Hacker News Reader

Comment by pclmulqdq | Hacker News Reader

In the political philosophy of the US, the unit whose freedoms matter is the individual, not the community. Freedoms for individuals necessarily come from reducing the freedom of "the community."

View on HN

yes, and i think that’s a pretty recent reading of the US comprehension of freedom. my sense is that the collective individualistic tendencies have ballooned.

even as recently as the early 90s, my civics classes emphasized the importance of other people’s rights and that of the expression of your individual rights infringed on the rights of others then it was an irresponsible and improper use of individual rights.

it seems like this has devolved into people whose perspective on individual rights loosely aligns enough to coalesce and shout the loudest to create policy. until someone in the in-group’s individual freedom is impacted and the group fractures into smaller coalitions. rinse. lather. repeat.

I disagree with you that this is a recent idea. It goes back to Locke, Hobbes, and the social contract theorists. The "collective freedoms" idea is more recent, if anything, coming from the subsequent generation of philosophers.

i can agree with the theory behind what you’re saying, but also sense that the practical application of individual freedoms has become increasingly prevalent and acute

In some ways, though, this is a reaction to the move in the other direction. The US in the 1800's was very much in favor of individual freedoms, but by the 1920's-1960's things swung heavily towards the idea of "positive freedom" and "community freedom."

Why are the remaining individuals in the community forced to include your individual in their decisions?

(I'm not being serious, I'm pointing out that you may not have found your first principle just yet)

AKA as the spoiled brat kind of freedom.

But, taking the individual freedom argument to its ultimate implications, the Free individual is also Free to not drink tap water in a community that decided to add fluoride to their water supply, and is also Free to move to a community that decided against it.

It's not a "freedom" to be forced to move away from a community just because you want pure water. Moral philosophy: A democracy should not act as the tyranny of the majority, and governments (local or otherwise) should not overreach their mandate with monopolistic policies that negatively affect individual freedoms.

Use the same argument on air and it falls apart. "The Free individual is also Free to not breathe air in a community that decided to add lead to their air supply." This was a big debate in the 70's btw due to car emissions.

>A democracy should not act as the tyranny of the majority, and governments (local or otherwise) should not overreach their mandate with monopolistic policies that negatively affect individual freedoms.

Then it shouldn't ban fluoridation when it could instead simply not mandate it.

the point was good until you tried to compare it to lead in the air. there are a few factors that make it impossible to use the same argument between lead in the air and fluoride in the water

In reality though, the freedom of the companies, which is just the freedom of the super rich ~100 - 1000 people (proxied via companies without taking direct responsibility: The sacred duty of company is to maximize shareholder returns!)

10,000 food additives that are banned in Europe are perfectly fine in US.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-food-additives-banned-europe...

https://isitclean.org/the-ingredients-banned-in-the-eu-but-l...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com