Talk:Political freedom

message: Why does the wikipedia disambiguation page for freedom define freedom as being able to do whatnone wants but then takes you to a polital freedom page?  They are quite unrelated as doing what one wants 'as in freedom' has nothing to do with politics other than the powers that be seem to have made everyone modern day prisoners. Perhaps a 'freedom' article should be created or restored...
Zhulien
08:07, 4 Jul 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Freedom (disambiguation)

message: It seems to me that this paragraph at the top of the section on Forms of Freedom...
missing content
Another common distinction made between kinds of freedom is the difference between "freedom from" social and political ills (which, some argue, is really more accurately described as safety or security), and "freedom to" do what one wants (for which some consider the term "liberty" more precise).
... have either inverted the common conceptual meaning of "freedom from" and "freedom to", or is just unclear. When I think of "freedom from" (liberty) I think of a lack of restraint allowing one to pursue what one wishes, while "freedom to" means having one's way regardless of circumstances.  It's the difference between no one physically stopping you from trying to obtain a Ferarri vs. transcending or overturning all-natural limitations on obtaining one.  I think the original paragraph could be rewritten for clarity because as it stands it seems to say the reverse.  What does anyone else think? Ubernetizen 21:42, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: On the basis as articulated above, I have added a description to the introduction that articulates the differences between positive liberty and negative liberty.  This follows Berlin (1958) articulation and supports both sides of the liberty argument. Edunoramus (talk) 01:09, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Freedom from vs. Freedom to

message: The article says: "In most Western democratic societies, key freedoms legally protected by the government include:" 
With the only list of freedoms directly under this sentence and no notion of liberties in the rest of the world, it is implied that the right of freedom is something typicly western, and that things are different in the rest of the world. This is politicly highly incorrect, and should certainly be changed.
:Although "politically highly incorrect" appears to be a value judgement – and thus intrinsically non-neutral – I believe  
:you have a point here. As a matter of pure fact, things relating to freedom may or may not be thought of and acted 
:upon differently at different points in time and space. This seems to suggest that one should attempt a description 
:of the topic via a historical approach, starting from known beginnings. This should help to keep things in perspective, 
:showing actual differences and changes without falling into ideological traps.
:As far as I know, the notion of political freedom became important for the first time among the Hellenes around the 
:time of the Persian wars (at the very beginning of the fifth century b.C.). It was then a development of the very simple 
:and practical idea of personal freedom, which was just the state (worth even fighting for) of those who were not the  
:slaves of some other person. I believe that all the subsequent relevant facts can be described as the long and varied  
:history of this basic Hellenic notion: how it periodically desappeared and was then rediscovered, changed and applied 
:to political institutions in various parts of the world.
:The lack of such perspective – and the consequent paucity of references – is what makes me very unhappy about the
:article.  Although I am no specialist in the field, I might consider an attempt to start writing a new one along the lines 
:hinted above. Comments welcome. Mario 17:32, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Freedom and the West

message: This article looks OK to me. My only concern is that it is listed under liberalism. There are other broad political trends that uphold freedom of one or another sort. Shorne 20:27, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why liberalism? 

message: I do not see any problem to list this article under other ideologies too, but one cannot deny that freedom is an essential element of liberal philosophy. --Gangulf 20:45, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: So are lots of other things that are not listed. The problem is that the list gives the impression that liberalism holds a special claim to freedom that other ideologies do not. Shorne 20:58, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, the fascists, for example, have always laid special claim to it. . . that and 'employment'.  To be fair to them, we should link it to that ideology.  IIRC, the Communists did too. . .  That being the case, to be NPOV, we should just link it all around to every ideology so that everyone can be 'free' to share the joy (and dispute the neutrality of the article). . . Sigma-6 19:01, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

text: This is a great point. While finding a clear definition for liberalism is fairly easy, a simple and neutral definition of freedom is quite difficult. Anyone have any ideas? I believe adding this may help to differentiate between the two ideologies, and keep the article neutral (which it is failing at).  -- ALeigh602 (talk) 19:51, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Liberalism 

message: I have tried to make this a bit more neutral. I removed those external links on democracy as they make the implicit assumption that democracy = freedom, obviously not a neutral point of view. They belong on the democracy article. I changed "freedom from discrimination" to "freedom from government sanctioned discrimination"; the latter everyone can agree on while the former is very contentious, and many would agree it tramples the right of association. I removed the Lincoln external link because it was very controversial; at least some would agree that a president who suspended habeus corpus, closed hundreds of newspapers, warred on half the country and attempted to arrest the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is probably not a good example of political freedom. Also removed "right-wing" libertarianism because it's not NPOV; libertarians don't think of themselves that way or advertise themselves that way. Paul Bonneau 23:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Agreed... 

message: Wikipedia is Big Brother, you sit there editing the past to conform to what is commonly assumed to be correct, you've started the end of human civilisation and freedom! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.31.9.88 (talk • contribs) 07:12, 22 April 2006  (UTC)
:LOL. Exactly. Wikipedia is Big Brother. No kinda doubt! Dude Aronomy 18:09, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Brave new world predicted

message: To my mind, the sentence about human rights and freedom does not sound quite right (even though that may be on account of my immersion in a German-language
environment). 
Most elemtents of the  expression "freedom", e.g. freedom of speach, freedom of thought and freedom of action (the latter with the restrictions named by John Stuart Mill) are indeed unremovable cornerstones of "human rights." 
The expression "human rights", includes, however, also some rights which have nothing do with freedom, e.g. the right to sufficient food, good healtcare, education etc. pp-- even though some of them may be indispensable, if a person 
wants to enjoy his freedom (as Rawls points out). 
The clash exists thus, as far as I understand it, not between freedom and human rights (as conservative politicians would have it), but between
human rights and freedom on the one hand and economic, political and social
lawlessness (e.g. by non- or pseudo-democratic organisations like the WTO or mulinational corporations who stand above any country's law) und enslavement on the other side. 
Maybe this should be included in the article.
User:Josef Eichhorn
:I can't help but notice the rights that are noted that have nothing to do with freedom are not the rights given by nature. Healthcare, sufficient food, and education are responsibilities according to nature. It is the responsible person who obtains these things while nature provides the ability to think, speak, and pursue these things that are merely called rights. Nature does not spoon-feed us, I would not have it any other way. 72.54.93.138 (talk) 21:51, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Human Rights and Freedom

message: I added template  to this page.  When using the navigation boxes on Conservatism, Liberalism, Libertarianism, etc., they all have this page as one of the links.  I found it inapprpriate to add the navigation box from every ideology that linked here, so I just put the main ideology box on here.  Feel free to discuss.--207.230.48.22 01:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Navigation infobox 

message: Freedom of thought is not synonmous with freedom of conscience. For instance I have freedom of thought as my thoughts are private and belong to me. I don't, however, have freedom of conscience. If I followed my conscience I would be fined or imprisoned as I don't agree with many of the laws of my country. Therefore I removed the word 'conscience'. Doctors without suspenders 22:10, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: thought and conscience

message: Perhaps we need to discuss this, I argue that the global Wikipedia is not the forum to discuss the local, USA,  gun political issue of a right to keep and bear arms (RTKBA).   Arms are for many uses sufficiently covered in other types of freedom.  Also, editor 70.57.84.156 appears to not make a distinction between freedom in Civil Law and freedom in Common Law or Religious Law   BruceHallman 16:36, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  RTKBA 

message: Nikodemos, can you provide some sources for claim that socialism and communism in general support political freedom? -- Vision Thing -- 22:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly. "A socialist society that has been established from a capitalist society will strengthen 'negative freedoms', while ushering in real 'positive freedoms' across the board, ensuring equal and free access to social services by all."  -- Nikodemos 22:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you proposing that we should guide ourselves by principle of self-identification in deciding what belongs in certain category? -- Vision Thing -- 18:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No. I do see the problem with such a principle. However, by the same token, we cannot include links and categories related to libertarianism just because libertarians self-identify as supporters of political freedom. If a non-Marxist source is required for the assertion that Marxism supports political freedom, then a non-libertarian source should be required for the assertion that libertarianism supports political freedom. -- Nikodemos 21:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Anarchism, Classical liberalism, Liberalism and Libertarianism to me seem like obvious proponents of political freedom. Are you disputing such qualification? -- Vision Thing -- 21:30, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One of my great obsessions is the application of universal standards, Vision Thing. I suppose you could say that I believe one's editing should follow the categorical imperative. So, yes, I dispute the qualification of those ideologies as advocates of political freedom because you said that self-identification is not enough and because I want to apply your principle universally and consistently. You will find that I will often accept any kind of principle as long as it is employed universally. -- Nikodemos 21:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't think "Anarchism" is a TYPE of freedom, is it? It doesn't feel like the other elements of the list. Just sayin'.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.191.157.184 (talk) 23:56, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Categories

message: I removed the propogandist image, the image representative of freedom should be be to do with USA, it makes the article look like propoganda and its offensive to just about the entire rest of the world. - Animagentile (talk) 10:57, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: POV image

message: If anyone's interested, I've proposed a new wikiproject for the creation of articles regarding specific prisons here. --Cdogsimmons (talk) 01:29, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikiproject Prisons 

message: Is there anything about this article which should exist separately from Liberty? Cretog8 (talk) 22:50, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  merge w/ Liberty? 

message: Whoever added the quote by Joseph Garcia and described him as just not the politician, or anyone else who knows which of the many Joseph Garcias the man mentioned here is, please link or post some kind of information for those who are interested in finding out more about the man. I have googled Joseph Garcia and have failed to find out more about the person, except that there are many people with the same name. Skybluepaisley (talk) 06:32, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Information on Joseph Garcia in Want 

message: I dont understand what 'human agency' means and why its only a feature of positive liberty. Maybe a reference or an explanation here would help. Does it mean positive liberty seeks to provide options to everyone equally? Mrdthree (talk) 07:06, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Human Agency

message: Isn't there a Freedom Index published by Freedom House? Why isn't that included in this article? --Airborne84 (talk) 10:27, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Freedom index 

message: An image used in this article, , has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests April 2012 
;What should I do?
Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so.
* If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use)
* If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used.
To take part in any discussion, or to review a more detailed deletion rationale please visit the relevant 
This is Bot placed notification, another user has nominated/tagged the image --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 17:23, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: File:Freedom 2011.pdf Nominated for Deletion

message: Friedman has a very interesting definition of freedom and places political and economic freedom as the two main forms. He explains the idea that one cannot happen without the other. In his book Capitalism and Freedom he cites Capitalism as a necessary, though imperfect, way to garner economic freedom and, therefore, political freedom.
Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.
--Smetcheverry (talk) 17:54, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Milton Friedman

message: I really enjoyed this page and found that the current sections are well written and complete. I like that the section, Views, covered all views and provided strong information. I would have liked to maybe see a section about influential people/thinkers of political freedom or section on specific movements, but it's not absolutely necessary because some of this was included in the history section. Overall, this page is strong and beneficial! Keep up the great work! Hoopesha (talk) 02:53, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer Review (POL150C2) 

message: The article is very well written and comprehensive. There was good use of in text citations and interesting information provided with evidence from articles that were incorporated. The structure is a little off and I think that the History section should be before the Views so that it will flow better providing the reader with contextual background for Political Freedom. I also felt that there could be more information and evidence provided for the History section as there must be more history on this term and more room for expansion. Overall, great article edits/improvements, it really corresponds with the course!Nlucassi (talk) 02:06, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer Review 

message: I came to this article to help me understand what "political freedom" meant to help me understand a recent newspaper article that blithely stated, "advanced democratic countries that elected left-leaning governments would experience a simultaneous crushing of political freedom". I wondered what did that actually mean. So I turned to my faithful Wikipedia for some enlightenment. 
The Lead showed promise but was so academically over-written it was not enlightening. It also violated the guidelines for writing a lead. What was in the lead was not actually explained in the article.
So seeking knowledge in the Wikipedia article only led to confusion. This article is "Views" and "History". Neither of which does justice to the topic of Political Freedom.
The first sentence of the "Views" section is "Various groups along the political spectrum hold different views about what they believe constitutes political freedom." What follows is a mishmash of "views". Some about "freedom" some about "liberty" and some about "whatever" seemed to might be applicable.  Starting logically from the "left-wing" and preceding randomly to confusion. I had expected to see a presentation of a "spectrum of views", but instead received a lazy rendition of philosophical thought. 
And the "History" section is just an afterthought. There's no true history of "political freedom" here, it is just an entry to create some section content to give the article some more words and Wikipedian verisimilitude.
This article is almost 20 years old and over the years there has been quite a bit of effort to improve it. Looking over the article's evolution, it has only been a patch here and a deletion there and so on and son. The initial article in 2001 was just one sentence, "Freedom is... (an insanely ambiguous term)". A good insight, and after 20 years, it appears to still be an insanely ambiguous term. 
Perhaps the topic is too difficult for the average editor to understand and improve. 
I poor pitty the unsuspecting reader comes along seeking truth and gets the result of a 20-year-old experimentation in random-walk Wikipedia editing.
Note to the "Peer Review" editors in the Talk Page sections above who think that this is a "good" article-- you are wrong, it is not a good article.
This article is not good at all and needs a major rewrite.  Short of a rewrite, perhaps it would be best to recommend that this article be deleted so as to not edify future  
pitiful poor readers with nonsense over the next 20 years. 
Osomite hablemos 21:12, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article is not good. It does not discuss Political Freedom in the manner it claims it would