Individual Liberty and Social Control essays

Individual Liberty and Social Control essays Individual Liberty and Social Control The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. Daniel Webster said in a speech given in Charleston, South Carolina, May 10, 1847, Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint; the more restraint on others to keep off from us, the more liberty we have. However, Ralph Waldo Emerson made an entry into one of his journals in 1851 which read, The word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Daniel Webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtesan. It would seem that Mr. Webster and Mr. Emerson dont see eye to eye on the topic of liberty. One sees liberty as something to be controlled, the other sees it as something to be left alone. In John Stuart Mills essay, On Liberty, he approaches things from a classical liberalist standpoint, while his conservative opponents take the paternalist view. Like Webster and Emerson, two sides of the same coin, but very different in philosophy nonetheless. The town of Skokie, Illinois has a large Jewish population, including many survivors of the holocaust brought about by the Nazi party occupying Germany and much of Europe during the second World War. The American Nazi Party petitioned the city council of Skokie for permission to march through their streets. As far as the population of Skokie was concerned the American Nazi Party had no business there, and their presence had the potential to be met with violence at the hands of its residents. The ACLU felt differently, they defended the American Nazi Partys right to march, citing past examples of marches such as Pro-Castro Cubans marching in Miami. Should the American Nazi Party have the right to march through Skokie? This question makes debate over how far our first amendment goes, and how far a society with that amendment should be allowed to go to ...