by James Henry

Created on: February 27, 2009

When I saw the question being asked here, first I had to laugh, and then I had to wonder who in their right mind would say that the concept of freedom actually is overrated. I was shocked and dismayed to see the number of people who actually do think this concept is overrated.

Freedom is woven into the fabric of life. In a Biblical sense, God gave all humans (and even angels) the freedom to maintain themselves as they see fit. To the extent that people often make poor choices, there are always consequences for our decisions, but the fact remains we could not be held accountable for anything we did if we did not have the freedom to make the choice in the first place.

If you are not religiously inclined, look at the Social Contract Theory, upon which most modern governments are based. This theory contends that in the state of Nature, people enjoy the ultimate freedom to do as they choose, but also have no security, because if everyone can do whatever they want, eventually they are bound to step on each other's toes. After a while, the theory holds, people decided that this freedom they had was useless without security, and so they voluntarily gave up some of their cherished freedom, but in exchange they have the right to expect security, which allows them to enjoy the freedom they have kept for themselves.

This gave rise to a new standard, and that is that people have freedom only insofar as their actions do not detract from the freedom of another person. In that regard, there must be clearly defined standards to determine which freedoms are guaranteed, and those must be applied universally, rigidly, and in my opinion, strictly. That is where the concept of inalienable rights came from.

Without these inalienable rights, human beings would be constantly at risk of legislating ourselves into oblivion, in terms of our freedom, since legislatures are not likely to say that we've got enough laws and just go away. So we have codified these rights, placed them in a hallowed document called the Constitution, and told those lawmakers, essentially, "hands off!"

So is the concept of freedom overrated? I seriously do not think so. If it were not for these basic freedoms, I would not even have the right to express my opinion on this subject without fear of reprisal from those who do not value freedom as much as I, and a great many other citizens of the Planet Earth, do.

http://www.democracyisnotaspectatorsport.com

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