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Giuliani on freedom and authority

Giuliani's scary love of authority "We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

The above does not exactly match up with my notion of "freedom". Checking the Wikipedia page on Freedom comes up with a list of types:

The concept of political freedom is closely allied with the concepts of civil liberties and human rights. Most democratic societies are professedly characterized by various freedoms which are afforded the legal protection of the state. Some of these freedoms may include (in alphabetical order):

  • Freedom of assembly
  • Freedom of association
  • Freedom to bear arms
  • Freedom of education
  • Freedom of movement (or travel)
  • Freedom of the press
  • Freedom of religion (or belief)
  • Freedom of speech
  • Freedom of thought
  • Intellectual freedom
  • Sexual freedom

Perhaps Giuliani could start a new topic on "Freedom to submit to authority". Then again, asking a politician about philosophy may be about as useful as asking an actor about politics.