Replies

"'freedom is the liberty to do what is RIGHT,' not to do what is 'wrong.'

There is no "freedom" in doing evil. No spiritual freedom, no corporeal freedom.

Freedom permits folks to make their own choices. Fundamentally the only valid limits regard the rights of others. Law is a real limit, but the fact that it is law means nothing other than the state will sanction contrary behavior, it does not neccessarily carry the weight of right.

Freedom allows for no arbitrary, subjective limits. When those are imposed, there is only authoritarian tyranny. Those that support the limits are no more free than those who don't support them.

To be brutally frank, your understanding of the issues is juvenile. But 30 years ago, so was mine. Best get to reading. Start with Schall's Another Sort of Learning (Ignatius) and run through Chesterton's Orthodoxy as a followup. We'll talk then. Oh yes: submit a 5,000 word (WORD format) book report on each volume with footnotes, single-spaced, 12-point Arial.

Freedom permits folks to make their own choices. Fundamentally the only valid limits regard the rights of others.

The Founders knew that freedom could not exist in a decadent society. They were as concerned about an internal moral collapse as they were about a foreign invader. Samuel Adams wrote: "A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader." Samuel Adams was not alone in such a belief. James Madison said: "To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea." Richard Henry Lee wrote: "A popular government cannot flourish without virtue in the people." One only has to turn on television or read the popular press to realize that the Founders’ worst fears are coming to pass (or just look at recent SCOTUS decisions and the twisted arguments of those who support them). The virtue quotient in our culture and in our political system is approaching zero.

--http://www.bushcountry.org/news/columnists/jdaloia/c_111802_jdaloia_freedom-decadent-society.htm

Massive strawman alert!

"Freedom permits folks to make their own choices."

True.

" Fundamentally the only valid limits regard the rights of others."

False, does not follow.
The libertines of the world have messed with your head, and let you on to think that all sorts of deviant and dangerous activity lives on the same moral plane as your need to survive, protect your property, and defend yourself and your family. The State has a legal right to regulate activity to maintain the civil order. The state can take away your freedom (eg the draft) solely to protect itself.

In a just Free Republic, there are limits of that power,
but it is certainly a mistake to make the simplistic statement you do.

" When those are imposed, there is only authoritarian tyranny."

way too black and white. limiting freedom via regulation of lewd sex acts is not *authoritarian* in a democratically-run community, like the Republic of Texas.
Sodomy is not a natural right, although some may like it to be so.'tyranny' is an imposition on our Natural Rights, but this does not fall into that category.