Mass Freedom

Ability to Do Anything

Debating the Freedom for People to Use Recreational Drugs

There is a raging debate, about the freedom for people to use recreational drugs. This debate is taking place against a background where more and more states are allowing people to use marijuana for recreational purposes. And so we have some commentators who argue that the freedom should be taken further, with people being allowed to use all other recreational drugs. The question is posed: if it is fine to allow people to use alcohol and recreational marijuana, why not allow them to use other recreational drugs?

Those who are against the freedom for people to use recreational drugs point out that such drugs have a tendency to mess people up. And indeed, there are people all over the world whose lives have been wholly messed up by abuse of recreational drugs. There are people whose health has been totally messed up by the abuse of recreational drugs. There are others whose finances are in a total mess, thanks to the abuse of recreational drugs. That is where you find an individual who can’t even qualify for the capital one getmyoffer deal, due to poor credit scores. When you dig deeper, in an effort to understand why they can’t even qualify for a credit card at getmyoffer.capitalone.com, you realize that the main reason is something to do with poor personal finance management. And on further enquiry, you come to realize that their inability to manage their finances is related to their abuse of recreational drugs…

Thus, in a nutshell, it is argued that recreational drugs have the potential to ruin a person completely – physically and mentally. And on that ground alone, the freedom for people to use recreational drugs legally shouldn’t be granted.

Those who are in favor of the recreational drugs, on the other hand, have sound arguments too. They argue, for instance, that having legalized the recreational drugs, it will be easier to regulate them. Furthermore, once the recreational drugs are legalized, it will become easier for the people whose lives get messed up by such drugs to seek help.

Both sides in this debate seem to have valid arguments. It remains to be seen which side will win, when all is said and done.

The Internet and the Freedom of Speech

The Internet has made it easier for people to enjoy their freedom of speech. No question about that. Thanks to the Internet, we now have more people enjoying their freedom of speech than was the case in the pre-Internet era. Here, it is important to pause and appreciate the nature of the freedom of speech. The freedom of speech is not just about being able to open your mouth and emit words. The freedom of speech is more about being able to address an audience, and being able to impart ideas to such an audience without fear. It is really all about trying to influence an audience. If you are just speaking to yourself, you can’t be said to be really enjoying your freedom of speech.

The specific ways in which the internet has made it easier for people to enjoy their freedom of speech include:

  1. By availing audiences: The internet has made it possible for people to connect to audiences that they wouldn’t have been able to connect with before. Today, with just a Twitter account, it is possible to have thousands of ‘followers’ in all the six continents, without really having to do much.
  2. By cutting costs: The Internet has made it possible for people to enjoy their freedom of speech without having to spend too much money. Today, you don’t have to organize a political rally (or some other sort of rally), to get an audience you can address. Things were different in the pre-internet era. For instance, in the pre-Internet era, the only way to connect with an audience remotely would have been by phone (say, by setting up a conference call). But the logistics of doing so were nightmarish, as were the costs. If you were to set up a conference call (and you were, say, a Metro PCS phone customer) you’d have to be ready to part with a tidy sum of money at the metro pay bill page. And then, even after having incurred the huge expense in the form of the metro pcs payment, you’d have ensure that all participants in the call were all available, besides their phones, at the point when you’d be making the conference call. Some would say that that is too much work and expense.
  3. By introducing anonymity: The internet has made it possible for people to enjoy their freedom of speech without fear. This has meant that people are able to say things that they wouldn’t have dared to say, in the pre-internet era.

The Freedom for Workers to Strike: What are the Limits to it?

Workers have the freedom to withdraw their labor, as a way to protest something they feel is not being done right. Take, for instance, a scenario where workers are being underpaid, and efforts to get the management to increase their wages have not borne fruit. It sometimes becomes necessary (and justified) for them to withdraw their labor, in protest. What we are making reference to here is not permanent withdrawal of labor – where all the workers in an organization resign en mass. On the contrary, what we are making reference to is a scenario where the workers temporarily withdraw their labor, to get their employers to understand their plight.

Strike action tends to be highly effective, in getting employers to listen to workers’ concerns. But there also are limits placed to this right. For if the workers have the freedom to strike every time they disagree with their employers, the economy is likely to stall. Furthermore, some workers are providers of essential services, and if they are allowed to strike, the result can be a huge mess in the society. If, for instance, all soldiers were to go on strike, the nation would remain undefended. If all police officers were to go on strike, you can imagine the mess we would end up with. Ditto the doctors and other medical staff. That is why some groups of workers are simply not allowed to strike.

And even for those who are allowed to strike, there are limits that are placed to the enjoyment of this freedom.

To ensure that strikes don’t become too disruptive, there is usually a clause that urges workers to explore all other options, before striking. Striking is supposed to be a last resort.

Of course, most employers are proactive, and won’t let their employees get to a point of going on strike.  This is why employers go to great lengths, to protect the welfare of their employees. For instance, it has now become standard practice nowadays for employers to have HR portals, (like the one accessible at krowd.darden.com) through which their employees can access all work-related resources they need. With the said Krowd self-service portal, folks who work at the Darden restaurants find that they don’t have to visit HR offices whenever they have issues. This is just one of the many ways in which employers get to show their workers that they care about their welfare. The ultimate objective, in doing so, is to avoid employee-related disruptions – including those that are caused by workers’ strikes.

What Exactly Amounts to Abuse of Constitutional Freedoms?

Whenever we have debates about constitutional freedoms, there is one concern that tends to come up. This is the concern that people may ‘abuse’ their constitutional freedoms. You simply can’t have a dialogue about constitutional freedoms without encountering this concern. But what exactly is ‘abuse’ of constitutional freedoms? What exactly amounts to abuse of constitutional freedoms? That is what we shall be trying to establish in this article, albeit in a brief manner.

As far as constitutional freedoms go, you are supposed to enjoy yours to the greatest extent possible — as long as you don’t infringe on the rights of other people. The moment you start infringing on the rights of other people (in the guise of enjoying your constitutional freedoms) you are said to have started ‘abusing’ those freedoms.

Thus, for instance, you may have the freedom to play music — whatever type of music you fancy — at your residence. But if you play it at a volume so high that your neighbors can’t sleep, we can say that you are abusing that freedom. You have to understand that your neighbors also have other commitments. One of your neighbors, for instance, may be someone who works for the US postal service, whose HR portal is accessible at liteblue.usps.gov. The fact the fellow works at the US postal service means that he has to go through the liteblue extranet login page, to sign in and access his work-related resources. But if you (as his neighbor) keep on playing music at very high volumes (meaning that he misses sleep), there is a chance that you may start interfering with performance at work, leading to poor appraisals. You’d then have really messed him up.

So the rule of the thumb is this: you need to ensure that, in the name of enjoying constitutional freedoms, you don’t interfere with the rights of other people. The moment you start interfering with the rights of other people, you cross the line. And from that point onwards, you are said to have started abusing your freedoms. Someone may then (at this point) go to court, to have you restrained from abusing your rights. Indeed you realize that majority of lawsuits are filed by people who feel that their rights are being infringed upon.

Limits to Constitutional Freedoms in Authoritarian Regimes

Authoritarian regimes tend to place severe limits on their citizens’ enjoyment of constitutional freedoms. In today’s article, we will be trying to explore some of the reasons as to why the authoritarian regimes do so. We will be going further, to highlight some of the specific freedoms that the authoritarian regimes place limits on. And finally, we will be trying to answer the question on what the citizens in such regimes can do, to get out of the predicament they find themselves in.

Why authoritarian regimes place limits on enjoyment of constitutional freedoms

Authoritarian regimes place limits on enjoyment of constitutional freedoms because they (the authoritarian regimes) tend to suffer from insecurities. Authoritarian regimes often lack popular mandates to rule. They therefore lack legitimacy. They are, as such, aware that if they allow people to fully enjoy the various constitutional freedoms (Including the freedom of speech and the freedom to protest) the people are likely to rise up against them. The people are likely to question their legitimacy. And the people are likely to make their hold on power untenable. So they opt to place limits on the enjoyment of the freedoms, to avoid such eventualities.

Specific freedoms whose enjoyment is constrained by authoritarian regimes

The constitutional freedoms that are likely to threaten the authoritarian regimes’ hold on power are the ones that tend to be most severely curtailed. Here, we are looking at things like the freedom of speech, the freedom of choose leaders, the freedom to associate and so on. But some regimes go as far as placing limits even on economic freedoms. The goal there is to ensure that the people are impoverished, and are therefore unable to question anything. That is why you shouldn’t take the job you do, however modest, for granted. Like if, for instance, you hold a job at a company like, say, PepsiCo – meaning that you are able to access your work-related resources at the PepsiCo HR site (www.mypepsico.com). In that case, every time that you are able to visit the My pepsico view login page, and access your paystubs, you need to grateful. There are other nations where the governments deliberately limit the citizens’ access to even such modest opportunities. To such regimes, their hold on to power is more important than their citizens’ welfare. Some actually go as far as putting in place measures to control their citizens’ movements!

How the citizens in authoritarian regimes can improve their lot

The only way that citizens in authoritarian regimes can improve their lots is through the use of cell structures. So the idea is for them to use the cell structures to covertly organize themselves politically (given the fact that open political mobilization is usually restricted, in these authoritarian regimes). They then can opt for mass action or civil disobedience campaigns. Or alternatively, they can opt for open uprisings – although the latter tend to be too costly in terms of loss of human life and property. Peaceful civil disobedience campaigns — akin to what we saw in the Arab spring — tend to work better, when it comes to getting rid of authoritarian regimes.