{"id":38382,"date":"2019-05-10T01:00:13","date_gmt":"2019-05-10T05:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=38382"},"modified":"2019-04-10T08:03:54","modified_gmt":"2019-04-10T12:03:54","slug":"qotd-defining-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2019\/05\/10\/qotd-defining-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Defining freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Freedom is not a synonym for the right to vote in fair and open elections. Fair and open elections with a wide franchise might \u2013 might \u2013 be a useful instrument for promoting freedom. But contrary to much shallow thinking, the right to participate in such elections is not itself &#8220;freedom&#8221;. Freedom is the right to choose and act as you please, with this right bound only by the equal right of every other peaceful individual to do the same. (Or <a href=\"http:\/\/cafehayek.com\/2011\/06\/quotation-of-the-day-12.html\" target=\"_blank\">to quote Thomas Sowell<\/a>, &#8220;Freedom \u2026 is the right of ordinary people to find elbow room for themselves and a refuge from the rampaging presumptions of their &#8216;betters&#8217;.&#8221; I would add that freedom requires also elbow room from the rampaging presumptions \u2013 and from the enviousness, ignorance, myopia, and even the good intentions \u2013 of one&#8217;s peers and, indeed, from those of everyone.)<\/p>\n<p>In practice it is sometimes difficult to identify the detailed locations of the boundaries that best ensure equal freedom for everyone. This reality, however, neither renders the goal of equal freedom of choice and action for everyone less desirable nor makes this definition of freedom less serviceable.<\/p>\n<p>Don Boudreaux, <a href=\"http:\/\/cafehayek.com\/2017\/04\/quotation-of-the-day-2052.html\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Quotation of the Day\u2026&#8221;, <em>Caf\u00e9 Hayek<\/em><\/a>, 2017-04-23.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Freedom is not a synonym for the right to vote in fair and open elections. Fair and open elections with a wide franchise might \u2013 might \u2013 be a useful instrument for promoting freedom. But contrary to much shallow thinking, the right to participate in such elections is not itself &#8220;freedom&#8221;. Freedom is the right [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,41],"tags":[766,550,217],"class_list":["post-38382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","category-quotations","tag-democracy","tag-libertarianism","tag-rights"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-9Z4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38382"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47785,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38382\/revisions\/47785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}