The Four Freedoms

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'd be pretty scared of a government that tried to give me "freedom from fear".

I would also be afraid of a government that tried to give freedom from want.

If you can't fail there's little reason to try.

If you cannot fail, there is every reason to try. It is the impossibility of success that discourages effort.

No. It's avoiding failure that drives most people.

Citation needed.

I think he is correct, though may not understand the relevance of the statement. To rephrase what he claims, success is based on mitigating risk. A teen in a poor family may be more likely not to go to college due to the risk of the economic outlay, verses going immediately into the workforce. Another parallel would be a rich man can easily risk $100k in an individual stock, where as a member of the workforce feels like they are going all in with $10,000.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I'd be pretty scared of a government that tried to give me "freedom from fear".

I would also be afraid of a government that tried to give freedom from want.

If you can't fail there's little reason to try.

If you cannot fail, there is every reason to try. It is the impossibility of success that discourages effort.

No. It's avoiding failure that drives most people.

Citation needed.

I think he is correct, though may not understand the relevance of the statement. To rephrase what he claims, success is based on mitigating risk. A teen in a poor family may be more likely not to go to college due to the risk of the economic outlay, verses going immediately into the workforce. Another parallel would be a rich man can easily risk $100k in an individual stock, where as a member of the workforce feels like they are going all in with $10,000.

This

It's avoiding failure that drives most people

Does not equal this

success is based on mitigating risk

Poor people don't find going to college economically risky, they find is economically impossible. Poor people don't risk $100,000 in the stock market because THEY DONT HAVE $100,000.

The idea that there is one reason even one person is driven is wrong and the idea that there is one reason MOST people are driven is madness.

 

[ksen]

I'd be pretty scared of a government that tried to give me "freedom from fear".

I would also be afraid of a government that tried to give freedom from want.

If you can't fail there's little reason to try.

If you cannot fail, there is every reason to try. It is the impossibility of success that discourages effort.

No. It's avoiding failure that drives most people.

I don't know if bilby is joking, but I'm not-- please, can you post a citation for this claim?

I can assure you, I am not joking. Loren has a history of making bald assertions like this, as though they were universally accepted truths, and then failing to provide one iota of evidence to support them.

What's funny is that where experiments in a basic income have been tried mass laziness has not ensued. The people that stopped working were mostly mothers of young children and students remaining in school to finish their education. New businesses were started, existing businesses were more productive with a basic income program to remove part of the fear of want/failure from people.

IOW, the mass moocherism people on the right always talk about with programs like this never appears when the program is actually tried out.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Poor people don't find going to college economically risky, they find is economically impossible. Poor people don't risk $100,000 in the stock market because THEY DONT HAVE $100,000.

There is always community college, which while still "expensive" is a problem because it is an economic risk, even when excluding the cost of college. They are gambling potential full-time work wages now verses completing school, but maybe not being able to eat or help the family eat in that time frame. College is a long-term investment, both time and money (the reason I didn't get my Masters). But if you do not have the capital available to support oneself or your family, it is an unacceptable loss of income.

The idea that there is one reason even one person is driven is wrong and the idea that there is one reason MOST people are driven is madness.

I'd say more like naive or short-sighted or ignorant.

 

[ksen]

Even community college is out of reach for a lot folks in poverty because, you know, they still have to eat.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What's funny is that where experiments in a basic income have been tried mass laziness has not ensued. The people that stopped working were mostly mothers of young children and students remaining in school to finish their education. New businesses were started, existing businesses were more productive with a basic income program to remove part of the fear of want/failure from people.

IOW, the mass moocherism people on the right always talk about with programs like this never appears when the program is actually tried out.

The closest we have to this is places like Saudi Arabia--and we most certainly do see mass laziness.

 

[ksen]

What's funny is that where experiments in a basic income have been tried mass laziness has not ensued. The people that stopped working were mostly mothers of young children and students remaining in school to finish their education. New businesses were started, existing businesses were more productive with a basic income program to remove part of the fear of want/failure from people.

IOW, the mass moocherism people on the right always talk about with programs like this never appears when the program is actually tried out.

The closest we have to this is places like Saudi Arabia--and we most certainly do see mass laziness.

Huh, no link . . .

Meanwhile:

Basic income experiment in Canada
Basic income experiment in Namibia
Basic income experiment in India

Results? Better quality of life and no signs rampant mooching.

I eagerly await your response with contrary evidence . . . if you have any.

 

[doubtingt]

The first two are relatively uncontroversial. For anyone to possess them, the only thing that needs to be done is nothing at all. To prevent me from exercising my right of free speech or practicing the religion of my choice it is necessary for someone to intervene to prevent me. So these things are easily achievable.

The bolded part is the key, because so long as their are 2 or more people on the planet, there will be someone trying to intervene to prevent you from both of these freedoms. Threats to speech and worship (like most threats to liberty) come mostly from your neighbors and not from the government. This makes the underlined part false, because freedom always requires protection from these constant threats by others. That is a central role of legit government, to serve as the protector of these personal freedoms against the inherent threats to them from other persons, including majorities. Thus, even these are in fact controversial, because within democratic systems, those who want to oppress others usually try to hide these realities under anti-government rhetoric, casting the government as the oppressor of these liberties in order to try and disempower the government so it cannot protect people from the true oppressors within a community.
This is why many "libertarian" positions are actually anti-liberty and anti-government efforts to eliminate the less powerful people's ability to use the collective efforts of government to protect their liberties.

The second two, however, create problems. We must first dismiss them as abstract notions. It seems clear the FDR has more specific meanings involved. Who can ever have freedom from want? As Madonna put it, in her song "More." "When you've got it all, the one thing you'll lack is MORE!" But there is another sense in which the term "want" means a life-threatening deprivation, and I think that it is clear that FDR is using the term in this more limited sense.

The problem here is that for a government to secure such a freedom for one person, it much actively take resources from another.

Government must do that with speech and worship too. It must restrict people's actions that infringe upon other people's rights and freedoms.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Government must do that with speech and worship too. It must restrict people's actions that infringe upon other people's rights and freedoms.

How must the government restrict one person's freedom of speech in order to ensure it is not restricting the freedom of speech of another person?

For freedom of worship, I suppose you might be able to make a case regarding someone whose religion mandates rape or murder, but unless that is what you mean then you have me seriously confused.

 

[fromderinside]

No. It's avoiding failure that drives most people.

Citation needed.

Is freedom from fear one of the four freedoms? Eyup.  Freedom from fear

Is fear the most powerful motivator? Eyup. How Fear is etched into our brains. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-main-ingredient/200909/the-most-powerful-motivator
From Psychology Today

Is avoiding failure a primary to way fear is handled in humans? Effects of Achievement Motivation on Behavior http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/rabideau.html

Achievement motives include the need for achievement and the fear of failure. These are the more predominant motives that direct our behavior toward positive and negative outcomes

Just to make the point that need for achievement isn't responsible for positive outcomes one only need to consider such drive can actually lead to overreaching and failure whilst fear of failure can lead to developing very systematic methods of behavior associated with success.

This is one of the times when Loren Pechtel seems to be right.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Again

It's avoiding failure that drives most people

Does not equal

Achievement motives include the need for achievement and the fear of failure

Now what Loren might have meant, I can not say. But I can read what he wrote and I have over ten years of experience in reading what Loren writes.

I believe he wrote what he meant and had he meant something more or different, he would have written more or different.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What's funny is that where experiments in a basic income have been tried mass laziness has not ensued. The people that stopped working were mostly mothers of young children and students remaining in school to finish their education. New businesses were started, existing businesses were more productive with a basic income program to remove part of the fear of want/failure from people.

IOW, the mass moocherism people on the right always talk about with programs like this never appears when the program is actually tried out.

The closest we have to this is places like Saudi Arabia--and we most certainly do see mass laziness.

Huh, no link . . .

Meanwhile:

Basic income experiment in Canada

Temporary and it only raised your income to the poverty line--that's not exactly freedom from want.

Basic income experiment in Namibia

Again, the amount was small enough that it helped them but it wasn't enough to do anything like removing want.

Basic income experiment in India

Once again, small amounts.



I think things like this might very well be beneficial--the key point being that the amount supplied helps but isn't enough to live on.

 

[ksen]

Hand waving

 

[doubtingt]

Government must do that with speech and worship too. It must restrict people's actions that infringe upon other people's rights and freedoms.

How must the government restrict one person's freedom of speech in order to ensure it is not restricting the freedom of speech of another person?

I didn't say that. I said government must restrict people's actions that infringe upon other people's freedom of speech. (e.g., beating up people for saying things you don't like). But in fact, the government must also restrict speech to protect speech, such as verbal threats of violence against another speaker.

For freedom of worship, I suppose you might be able to make a case regarding someone whose religion mandates rape or murder, but unless that is what you mean then you have me seriously confused.

Yes, actually there are (and should be more) government restrictions of freedom of worship that infringe upon other people's rights. IOW, there should be no religious exemptions to any law designed to protect the rights and liberties of individuals. But I was initially referring to government restrictions upon people engaging in acts (even those mandated by their religion) that threaten the liberties of others to worship or not worship as they please. Without such government enforcement and restrictions there would be no freedom of speech or worship, because other members of the community would use force and threats of force to control speech and worship, as they did for most of human history prior to constitutional governments that gave victims of neighborly oppression recourse to protect their individual rights.

The very notion of individual liberty and rights only makes sense with the existence of a government that can enforce those boundaries between persons that is inherent to those concepts. Otherwise you can have nothing but a society in which the only actions or words one can engage in are those that other people choose to allow you to or that you can violently force upon others, in which case their are no actual liberties.

It is no surprise that you are confused, because your posts make clear that you are among the pseudo-libertarians who are actually just anti-government, and you ignore the clear and objective fact that 99.99% of infringements on personal liberty come from other members of the community and not the government which actually allows for individual liberties by providing a collective mechanism by which personal boundaries can be enforced.

 

[fromderinside]

Again

It's avoiding failure that drives most people.

Does not equal

Achievement motives include the need for achievement and the fear of failure

One of the two of us need to be wrong here AthenaAwakened. I take fear of failure as motivation as it was presented in Loren Pechtel's quote. If you disagree with the 'most' aspect of his statement that is something that is open for discussion for which I am not interested in pursuing which you may have understood when I left out your appeal to authority justification.

 

[fromderinside]

I think things like this might very well be beneficial--the key point being that the amount supplied helps but isn't enough to live on.

Right. It isn't enough to live on. It's just enough for those who get it to have the energy if they desire to do the rest of the climbing themselves which is, what I believe, to be the intent of the notion of freedom from want.

 

[fromderinside]

Hand waving

The 'help' gave me enough energy to wave back. How's that?

 

[PyramidHead]

Why is there such a high value placed on having to work all the time? It's like, don't give people too much freedom from want and fear, otherwise they won't have the incentive to spend most of their lives on the clock. Wouldn't that be a good thing? Isn't leisure time better than constantly struggling to maintain the ability to continue struggling?

 

[fromderinside]

Whoa Pyramidhead. Who said anything about having to work all the time. I certainly didn't. I accept thinking, pursuing art, adventure, surfing, taking a well needed nap, and the like as things one could do if one has the energy which support (I mean the from form rather that ( I mean the than that)) form government and charity provides. I do expect an individual to take charge of whatever life he/she 'wants to', rather than 'is forced to', pursue.

 

[ksen]

Hand waving

The 'help' gave me enough energy to wave back. How's that?

That's great! :wave: