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Which is most important to you? Freedom, Equality, or Order?

Which is most important to you?

  • Freedom

    Votes: 71 60.7%

  • Social Order

    Votes: 13 11.1%

  • Equality

    Votes: 18 15.4%

  • Carrots

    Votes: 15 12.8%
  • Total voters
    117
  • Poll closed .
#22
No one ever got famous for saying "Give me social order or give me death".
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Authoritarian governments haven't used that exact verbiage, but it's been done, and at the cost of millions of lives.

My point is that liberty based rhetoric is harder to twist into mass-murder and virtual slavery. Individuals don't dig the collective, and it's the collective that's needed by despots to carry out their plans.
 
#23
bassrique said:
Authoritarian governments haven't used that exact verbiage, but it's been done, and at the cost of millions of lives.

My point is that liberty based rhetoric is harder to twist into mass-murder and virtual slavery. Individuals don't dig the collective, and it's the collective that's needed by despots to carry out their plans.
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Without getting overtly political, I would say that liberty-based rhetoric is very easily twisted into propaganda for "despots" to abuse.
 
#24
me said:
My point is that liberty based rhetoric is harder to twist into mass-murder and virtual slavery. Individuals don't dig the collective, and it's the collective that's needed by despots to carry out their plans.
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I should have typed "rhetoric and ideals".

Deluge Of Sound said:
Without getting overtly political, I would say that liberty-based rhetoric is very easily twisted into propaganda for "despots" to abuse.
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Let's look at the numbers. Communism for instance murdered over 100 million [Mao/Stalin anyone?] and enslaved a multiple of that last century. Nazism comes in second. Nothing compares.
 
#26
IconBasser said:
I started AP government this semester, and the 1st chapter dealt mainly with the concepts of

Social Order (The apex being akin to a police state, w/ zero crime)

Equality (The apex being communism)

Freedom (The apex being Anarchism)

and how these three are balanced within governments.


So which is most important to you, both individually and globally?



Freedom takes my vote, I think that freedom is the single most important essence of Humanity: That we all have the power of choice to carry out our lives in the ways that we as individuals deem appropriate. The deprivation of the cogency of free will is (IMO) the most monstrous crime any society can commit.
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Most important concept in all of PoliSci - Liberty is a commodity. It's redistributed through the individuals in a society via whatever social contract (pecking order) is established.

Obviously those three examples are extremes that are impossible to sustain/achieve.

Ideally I'd say freedom because I feel as a young man that I'm being burdened by the equality and social order our society currently places on us. I have to work to feed the old and weak. I have to submit to others I believe would be below me outside the social construct to avoid punishment. Unfortunately, this freedom is obviously unsustainable. New social groups will spring up as quickly as mating partners and families are secured and will grow from there. Humans are political animals and true individualism is impossible to create.

On a realistic level I'd place equality as the best choice. Of the choices, "Freedom" is individualism without a social contract. It's the least stable of the three. Social order will redistribute all liberty to the fewest people -- the elite. Equality will redistribute all liberties equally among the entire populous. It makes is the least accurate means of distribution but it does the least harm to the most people. The supermen of society will be burdened the heaviest while the vegetables of society will benefit the most, but for the vast majority it's the least worst.
 
#32
Deluge Of Sound said:
It's also note-worthy to point out that having Anarchism as the apex of freedom and Communism/Socialism as the apex of equality is mishandling the subject matter.


Saying that is like trying to recreate the Mona Lisa by finger painting.
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perhaps apex was the wrong word.

what I meant was that if you concentrated on that one aspect and disregarded the others, that you would arrive at that certain situation.
 
#34
Unrepresented said:
Most important concept in all of PoliSci - Liberty is a commodity. It's redistributed through the individuals in a society via whatever social contract (pecking order) is established.

Obviously those three examples are extremes that are impossible to sustain/achieve.

Ideally I'd say freedom because I feel as a young man that I'm being burdened by the equality and social order our society currently places on us. I have to work to feed the old and weak. I have to submit to others I believe would be below me outside the social construct to avoid punishment. Unfortunately, this freedom is obviously unsustainable. New social groups will spring up as quickly as mating partners and families are secured and will grow from there. Humans are political animals and true individualism is impossible to create.

On a realistic level I'd place equality as the best choice. Of the choices, "Freedom" is individualism without a social contract. It's the least stable of the three. Social order will redistribute all liberty to the fewest people -- the elite. Equality will redistribute all liberties equally among the entire populous. It makes is the least accurate means of distribution but it does the least harm to the most people. The supermen of society will be burdened the heaviest while the vegetables of society will benefit the most, but for the vast majority it's the least worst.
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it makes sense, but on that realistic level, equality and perfect redistribution has NEVER even come close to being achieved.
 
#37
spencer said:
"Not everyone in a society abides by a set of personal values or the group's norms all the time. For this reason it is necessary for a society to have authority."

and i don't vote for social order because social order means obeying authority wether there right or wrong because in who's eyes are they wrong? your so your essentially loosing freedom

just because you need all three doesn't mean you there arent different levels of each. There never completely balanced and I would take freedom over social order.
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Aside from what I think is a narrow view of social order, I think you're approaching this wrong. It's not really a factor of complete balance. How would one measure this anyway?

The question was which one do we think is most important? All three are necessary, regradless of the ratios, I'm sure we can agree on that point? My contention is that anyone putting one before the others isn't thinking through the situation. I guess this is why they throw it at you in school.

Let's look at another example. Maybe this one is easier for everyone. Hopefully the parallel is obvious and the conclusions can be drawn without the virtual connect the dot game. Food, water and air. Which is the most important to you?

Mike
 
#38
I voted freedom, though I believe equality is the greatest of all. However to me you can't have equality, at least the kind where everyone is entitled to the same rights, fair pay, and protection by law against the law, without freedom. I do not think social order can create good, it does the opposite. You have to let people be people.

Social order is also tricky, to me the most effective governments are the ones who can balance between keeping morality in tact. Such as when ones actions impose on someone's right of existence or such. To where people still are allowed to think and act as they please without harming others and own what they want.

Now this is where it gets tricky, how do you put freedom before equality or vice versa without giving up one or the other. Even today we're still trying to find the fine line between being fair, and still being to do what we want. While I think they're necessary, things like employers having to hire a balance between different ethnic backgrounds, and sexes is so much limiting on their own thoughts. They can see be sexist, racist, bigot, what have you. But they losing a bit of control over their own environment. I'm not saying being racist or sexist and making decisions based on that is justified, but that's just the fine line we see everyday.

For example, I am part Vietnamese, and I have traveled the country extensively. I will say I do not support the government there but you do have to realize. It has done good for the country. It has put education into the hands of the peasant class, it has put rice on table, and has provided land for people. The country really isn't even communist in any way by economic means, except certain restrictions. But what they did right was allow people to buy and own land. And you think about it, when you come to a country where the education of rural countryside isn't beyond a third grade education and famine and foreign invasions were rampant, certain priorities change. Free elections, open market was not the freedom that would inspire people there.

I know I'm a bad writer sorry :p, didn't really answer much beyond how fine of line it is.

edit: Forgot to add, that it is hard to really tell what is the right balance. Vietnam is still poor and a lot of the North is rural, but the country is improving. Will there be a day when the ruling government is overthrown and a democracy is in place who knows. Then you have Cuba, where the literacy rate is higher then the US, death toll, and infant death toll are lower(granted they have a smaller population). Really it's hard to tell what is effective, and what works, you do need all three, just certain types of each and amounts I guess will make the right cake. Though how do we measure it?
 
#39
Kyon` said:
I do not think social order can create good, it does the opposite. You have to let people be people.
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Part of Order is the drafting and enforcement of laws. I think the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (among others) and the enforcement of that Act kinda provides an example to contrary. In fact, a decent argument could be made that the drafting and enforcement of that act brought about greater equality and, by extension, freedoms to people.

Mike
 
#40
IconBasser said:
it makes sense, but on that realistic level, equality and perfect redistribution has NEVER even come close to being achieved.
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No doubt. But it's come closer than a maintained state of anarchy. Humans build societies that redistribute.
IconBasser said:
which is why Libertarianism is more popular than anarchism.
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Libertarianism is trading one large public one entity for
many oppressive smaller private ones. The public one at least has public scrutiny. Corporations don't have any ethical obligations or voter demands, just profit.

Given the choice I'd rather have a gov't that's required to maintain my satisfaction regardless of whether I'm a stockholder.
 

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