It takes some herculean logic twisting to claim that someone who is not shackled is less free than someone who is.
If you are locked away and your speach censored, then rising above your animal instincts does you, at best, only personal good. If you are not locked away, then rising above your animal instincts could let you do good to some larger fraction of the world.
Re:Thoughtcrime
by anExcitedBeast on Monday May 18, 2015 @12:44PM
(#9565395)
You are talking about two distinct concepts. The Constitutional Convention was concerned about individual liberty and protection from overbearing government, not personal enlightenment.
You're conflating private spirituality and philosophy with civic matters like law; inner with outer. The latter is powerless to affect the former. The chair thrower and the erudite intellectual must be subject to the same law. Otherwise the law becomes arbitrary.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
-- John Adams
You realize this isn't authoritative, right?
In other words, it's perfectly natural and convenient to behave like the "free" and "extreme" tattooed apes pandered to in modern television commercials, whereas it takes relative effort be polite and follow the golden rule.
Ask yourself who is more "free", the chair-throwers on Jerry Springer, or, Scott's Rob Roy who was shackled for refusing to lie about a stranger.
America, given its near constant prating about freedom, is itself in dire need of a dialectic on its essence.