a public setting is no longer a valid statement.

Let me suggest the following hypothetical situations. Analyze them and decide how you would react to each event described.

-A man in Botswana is charged with stealing his neighbors chicken. (Just accept they have chickens in Botswana.) He is sentenced to perform community service and is serving his time when he escapes and flees out of the country. This all took place in a place so distant from you that you would never hear nor witness a consequence of the actions that took place. Is it wrong that he stole the chicken, or that he escaped? Should you have any say as to what his punishment is?
Under a general view of freedom, where are people are given equal chances to represent themselves, you do get to help decide his fate. (Due to consent by not revolting against equal justice practices.)

- An old man in California has a form of arthritis, for which he receives medicinal pain killers that dumb down the severity of the joint pain. The drugs are prescribed to him, and paid mostly by his Medicare plan, which allows him to get more then the amount he needs at a given time. To make a little cash on the side, he sells the extra pills he obtains to teenagers, who use it to receive the "other effects" associated with it. One teen overdoses and is sent into the emergency room to get her stomach pumped. They find the pills and eventually narrow an investigation down to the man who sold the pills. They throw him in jail for a short time for his dealings. Nothing of this story would ever be revealed to you. How does this story affect you? Did he really cause that much harm?

I hoe you get what I am attempting to portray in these two stories. If the happenings of individuals in some other area are deemed "bad" or "immoral" by anyone, or even by you, yet the members deeming it immoral take no part in the action or consequence of the proceeding, should they really have a say in the outcome?

The answer is no. Why should we care whether or not someone in a whole other area of the world is doing something wrong? We are not in a position to impose our own views upon them. Only when we play a role in the action should we actually take part in the solution. Now I understand that a society cannot function with out some sort of regulation, that public areas, where people work and exchange ideas with members of the whole community are places where such behavior should remain unacceptable. But in the privacy of our own homes, where it is no one but close family and friends actively taking part in the decision making process, they should be the sole deciding factors in their actions. We have no place to tell them not to do otherwise.

So the question arises, how do we know all members of the group in this situation are actively being represented? Well as long as one person disagrees with the actions taking place in the small group then they should be supported by the legal devises of the community. But as long as there are no conflicting factors in a small setting, why should we bother what they do in the privacy of their homes?

Well we have these laws etc becuase your daughter just might be the person who overdosed and went to the hospital. If she died, I would think you would not want that to happen to some one else and/or have justice taken against that man...

You should not be able to have a say about what happens to those people, but you should be allowed to say your opinion or even try it isnt freedom if you cant do free choices like that. Does it people besides those who deserve it to try to take action if its needed.

-If your walking down the street in African and you see a woman dragged off to be raped do you have a say to try and stop that? It happens. The man trys to stop the men from raping her but in turn he is stabbed and killed and the crime continues. The community even those many miles away know the sin of his action and the people of the community know the sin of this action so to stop this from ever happening again they hang him. That community teaches them whats wrong and whats right.

We should be able to try to stop things like that. Sometimes we should have no say, but people who have freedom should have the right to try to stop it. The USA's judicial system allows a jury of people to try to give there say in the crime to keep the morales of the average citizen to be played into the case.

Some may say the rape is alright and you have no say and should not have no say. Well if you want to try to say something or even try to change something you can try as long as your within the law to make things like that rightfully represented. The people who comitted this crime may not say it is moral, but many of the people who dont see the crime think it is immoral. If something gets immoral enough an outside force that deems them wrong should be able to take action. Remember that city in the bible were the whole city is so immoral god destroys it? The one were the woman looks back and turns to a pillar of salt? When something is bad as that an outside force should have the right to take action. Wrongs are done every day and its your duty to try to stop them.

But sometimes even the small group is right and the community is wrong. What should they do? In the USA you have the right to bear arms maybe you should rebel its against the law yes, but when the law is wrong you should be allowed to take action. The british were wrong and we rebelled against them. Or you could always live away from the people who deem you wrong. You shouldnt have to live a life of seclusion to stay away from wrong, but it is wrong to take anothers life so that in my eyes should be what you do.

I hope I tryed to answer the question you asked though it is not really clear in what you wrote. I hope the main question is whether you have a say and if I answered your other questions.

The man who witnesses the event in his own public area should take action, as the rape of the woman directly affects him. (She might be someone he knows personally.) In any case the community should take action as the woman surely did not agree to the rape.
But, for those of use in America. Should we have any say in how the town effectively deals with the rape? It is located in a place that we will probably never go, we will never meet this woman, or the people who raped her. Why then should we be the ones to judge them? Sure if it happened to someone we know we should take action, but if it does not involve us in any way, why does it concern us?

But who is the one who determines what is wrong? Should it be someone halfway across the globe, who determines what the right set of actions should be? If you were being held for a crime, would you want the end result to come from someone who was uninvolved and uninformed in what happened to cause the wrongdoing? Is every action alone in its representation in our moral system.

- There exists an old scrooge-like man in a small town, who is the owner of a factory that is large enough to be the focus of the town. (So if it closed the town would degrade into a ghost town.) He uses his power of being the boss to drive the workers wage to proportions that just barely support them. They are either forced to live in poverty, or must move to another town to get a job. One day, after repeated talks to address the issue with some form of union, a worker shoots the rich man. Much of the towns profits return to the people within the town, yet the man who shot the businessman goes to jail.

The man in this story could be seen as a hero for the community, yet to the rest of the country he is labeled as a murderer.

The ones who resolve the issue should be the ones who are involved in the issues. Not by the general public. What is applied as a general rule or law to many different regions may hurt those specific regions by not being specific enough for their needs.

Live by the rules of the bible. Those rules will help you live your life and to know what to do. As for the old man he committed a sin and the man did not deserve to die, but he did a wrong to his community. Try a strike or other options. I am shure there is other options that are peaceful that could have happened. The town may have no Ghandi to help them but they can always find a peaceful way. I met Ghandis Grandson and he is very inspirational by the way.

Even to an atheist the bible still has a moral code that applies to all and that he should look to.

Ahh, the bible. Why say for ourselves what is right and wrong when we can simply turn to something that others have previously decided upon? I do not mean to disrespect it, as it is a tool that has helped many, but when it is used in a setting as a formulation of moral standards, it should be used only as a source, and not as a thesis. I did not create this topic to discuss morals though, and it seems as if I have not clearly enough stated my topic.
What I wished to convey in this topic is a structure of governing or creating rules that would allow for more appropriate governance to those to whom it applied to.
It is a structure based upon a few simple rules.

A government should be based exclusively by the ideals held by those within it's governing body.
This body can be of any size, from a single person, to all the people in the world.
This governing body is not permanent, and must accommodate for any change in the number of people whom it governs along with their ideals.

This means that in any group which an event takes place, the regulation of that event should be held among only those to whom the event applies. It should not expand to others who are not pertained in the event, nor should it exclude those who are involved in the event.
Remember this group is in any size, and that when something happens in a public setting, the members to whom the event pertains to become the persons who would use or be associated with the public area.
Likewise when an event is localized within a private group in a private area, where it violates none of the group members ideals, then it should be only those group members, and not any outsider, who make the decisions for the events regulation.

I hope this makes some sense.

There's 2 kinds of freedom

There's legal freedom. (Wether it be by government or society)
Then there's your actual ability to do things.

Well sense your Critiquing "freedom" with freedom you should be able to try to change events to your liking, BUT I'm saying try. It's your freedom of speech to be able to intervene. If someone chops down the rain forest in the amazon arent you allowed to SAY that, that should not be happenening. You should be able to SAY and TRY within the limits of the government.

The American beliefs of the freedom is the acts that prohibit from taking away another's freedom, thus forming a "freedom communism" party. The government isn't going to listen to a single person's idea that no one cares about. The government listens when thousands of people agree, or in local cases; tens or hundreds. The country isn't the person's, it's the people's.

Whose interpretation of the rules of the bible? Why should I not think for myself? Because the bible knows better? Who are you to define my moral code? I determine my moral code for myself.

Too often are people's judgements of "moral" and "immoral" used to manipulate.

Actually, as I was telling someone else on another forum at some point, out of the Ten Commandments, only 6, 8, 9 and 10 actually represent morality, and a number of other things the Bible says are sins are also not innately wrong.


You two pretty much hit the nail on the head there.

Your own interpertation should be enough. The basic rules and teaching would help you if not the minor ones that dont apply today because of the day and age, but the bible is the word of god I'm shure he knows better than you. Some verses are vey hard to interpret sometimes, but as long as you listen to what you think even if its wrong it would still help you.

It's the word of god to YOU. Not necessarily to anyone else.

Well, you must understand that I go in sort of the other direction. I determine what's moral and what isn't first, and then see how closely the Bible matches that. Which means, even if the Bible didn't match at all, I wouldn't really care, all it would mean is that the Bible would be more wrong than it actually is. And of course, with a book as large and varied as the Bible, it's difficult to get everything wrong (although I've heard of some pretty impressive attempts).

Even in the word of god's interpretation, many different thoughts are made from each person. Religion isn't a solid idea.